Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/567089
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Itwasalmost100yearsagothatH.L.Men- ken said, " the public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties." IimagineMenkenwould have taken the "bit" before "raucously" out of his state- ment had he been listening in on today's politi- cal braying. There have been a lot of raucous state- ments , and even yelling, about immigration is- sues and undocumented im- migrants lately. The pressure to join the band wagon has been so great that some are even calling for the repeal of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That Amendment states, in part, "All persons born or nat- uralized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priv- ileges or immunities of cit- izens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any per- son within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." At least two Presiden- tial hopefuls (Cruz and Ru- bio) who once endorsed the concept of natural born citi- zenship have retracted their stance and now oppose it. Part of the issue, as they see it is those who cross the border into the United States to give birth to children who will au- tomatically become citizens, so called "anchor babies." (In- terestingly such babies are frequently born by relatively well off Asians who then take their babies back home along with the infants American Citizenship.) Donald Trump brought the issue up originally in this election cycle, and the is- sue has caused a whirlwind of rhetoric, but another can- didate, Carli Fiorina, has re- cently tried to get the rheto- ric more focused on realistic solutions than on stirring up the mobs. Personally I wonder how many of us are great grand- children or grandchildren of what would be considered to- day undocumented immi- grants. The family story, on my father's side, is that my great grandfather snuck into the U.S. from England after getting into trouble at school. We have no documentation about him; all we have is some unofficial birth records for his children all of whom were born at home. Of course my great grandmother had no documentation either because she was Native American. When World War II started my grandmother had to fill out a form swearing that my father was born at home on his birth date. I do have a copy of something that says he was a resident of San Fran- cisco in the 1930s, but I am not sure that is documenta- tion. Who knows what will happen if the 14th Amend- ment is repealed? Maybe all of the votes I have cast in the last 55 years will have to be nullified and I will need to move to England unless I get credit for my time served in the Army. I do have documen- tation on my mother's side of the family that at least one of her parents was legally admit- ted to the U.S., if that would help. The purpose of this two part commentary is to shed some light on the facts about undocumented immigrants. As you might imagine the is- sues are not necessarily as they portrayed by the simpli- fied proclamations by some the candidates. The number of undocu- mented immigrants has been not been rapidly growing as some would have you be- lieve; the high point was in 2005 with an estimated 12.2 million unauthorized immi- grants; it has declined almost one million to 11.3 million in 2014 according to the Pew Re- search Center. According to the Census Bureau there are 321 million of us, so the unau- thorized immigrant popula- tion is about 3.5% of our total population. (As an interesting comparison, approximately 3% of the total U.S. adult pop- ulation is either incarcerated or on probation.) A recent Gallup Poll found that 65 percent of Ameri- cans favored letting undocu- mented immigrants remain in the United States with the right to become citizens if they met certain criteria, while just 19 percent wanted to deport them. (A bare ma- jority of Republicans — 50 percent — favored the citi- zenship option on this poll.) A Pew poll in December 2014 had similar result, with 70 percent approving a path to citizenship. About half of our unauthor- ized immigrants are Mexi- cans, but their numbers have been on the decline since 2005. According to the Pew Research Center more Mex- icans have left the U.S. than have arrived since 2010. In spite of the frustration expressed by many, the gov- ernment has been pretty busy intercepting and deporting people trying to cross the bor- ders. The numbers are almost staggering. In 2014 more non- Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at the border, approximately 230,000. In 2013 314,904 Mexicans were deported, up from 169,031 in 2005. Even dealing with those numbers seems a daunting task. Some of the political rhet- oric might lead you to be- lieve that the current admin- istration is soft on this issue. Data prove otherwise. Under the Obama administration through 2013 (just 5 years) there were a total of 2,017,000 deportations compared to 2,012,000 during George W. Bush's eight years. "The share of unauthor- ized-immigrant adults who have lived in the U.S. for a de- cade or more has nearly dou- bled, from 35% in 2000 to 62% in 2012. Only 15% in 2012 had lived in the U.S. for less than five years, com- pared with 38% in 2000." This means more unauthorized im- migrants have children born in the U.S. While I have been listening to the braying about immi- gration, undocumented aliens among us, and repeal of the 14th Amendment, I was re- minded of a quotation from Macbeth. To paraphrase a bit: "Political speakers are often like a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; he is like a tale told by idiot, full of sound and fury and signify- ing nothing." Stay tuned for more for more facts next week. JoeHarropisaretired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop The sound and the fury, part 1 Cartoonist's take Columnistdisrespectful to veterans Editor: Apparently the illustrious Robert Minch has never served in the military — safer to serve the county than serve your country. I am curious as to how many of Mr. Minch's buddys he has had to put in body bags? To insult us veterans by