Haitians in the U.S. deserve better from us
Re "Haitian college student's death reveals a darkness in America," Aug. 6: I write in deep solidarity with Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson and the views she expressed in her Sept. 6 column. I have watched as the darkness she cites has settled like a deathly pall over the city of Springfield.
The Haitians there are under siege.
Most of the Haitians who live in Springfield held Temporary Protected Status until July 27. At that time, they lost their permission to work in the United States. They had already lost their driving privileges.
And it isn't hard to guess what happened to them then. They quickly ran out of food, and they could not pay their mortgages or utility bills.
across a room
Then ICE arrived. The Haitians were told: You no longer belong here. Either wear an ankle shackle that tracks you or leave on your own accord. Or we will send you to prison, and then you will be deported to a place where your death will follow.
This was the world that Pierre Damas Bel occupied when he died.
Death of Haitians is the goal of the Trump administration. They have enlisted the Haitian gangs to be the murderers, but the blood will be on the hands of Trump and his secret police.
Shame on this country for allowing this nightmare to occur. But many of us are watching, and we will seek justice for the authors of this atrocity. To ICE and Trump's many minions: justice will be done. It is merely a matter of time.
James A. Grigsby, London
Americans with disabilities are in danger
I’m angered by the Department of Justice’s recent memo authorizing states to institutionalize more people with disabilities. This meansremoving people from society and shutting them into nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, segregated schools, and sheltered workshops, rather than funding community- or home-based care, which offer more autonomy, undoing decades of law and Supreme Court precedent.
Since Olmstead v. L.C., in 1999, states have been required to support disabled people in the most integrated setting. Institutionalization is supposed to be the last resort.
Sadly, states have already started slashing disability services because of Trump’s Medicaid cuts. The budget’s advocates professed that safety-net programs for the “most vulnerable Americans” would be safeguarded, but children and people with disabilities have been hit hardest.
The DOJ’s memo is part of the administration’s sweeping series of changes impacting how disabled people learn, live, work, and otherwise interact with society. For example, the Education Department’s responsibilities for special education and civil rights have been reassigned to the Department of Health and Human Services, raising concerns about whether children will continue to have access to free, appropriate public education. We must resist this and every attempt to make America’s most vulnerable invisible.
Charlotte Onderick, Stow
No one wants data centers, no one wants Trump
A man carrying a handmade sign that says, "No One Wants This," should be the message from Dems.
Simple and to the point.
They can explain: No one wants data centers; no one wants a do-nothing sycophant Congress; no one wants President Donald J. Trump enriching himself and his family on the government dime; no one wants a dictator; no one wants a Supreme Court that pays no attention to the Constitution; no one wants a behemoth ballroom; no one wants the Arc de Triomphe.
On and on.
Let each candidate spell out to their constituency what is important to them.
James G. Dalessandro, Shaker Heights
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Pierre Damas Bel lived a nightmare. Trump wants Haitian gangs to do the bloody work | Letters
