Why they should stay

The tariff topic has been fully covered. Deportations have been ignored. Here are my thoughts.

You need a place to deport people to. This isn’t easy. An example is the difficulty of getting a country to accept the 9/11 terrorists housed in Guantanamo. No country is willing to take them. Since the USA is defining future deportees as criminals and other various misanthropes, what country or countries would want them?

Countries can refuse entry to anyone using the diplomatic principle of persona non grata. Negotiating a treaty is one way around that principle. The Constitution directs the president to negotiate and ratify treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. Negotiating a treaty or a series of treaties might be possible. With a place for the deportees to go, the next problem is finding them.

I don’t think illegal immigrants will willingly admit they’re illegal. We need to hire and train people to ferret them out. We have now arrested a bunch of people. These people become wards of the state. A ward of the state must be provided with food, shelter, clothing and medical care.

We will need to build and staff detention camps to accommodate the deportees. Just like we did in WWII for the Japanese-Americans, except the Japanese-Americans fended for themselves. So, we have to hire and staff detention camps because we have wards of the state.

To physically deport the illegal immigrants, we must provide transportation with airplanes we don’t have. Do we commandeer commercial airliners to transport them? What happens to our regular air travelers if we do so?

The illegal immigrants are finally gone, and we can rest easy. Except we have to pay for the above. The incoming administration plans to cut the federal budget by a third. I can’t phantom how it can be done.

Among the many other downsides of mass deportation would be all the products and services the deportees now buy would be left on the shelves. Merchants will not be happy.

One possible upside? Vacant apartments(!). But then the landlords won’t be happy.

Pointing out a problem without suggesting a solution is not my way. I suggest let them stay. The USA needs to significantly increase its population in order to expand its tax base. Making babies takes too much time and money. The illegal immigrants may be sapping our meager resources now but down the line, we will benefit.

Carl Hoetzl, Bayonne

What, exactly, are these jobs?

For the last several years, Sen. Chuck Schumer has said we need to give citizenship to migrants because the U.S. has low birth rates and migrants are needed for jobs. Former President Bill Clinton said the same thing while campaigning for Kamala Harris in Georgia.

Well, this is not 1947; that year needs an explanation.

A relative who used to live in Jersey City passed away in 1990. Her basement and attic had items still wrapped up in old Jersey Journal newspapers, specifically the employment ad section from 1947. I found at least 12 pages of ads from one particular day, all looking for able-bodied men to work in factories, on the docks or as general maintenance workers. Speaking English was not a requirement — only a strong back.

The majority of U.S. factory jobs are now in China, India and Mexico. So, what jobs can these migrants find that they can afford to pay $2,000 a month in rent? Many have limited English skills, which keeps them trapped in low-income jobs if they are lucky to find one. Jobs that once required manual work are now automated.

The recent strike of Hollywood actors and dock workers had one thing in common: They did not want technology to replace them. Eventually, AI and other technology will replace many jobs. As it is, some jobs have faded away, like toll collectors and telephone operators; others are becoming obsolete, like cashiers and fast-food workers.

Both Schumer and Clinton need to show the public where these jobs exist. I don’t believe it is about filling job vacancies; it is about replacing voters. They fear the next census and Democrats could lose House seats as voters leave high tax states like New York and New Jersey.

Yvonne Balcer, Jersey City

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