Dear Editor,

I recently sent a letter to Rep. Mike Rulli about my concern with his bill, “the Gambler Act,” to increase funding by $300 million for ICE. (According to the president of the U.S., ICE is only picking up hardened criminals.) My letter suggesting changing the law so that a speeding ticket, a parking ticket, or failing to renew a green card would not be considered a crime. He acknowledged that these are low tier criminal offenses. In making this change, ICE would not have to pick up so many immigrants. Rep. Rulli wrote, “The U.S. is a nation of laws … violators must face the consequences of doing so.”

I find it hard to believe that if you get a speeding ticket, you are a criminal. If that’s the case, I must be a criminal and so are a great many others. Where is the compassion for what a lot of immigrants have gone through to get here (wars, poverty, crime, starvation)? And what about the jobs they are willing to take to feed their families (farm hands, factory workers, cleaning and housekeeping jobs). Jobs that others would not do. Most of us are immigrants or the decendants of immigrants. All of us came from somewhere else except the American Indians. Should we tear down the Statue of Liberty? “Send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Where is the compassion? Are we following what Jesus taught us, to take care of the orphans and the widows, and the least of these brothers and sisters of mine?

Marie McCrate

Barnesville