com- paring us to veterinarians, is astoundingly rude. We Vietnam Vets, the ones that did return, haven't for- gotten the ill treatment we re- ceived by the American people, the very ones that supported the war from the start. Having been spit on, having excrement thrown on us and also the bad feelings put on us by the very people that sent us there. Thanks for the reminder Mr. Minch. — Joseph Ostrowski, Red Bluff Concerns regarding board of supervisors Editor: I have been a practicing at- torney in Tehama County since 1973. I believe there is a grow- ing perception within the com- munity that our board of su- pervisors, at least some of them, do not take their posi- tion seriously, although some of them obviously take them- selves very seriously. I have been increasingly frustrated by the actions of the board, enacting "emergency ordinances" rather than follow the normal procedure and seek input from the citizens. I am frustrated that board members who appear to have financial interest at stake with pending ordinances have failed to recuse themselves from voting. But my biggest complaint is the failure of the board to respond to legitimate inqui- ries from Tehama County res- idents. On June 23, I wrote to the Board of Supervisors, and ad- vised them that there were a number of citizen concerns about role and responsibil- ity of County Counsel and the County Adminstrative Officer. I asked the Board to advise what the position of the board was with respect to 6 differ- ent concerns. A copy of my let- ter to the board was also sent to the editor of the Daily news. To date, the board has neither responded to any of those in- quiries, nor given me the cour- tesy of a phone call to dis- cuss these citizen concerns, nor have I been contacted by County Counsel with respect to my concerns. I will not bore the reader with all six of my concerns, but the first two inquiries de- mand attention: 1. Does the County Adminis- trative Officer have the author- ity to direct department heads not to follow the directions of the board? It seems like a sim- ple yes or no should suffice. 2. Does the County Admin- istrative officer have the au- thority to prohibit a Supervi- sor from attending department head meetings? If that is the case, how is a Supervisor to su- pervise? I think it is high time to re- place some of the "good old boys," and if any concerned and qualified citizen is inter- ested in running for Supervi- sor, I offer my time and assis- tance with your campaign. — Dennis Albright, Red Bluff Don't disparage my Dodgers Editor: This is in regards to "I Say" on Friday, Sept. 4. Rob- ert Minch can talk trash all he wants about Republicans — I can handle it — but he crossed the line when he dogged my Dodgers. While I can't argue against the payroll point, calling them a "sorry lot" and players hav- ing a "penchant for grand- standing" are total cheap shots. The team is full of hard-working, veteran players who play the game with dig- nity and respect. I know be- cause I watch them almost ev- ery night. Who wouldn't want guys like Jimmy Rollins, Chase Ut- ley, Adrian Gonzales, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Grienke and A.J. Ellis on their team? Maybe he's just a sore old man who can't handle the fact that his team just got swept. Last time I checked, three losses out of three in a series would equal a sweep, no mat- ter the score. Want some cheese with that whine, Robert? — Pat Gleason, Red Bluff Regarding Donald Trump Editor: He has been branded a sex- ist, racist nut case but he is damn sure stirring up the crap running for the presidency. This country has been sell- ing the people the greatest bunch of manure ever stacked in one spot. Do you listen to these unpatriotic lice? Nei- ther Democrat or Republican has done anything but destroy the constitution. I can hear the screams and rolling in the graves of our dead. I like many others have failed to live up to the oath we took. We swore to defend this nation from all enemies, within and with out. We have let these idiots turn this na- tioninto a third world entity. Show me one president or one justice or the lousy congress that hasn't sold this country out. It's too bad Trump is run- ning Republican instead of an independent. If his stand on this eternal immigration give away would stop the grift of voter fraud, what a boon to my pocketbook that would be. If what I say brands me rac- ist, I say hurrah for racism. — Thad Blanchard Sr., Gerber More on the Trump candidacy Editor: Trump boasts of never go- ing through personal bank- ruptcy and that maybe so, but his companies hit the skids at least four times. That is sim- ilar to how Geronimo who in all his battles never got a scratch. Of course for his fel- low warriors it was a whole different story. The Donald always managed to come away from financial sink holes smelling like a rose with all his wealth intact. Un- fortunately, that was never the case for his investors. It takes real skill to bankrupt a casino, but the Donald was up to the challenge. College students today suffer under ever burdensome debt responsibilities. Fortunately, for the Donald, that was not the case. By the time he grad- uated from college Donald Trump was worth $1.4 million by today's standards. And that was earned by working part time for his dad. It may just be me, but I don't see any praise- worthiness to anyone that is fi- nancially solvent after inherit- ing from $40 to $200 million from his papa. The old man's climb to fi- nancial prominence was made possible by the Federal Hous- ing Administration, a govern- ment program which no doubt Trump wants to fix. Tired of running corpora- tions into the ground the Don- ald wants to show you what he can do with this country. Well, I for one just as soon not see that. — Orval Strong, Gerber Letters to the editor Joe Harrop I have been increasingly frustrated by the actions of the board, enacting "emergency ordinances" rather than follow the normal procedure and seek input from the citizens. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, September 5, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A5