Immigrants bolster American workforce
Re: the May 1 article “Border crisis distorts view of Arizona” and “COVID hiring woes: Restaurants struggle to fill vacant positions.”
Did anti-immigrant politicians connect the dots between stories in the May 2 Arizona Daily Star?
On Page A1, the Star reported that Mexican adults (not unaccompanied children as in national headlines) make up most of those crossing the border into the Tucson Sector without documentation.
On Page D1, the Star told of Tucson restaurants struggling to hire enough workers. The story cited a “tight labor market.”
Thus, we have a solution: Adults coming into the United States, presumably like their forebears to work, and employers with openings they cannot fill.
People are also reading…
If only politicians who think immigration is bad for the country could reach that conclusion.
By the way, the U.S. Census Bureau last week reported the slowest population growth in 80 years, meaning fewer workers.
Finally, note that Canada just expanded immigration numbers until 2023 because of labor shortages.
U.S. politicians, can you figure it out?
Shraddha Hilda Oropeza
West side
Biden contradicts himself on race
President Biden has repeatedly said that America is systemically racist. Yet in a recent interview he said Americans are not racist. This is a total contradiction.
If America is systemically racist, it would mean Americans have created and implemented the system.
Biden said that after 400 years, African Americans are still behind the “8 ball.” Does he know the many strides that Blacks have made in our society over the last 60 years due to affirmative action in the workplace, affirmative action at colleges and universities, etc.? Does he even know how the African American unemployment rate was at a decades-low number under Trump pre-COVID?
Biden’s sponsoring and later passage of the 1994 crime bill was racist in that it incarcerated a disproportionate number of black men. As a Senator, Biden opposed school busing with his segregationist pals KKK member Robert Byrd and Strom Thurman. Biden’s repeated saying that America is systemically racist is a Freudian psychological “transference” of guilt for his own racist past.
Alan Ruiz
West side
Not every story has two sides
Re: the May 6 article “Bill takes aim at differing views.”
Republicans in the Arizona Legislature want to punish teachers who fail to present “both sides of controversial science or events.’’
I see a problem, since controversial issues generally generate more than two sides. But I digress.
Let’s start with the Holocaust. What are the two sides? The historical record and thousands of survivors’ first-person testimony on one side; Hitler’s ghost on the other? Must a teacher assign her ninth graders “Mein Kampf,” or would a show-and-tell by an American Nazi Party representative do?
Moving on to evolution: Scientists have found 3.7 billion-year-old fossilized microbes. But didn’t Jesus ride a dinosaur onto the Ark 6,000 years ago? So many possibilities.
But who better to get to the bottom of controversial issues than Arizona’s Republicans? After all, they believe that Donald Trump is still president. Case closed.
Elinor Brecher
Foothills
Legitimizing lies is an old tactic
When a defeated president claims the opposition illegally usurped the people in an election to take over the leadership of a country, he is, in effect, accusing the opposition of treason. Treason requires bringing forth witnesses and proof. If treason cannot be proven, as it has not been in in this case, the accuser may be treasonous in their attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected government. And the proof of his treason is in his repeated statements and his building of a congressionally elected coalition in support of his lie.
It is not just a Big Lie that the election was illegitimate; it is denial of truth, repudiation of fact and the unwillingness to accept the rulings of the courts. Legitimizing lies with repeated pronouncements declaring it the truth, has been a tactic of fascists, racists and demagogues for ages. Courage to simply tell the truth should be simply a matter of character. Rep. Liz Cheney has shown to be the only Republican in Congress with character and a conscience.
C.B. Foster
Green Valley
Comical legislation from state Capitol
Re: the May 6 article “Bill takes aim at differing views.”
Having lived in Arizona for decades, our legislators have provided me with many laughable proposals. I have shared some of the more ridiculous examples with family and friends across the U.S. We have enjoyed a good head-shaking laugh at some of them.
The latest entry into this comedic foolishness comes from Rep. Michelle Udall R-Mesa. She proposed schoolteachers that don’t teach “both sides” of controversial (not defined) issues could be punished. I am sure the flat-earth believers are pleased. Oh wait, Rep. Udall verbally excluded them in defense of her amendment.
Climate change? Fair game. Civil war causes? Fair game. 2020 presidential election? Ditto. Hmmm, methinks I smell a Big Lie advocate. What think you?
Bernie Bennett
East side
GOP jumps shark with election audit
So Republicans are trying to overturn the presidential election by so-called recounting the votes. They refuse to have observers.
Everybody knows they are attempting to overturn the election by “finding” more votes for Donald Trump and throwing out all the votes for Joe Biden.
Maybe some Republican voters in Arizona want to believe that. But most adults won’t fall for it.
Apparently they want civil war. Apparently they want to secede from the United States of America and appoint a Confederate president.
But how will big business react when Arizona is not part of the United States anymore? How many national businesses will stay in Arizona? Do they really think Raytheon and all the rest will want to do business inside a rogue state?
