Letters: Immigration efforts doing more harm than good

"It should be obvious by now that the Trump administration's effort to remove large numbers of people who entered the country illegally is not only built on lies, but is doing far more harm than good. There is clear public support for Trump's effort to secure the border, but immigration reform has three parts, not one. It must include fixing the asylum system and creating more paths to legal status."

"The mainstream media is doing a great disservice to public safety in their reporting of the death of the Minneapolis driver. Every loss of life is indeed a tragedy, and this is no exception. The driver, however, is not without some culpability, but you wouldn't know it by news accounts. The Associated Press reports that the officer pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range while the vehicle moves toward him."

"A good start would be to copy what we did in the 1960s with the Cuban Adjustment Act. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans entered the country illegally but were awarded legal status with as little as one year of being here. No Republican that I know of thinks that was wrong or seeks to reverse it. Decades later (until 2017), we followed the wet foot/dry foot policy that did essentially the same thing. Why not now? Thomas ScottMorgan Hill"

The Trump administration's large-scale efforts to remove people who entered illegally are described as founded on falsehoods and causing significant harm. Public support exists for securing the border, but comprehensive immigration reform must include border security, asylum system fixes, and expanded legal-status pathways. Historical measures such as the Cuban Adjustment Act and the wet foot/dry foot policy provided expedited legal status to many Cubans and are offered as models. Coverage of a Minneapolis shooting is criticized for omitting the driver's actions while reports indicate an officer fired at least two close-range shots as the vehicle moved toward him.

Read at www.mercurynews.com