This week, I watched as President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders, including one that halts the intake of refugees. Having personally sponsored several refugee families in my eastern Iowa community, I am deeply concerned that we’re turning our backs on not only those who need our help most, but also the very ideals that define us as Americans.
Like so many of us, nearly three years ago, I watched in horror as the war in Ukraine unfolded and was looking for a way to help. That’s when I discovered the federal Uniting for Ukraine program, which gave me the opportunity to sponsor a family that was suddenly uprooted by the escalating violence. Thanks to this program and the Welcome Connect platform, I was soon matched with the Hedzhymanova family — Maksym and Olena, their daughter Sofiia, and Olena’s mother, Valentyna, who were forced to flee Kharviv when the war began.
When the family arrived in our small town of DeWitt, Iowa, they had just $500. But in no time, our community came together to help them secure housing, find jobs in construction and build a robust support system. Maksym has since started his own construction business, and within a year, the family had purchased its own home.
Their success is a testament to what sponsorship programs can achieve and even inspired our community to do more. That’s why, in October 2022, with the help of many community volunteers, we founded Iowa Newcomer Integration, Community, and Exchange, or IA NICE, to support more Ukrainian families. IA NICE offers newcomers transitional housing, legal support and connections with local businesses that offer stable and high-paying jobs. In just over two years, we have welcomed more than 65 Ukrainians from 22 families to resettle in DeWitt.
Sponsorship not only helps vulnerable people in a time of great need, but it also unites communities around a common purpose. Humanitarian parole programs provide refugees with a legal path to the U.S. after thorough vetting — offering a bipartisan solution that also helps address depopulation in states like mine.
But with the recent executive orders, the future of these life-changing programs is far from certain. My experience shows that our country can — and should — continue to support newcomers and reaffirm our shared values of freedom, compassion and opportunity that have made America great.
— Angela Boelens, president, Iowa Newcomer Community & Exchange
Evanston mayor’s wokeness
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, like me, took an oath to uphold the constitutions of this great country and state and faithfully discharge his duties. Yet, his Tribune op-ed ties defiance of immigration laws and agents with morality-based diversity “values” (“Evanston will protect residents from Donald Trump’s immigration officials,” Jan. 17). Biss touts his passage of “an enhancement of our Welcoming City Ordinance” that ties the hands tighter of Evanston police officers, sworn to protect residents, from cooperating with any federal immigration agents. The Evanston mayor justifies this stranglehold on his police officers as consistent with “a moral obligation to protect all our residents.”
So, if an immigrant not authorized to be in the country commits a violent crime against an Evanston resident, its law enforcement officials are prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration agents to prosecute them, including the remedy of throwing them out of this country. Is that crippling ordinance in the best interests of the residents?
Burr Ridge was the first municipality to be sent migrants from Chicago after Gov. JB Pritzker proclaimed Illinois a sanctuary state that included migrant welcoming — but with no plan to deal with them. Our village welcomes all law-abiding people, including legal immigrants of any nation. We are a diverse, welcoming community in that regard, like so many other Illinois municipalities. But I respectfully suggest that the Evanston enhancement ordinance is misplaced and out of step with what America wants and desperately needs. The issue is law enforcement and safety, not diversity. Contorting morality and diversity to justify a stifling enhancement ordinance is woke nonsense.
Whether someone voted for Donald Trump or not, it is undeniable that his victory was founded in large part on rejection of the border policies of Joe Biden’s administration. This country is done with a border that allows thousands to use an asylum law that was meant for only the few seeking protection from tyranny. The asylum law has been corrupted for the sake of moral diversity wokeness.
Mayors and law enforcement should cooperate with immigration agents when an immigrant commits a violent or serious crime. Doing so is not undermining a “moral obligation to protect our residents.” It meets our sworn obligation to protect our residents — as the saying goes, to the fullest extent of the law.
— Gary Grasso, mayor, Burr Ridge
Civil rights are in danger
My Irish immigrant father owned a bar in the 3200 block of North Clark Street in the 1960s. Due to the “Chicago Barmaids Ordinance,” women could bartend only if they were related to the owner, so we inherited a Swedish Grandma Emma who pickled herring for the customers and knew her way around the bar. Women of the early ’60s could not sue for equality until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1963 Equal Pay Act allowed women to challenge unfair employment due to gender.
President Donald Trump is playing with the civil rights achievements in the U.S. Ladies and gentlemen, pay attention to your rights. It wasn’t until 1974 that the Chicago Barmaids Ordinance was ruled unconstitutional since it violated the 14th Amendment, which provides for equal protection.
Spread the word.
— Colleen Oenning, Park Ridge
At the expense of many
Extreme concentration of wealth and power accompanied by massive corruption is nothing new in this country. In the 1840s and 1850s, we experienced the cotton plantation wealthy; in the 1890s, we had the robber barons in banking, steel and railroads; in the 1920s, we suffered the stock speculators; and now we see the tech bros nailing down their wealth and power.
The wealthy few always enjoy that wealth at the expense of the rest of us. I can only hope that our country will once again return to a more just normal.
— Mary F. Warren, Wheaton
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