Immigration stagnation makes federal action necessary

To The Reader’s Forum:

Unless your ancestry is American Indian you are an immigrant and/or descended from an immigrant to the US.

That is the reality as our Nation continues to debate the immigration issue.

On the maternal side my ancestors left Ireland for the US in the 1860’s due to discrimination & famine. Paternally, my grandfather was greeted by Lady Liberty in 1917.

He was fleeing a war-torn Europe in the midst of World War I.

Almost from the beginning of our Nation, immigration & immigrants have not been embraced. In fact, in the 1850s the Know Nothing Party (officially the American Party)

championed strict nativist and anti-Catholic policies, demanding a 21-year naturalization period for citizenship, the exclusion of foreign-born individuals from voting or holding public office.

The litany of those immigrants who were discriminated spans the history of our Nation including – Catholics, Jews, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese… & currently Hispanics.

Unfortunately, the issue of comprehensive immigration reform has not been addressed on a Federal level for decades. Like needed Social Security reform – immigration reform has been treated by Congress as a “kick the can down the road” issue.

There is a legal process, but it moves at glacial speed. Currently there are over 3.2 million cases pending in the US Immigration Court System. The estimated wait time averages about 1.7 years. That wait time increases to almost 6 years for those seeking defensive asylum cases.

To meet this massive backlog thousands of new judges need to be hired. However, the government has capped the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) judge limit at 800, far below the number required to completely eliminate wait time.

A solution is not to incarcerate but to adjudicate. The original stated federal goal was to target “the worst of the worse.” Felons, rapists, murderers… a strategy that received overwhelming public support. Unfortunately, that mission has degenerated. About 73% of individuals recently booked into ICE custody have no criminal convictions, with nearly half

possessing neither a conviction nor pending. Incarceration of those individuals adds to the backlog of cases, damages hard working families, & does little to solve the issue. Congress

needs to address immigration reform & create a pathway to citizenship as an issue that needs immediate attention vs the stagnation status that now surrounds it.

David Switala,

Lakewood

Who does unitary executive theory best describe?

To The Reader’s Forum:

Who originated this “unitary executive theory”? This is the theory that the president should have unfettered power to set policy, hire and fire all government employees at will, and conduct warfare without any input from the U S Congress.

This is the very definition of a kingdom. If I remember my high school history correctly, we fought and won a war to end our allegiance to a king. The U. S. Constitution created Congress before it created the president. That is because the president and the executive branch exist ONLY to execute the will of Congress. The Congress does not exist to follow the will of the president.

This was the intent of the founding fathers. The Congress sets the laws and the executive (executes them) carries them out. The Congress is a deliberative body that requires a number of representatives to form a consensus.

When a single executive has so much power he is likely to lose control of his greedy impulses and line his pockets at the expense of the citizens.

Does this sound like anyone we know?

Daniel Olson

Jamestown