Sunday's letters: Convicted felon Trump calls out 'illegal' immigrants
“A letter criticizes the hypocrisy of supporting a convicted felon while criticizing immigrants, highlighting Trump’s contradictory statements and the impact of his policies on businesses and the economy. Another letter praises Biden’s decision to remove Cuba from the “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list, arguing that the designation has severe consequences for the Cuban people. A third letter accuses the News & Record of bias, claiming it only publishes negative content about Republicans.

ICE agents transfer an immigrant after a raid in Duarte, California, in June 2022, during President Joe Biden’s term. During their terms, presidents Barack Obama and Biden both told ICE to prioritize deportations of those deemed to be threats to national security or public safety, and recent arrivals at the border. Trump canceled that guidance and has indicated he’ll do so again in his second term.
Damian Dovarganes,Associated Press 2022
ICE agents transfer an immigrant after a raid in Duarte, California, in June 2022, during President Joe Biden’s term. During their terms, presidents Barack Obama and Biden both told ICE to prioritize deportations of those deemed to be threats to national security or public safety, and recent arrivals at the border. Trump canceled that guidance and has indicated he’ll do so again in his second term.
‘Illegal’ immigrants
Interesting the writer of the letter “So, which is it?” (Jan. 14) makes distinctions between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants. Legality seems important to him, yet he supports the first president-elect to be a convicted felon. Donald Trump’s illegal activities, including hiring many “illegal” immigrants, are apparently unimportant and his hypocrisy even less so. Farmers have appealed to Trump to not deport “illegal” immigrants as they are a large percentage of those who pick OUR vegetables and OUR fruit and work OUR fields. Other businesses say they will suffer without them and the cost and blame will be OURS. Making these hardworking people “legal” seems not to be the answer for politicians wishing to blow smoke in our faces or even lie to get elected.
A Trump quote about immigrants: “They’re rough people in many cases from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums — that’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’ stuff” (March 4, 2024, Interview Right Side Network).
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Another Trump quote: “The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals, they’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re animals’ … Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, ‘Please don’t use the word animals when you’re talking to me …’ I said ‘I’ll use the word animal because that’s what they are.’ ” (April 2, 2024, Grand Rapids, Michigan).
Do we really believe our fellow human beings are animals? Is our capacity for hate so great? Have we inhaled the smoke and bought the lies?
Doing right by Cuba
In the waning days of the first Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo placed Cuba on the “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list, a status it had been removed from five years earlier. In the wake of the widely controversial designation, the Cuban people would suffer additional economic hardships and isolation.
Today, Cuba suffers its most dire economic crisis since the Soviet Union pulled out in the early 1990s. Shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies, paired with daily electrical blackouts, have left the Cuban people nearly hopeless.
On Jan. 14, with seven days left in the Biden administration’s term, the State Department announced that Cuba will officially be taken off the “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list. Behind this decision there was certainly lots of diplomatic maneuvering, but in the end, it’s too little, too late. The usual hawks on Cuba — Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, to name only two — are already declaring their intent to reassign Cuba to the dreaded list.
While the incoming administration rattles on about new imperial ambitions, the one nation the U.S. has sought to conquer for more than 60 years remains intact, barely. U.S. policy has consequences, with impacts that destroy the lives of everyday Cuban people.
When Cuba is once again placed unjustly on the “State Sponsor of Terrorism” list, America will again have blood on its hands.
President Biden’s decision to take Cuba off the terrorism list was the right thing to do. Yet, it hardly matters. While the Cuban people suffer on many fronts, for maybe a week they won’t be labeled terrorists. Cold comfort to be sure.
The Rev. Thomas I. Warren
The writer is co-chair of the United Church of Christ Cuba Study Seminar and pastor of Peace United Church of Christ in Greensboro.
Cloudy facts
A letter in the Jan. 14 edition of the News & Record was filled with repetitions of Trump’s misinformation. The writer’s two main points, that the Los Angeles Fire Department budget was slashed by 12% by the current mayor and that construction of seven water storage facilities in L.A .were halted by environmental concerns, are easily refuted by a simple Google search.
I’m sure the letter’s author also believes Trump won the 2016 election and Jan. 6, 2021, was a day of love.
It’s going to be a long four years.
Calling out the paper
Regarding the letter “So, which is it?” (Jan. 14):
Finally, another person is willing to tell it like it is. I have written many letters to the editor stating how left-wing the paper is and how it prints everything negative that has anything to do with Republican Party, including cartoons.
The News & Record never publishes anything positive about Republicans. Congratulations to the letter’s author. I’m glad there’s another person who’s willing to stand up like myself and call out the paper for what it is.“
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