It has been widely reported that as migrants cross the border, they are often sold a bill of goods in order to get them to load onto buses to sanctuary cities, only to find out they were lied to.
On the evening news this week, a reporter was talking to one of the migrants who is disillusioned. He said he was better off in his home country and expressed the desire to go back home. I would hazard to guess he is not the only one.
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With sanctuary cities being inundated with migrants, it seems there is one solution that has not been discussed. While processing the migrants, why not start by giving them the honest truth about what the situation is?
These cities may find more migrants feel the way this interviewee did. Partner with an airline. If it can be negotiated at cost, it would likely be less costly than providing long-term housing, while the airlines would not lose money in the process.
Reducing the number of migrants who stay could also free up resources for those who choose to stay. The choice to return would be strictly up to the individual. In the end, it could be a win-win: reduction of costs for taxpayers and reducing overcrowding in cities and neighborhoods that so often have their own issues, increasing the chance for a successful transition for migrants who want to stay.
John Farrell, DeKalb
U.S. must rein in Israel
America’s full-throated support of Israel in the Gaza war may have the perverse result of retarding, rather than advancing, a permanent peace in the Middle East. After Hamas’ disgraceful attack in southern Israel killed approximately 1,200 people, we supported Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
But when Israel’s bombing killed more than 14,000 civilians, including more than 5,000 children, our remonstrance was much more restrained.
Indeed, the Republicans in the U.S. House and the White House, have proposed more than $4.3 billion in additional aid to Israel. If the government has proposed any aid to Gaza, or to Palestinians suffering in the West Bank, we have yet to hear about it.
It is time, and indeed far past time, for America to demand that if Israel wants peace in the Middle East, it must change its policies toward Palestinians. It must give Palestinians their human rights and must end the settler inflicted violence against them.
It must at long last recognize that Palestinians are human, too. They, too, are entitled to peace and protection against Israeli discrimination and settler violence. If Israel wants to continue its present actions, which increasingly appear as ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, it should do so hereafter on its own money, not ours. We have only limited control over Israel, but we aren’t even exercising that.
Frank L. Schneider, Lake View
