Readers Write: Omar Fateh, immigration, the war in Gaza

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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After Zohran Mamdani won the primary in New York City, the Chicago Tribune warned New York City residents not to elect Mamdani as mayor, comparing Mamdani to Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, whose approval rating “cratered in his second year” when he could not deliver on “progressive” campaign promises. Anyone doing minimal research can see that over the past 50 years, wealth in the U.S. has become increasingly concentrated in the top 1%. Read Jane Mayer’s book “Dark Money” and see how the wealthiest in this country do not want to pay for … anything. “Progressive” policies, things like affordable housing, are now labeled “radical” because those who take most of the wealth the country generates do not want to reinvest in the system that creates wealth for them. MAGA Republicans who long for the days when things were more affordable overlook that what made things more affordable were much higher taxes paid by corporations and wealthy citizens.

Will “progressives” like Fateh, Mamdani and Johnson succeed in making their cities more affordable for more people? Not until the wealthiest among us return to paying a reasonable amount toward the system that creates their wealth.

Kevin Carpenter, St. Cloud

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I was at the DFL convention. It wasn’t chaos — it was democracy in action. Delegates voted, the tech worked and the room made clear choices. Now Jacob Frey is challenging the results using rhetoric that sounds less like a Democrat and more like Mike Lindell. He miscalculated the delegate count — just like his office miscalculated the count of our unhoused neighbors, when he claimed there were only 27 unhoused people in the city. This is a man who has shown time and again he cannot do basic math.

Ethan Buhrow, Minneapolis

Immigrants are the problem! They’re eating the cats and dogs! Amusing maybe.

Illegal immigration is a societal problem – true, and, too many Americans do not understand what is involved in the legal citizenship process.

Let’s take my own example: On a student F1 visa, I could study here and work 20 hours a week on campus. I paid about three times what a resident paid in fees. Paperwork is required annually to renew the F1. I was able to find a company to “sponsor” me for an employment visa, the H1B, and the Green Card (Permanent Residence). I learnt that I was severely underpaid when a kind manager did a mid-year review and righted the wrong. I could not take a promotion because the company lawyer said it would negate my Green Card application process. I could not move jobs.

It took eight years. We all like making money, don’t we? The economic impact for me was stagnant income compared to peers who grew their careers a few levels during that time. It was still a proud day when I became a citizen.

If there is one thing I’d encourage: speak to a real immigrant. Ask them about their homeland, and what they love about being here. You might find you have a lot in common!

Khursheed Parakh, Plymouth

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Current immigrant deportation policy is not representative of what decent American hearts desire. This is not who we are. Every person, citizen and non-citizen, yearns to find a decent life with rest, healing and purpose. Protecting our borders is a legitimate objective, but deportation of immigrants who have demonstrated peaceable, constructive presence is a wholly different consideration. We are all simply people seeking decent lives. We are on this earth together for a limited time. As the end of our time draws nearer it is common to hear us say that what matters most to us is the welfare of our close family. While we are here, we work to provide the best life we can achieve. We may pray or we may not pray. We commonly do what we can to make our communities nicer places to live. And we do these things whether we consider ourselves to be faith-based or simply humanitarian. We do these things whether we are U.S. born or foreign born. We do these things because our best instincts tell us this is how we can best live together. We must expect that our congressional representatives will come to know that decency and morality matter, and that they will act to make laws that reflect our hearts and who we are.

Thomas Wexler, Edina

Harry Chalmiers, St. Paul

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I strongly disagree with Israel’s policy of not negotiating for a ceasefire with Hamas until the organization is completely out of power in the Gaza Strip (“UK, Canada and 26 other countries say the war in Gaza ‘must end now,’” July 22). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with the rest of his government, seems to have forgotten that there are still 50 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in their tunnel network below Gaza, none of whom are living in even remotely livable conditions. In fact, 27 are already believed to be dead. Israel will most likely have many future opportunities to circle back and weaken or eliminate Hamas (which would be good not only for Israel but also for Gaza), but has a very limited window of time to negotiate for a ceasefire and the release of all the hostages.

By continuing to go after Hamas in its current fashion, Netanyahu’s government is not only making Israel look like the biggest villain since Hitler and Nazi Germany (since Hamas hides in densely populated areas and uses civilians as human shields — for every terrorist Israel kills, it has to kill dozens more civilians — but it’s also giving Hamas the perfect excuse to say “Israel, you’ve gone too far. Now we won’t release any more hostages.”

If Netanyahu really wants to save his most vulnerable citizens and curb the spike in both anti Israel sentiment and antisemitism, he must start negotiating before it’s too late.