Well, good luck with that.
Jean Wylie
Benson
Steller columns much appreciated
Re: the May 2 article “New trees still need water,” and the May 5 article “City equity office puts cart before the horse.”
I must say that two of Tim Steller’s recent columns have been the best he has ever written. The column on all the new trees being planted made people aware that new trees have to be watered frequently or they will die. A fact he missed, however, is that someone also has to maintain that irrigation system whether it is in a traffic median or a park.
The column on the Tucson city equity office was also a good one. Believe me, the city has enough personnel to do this in-house. This is a huge waste of taxpayers dollars and some of the rationale presented for creating the department is not very convincing.
Jeff Britt
East side
Arizona extremists keep tourists away
People in Arizona may or may not care what people from other states think of them, but the image Arizona presents can make a difference in the money that local towns bring in from tourists. As a resident of western Colorado, we come down to Arizona camping about three times a year for a week at a time. We come with two other couples to either Phoenix or Tucson.
We will no longer be coming because your state Legislature has stained your image by this ridiculous audit of the presidential election. We live in a democracy where there are winners and losers, and you cannot legislate who wins.
In addition, many people now put you in the same company with the crazy states who are trying to keep people from voting. I would suggest if the mom-and-pop businesses want to keep the tourist money coming, they should put the reins on the extremists in your Legislature.
Robert Sapena
Colorado
Biden only appears to have easy path
Re: the May 7 article “Biden has had it easy; tests to come.”
In his opinion column, Doyle McManus said of Joe Biden: “Compared with his predecessors, he has had it easy so far.” Seriously? Is McManus writing about the president who couldn’t get any cooperation for his transition because of a pouting sore loser? Who inherited a devastating pandemic that had been poorly managed? Who has to deal with fallout from an insurrection that tried to destroy democracy? Who is tasked with ending a 20-year war? Who faces the huge challenge of combating climate change? Who is handling the backlog of asylum seekers his predecessor sent back to Mexico? Who navigates racial tensions, loose gun laws, calls for police reform, threats from Russia, China, Iran? That president?
Maybe Biden just makes it look easy because he and the people he has chosen to work with him are so competent.
Karen Berry
Midtown
Border Patrol a punching bag
Re: the May 9 article “BP sex crime arrests too common.”
Over the years, I have read numerous opinion articles about the Border Patrol written by the Star’s Tim Steller. Never a good or kind word about them. His latest about a retired agent arrested in Sierra Vista on rape charges.
For FY 2020, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which encompasses BP, employed over 63,000 personnel. The most common crimes were alcohol- and drug-related, then domestic/family misconduct. If Steller were to look at any big city’s police department such as New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, etc., he would find similar officer arrest cases as those he cites. Steller writes negative stories about the Border Patrol. He never writes a disparaging word about the tens of thousands coming here illegally violating our immigration laws.
Juan Santiago
South Tucson
Water shortage ideas are needed
Water shortage looms. Here is an idea worthy of exploration by better heads than mine that might offer some relief: Arizona could build a desalinization facility on the California coast and trade that water to California for a portion of their allocation out of the Colorado River to be reallocated to Arizona.
Complicated? Yes. Expensive? For sure. But the consequences of relying entirely on the Colorado River for future water needs here are enormously expensive and complicated beyond measure. Pumping out of the aquifer only delays and does not solve the problem. We’re told it is unsustainable and that which is unsustainable will stop at some point in the future.
Cutler Umbach
East side
Arizona’s sham election audit
Gov. Doug Ducey has ordered Arizona Department of Safety to protect Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and her family after she has received death threats because of the sham audit orchestrated by the state Senate Republicans. She is not the first public official to receive such threats. Previously Ducey has stated, “We take threats of violence very seriously, and they are unacceptable.”
Actually, no, the governor does not take them seriously.
Otherwise, Ducey would have long ago condemned the lunatic exercise that’s going on and the Republicans behind it.
They hired a company whose founder is a conspiracy-believing crank who has posted numerous unfounded allegations about election fraud. And let’s not forget the taxpayer and private money that is funding the audit.
The most personal and precious information about Maricopa County voters has been exposed to all kinds of security breaches.
To be a member in good standing of the Republican party today, you must bend a knee to delusion.
Thomas Wilson
Northeast side
Cowardice feeds more shootings
Re: the May 10 article “Man kills six at party.”
In the article we read that “it was Colorado’s worst mass shooting since a gunman killed 10 people at a supermarket in March.” For killings in other states, you need only look a few columns or pages over.
Let that sink in for a moment, please.
We are a country with a gun problem. Not coincidentally, we have more guns per capita than any other nation on the planet by nearly twofold. Our problem with guns is not about our right to own them, nor is it a partisan issue.
Our problem with guns exists because too many of our politicians are cowards. Sounds to me like the actual problem is not with guns, but with our spineless political leaders. Let’s bear that in mind when we next vote.
Leslie Kanberg
Downtown
