Letters for Jan. 27

Homeless mess under tree

I am sending this letter begging the city to please cut down the old wild apple tree on the hillside at the south end of the Maple Street Bridge. It has become a magnet for the homeless. They have dug a pit into the hill beneath it and regularly camp out there leaving a massive amount of garbage cascading down the hill. Just removing the camp every so often is not going to stop them. The tree needs to be cut down and the pit filled in. It has become such an eyesore to our beautiful city.

Fran Menzel

Spokane

Newhouse wrong on immigrants

In the story “Advocacy Groups Urge State Leaders to Defy Federal Deportation Policies” (Jan. 20), Rep. Dan Newhouse explains his support for those policies. “Let’s be clear,” he said. “We are talking about illegal immigrants who have committed dangerous (felonies). We welcome those that are willing to enter through legal channels, do not threaten public safety, and contribute to our communities.”

Don’t get me started on how long it takes to immigrate lawfully to the United States, but what about two out of three, Rep. Newhouse? Most undocumented immigrants pose no threat to public safety, and they work and pay taxes and participate in productive ways in their communities.

While there are certainly examples of undocumented immigrants committing crime, the claim that we are in the midst of a crime wave perpetuated by unauthorized immigrants is disingenuous and unsupported by evidence. There is, in fact, an inverse correlation between unauthorized immigration and crime. A comparison of FBI data on violent crimes and immigration trends studied by the Migration Policy Institute, show that violent crime in the country has been decreasing since the 1990s, while at the same time, the undocumented population in the country has been growing.

Ironically, Trump’s deportation policies could actually increase crime because undocumented and even documented immigrants, afraid of the repercussions of doing so, won’t report crimes to the police; in addition, there is a correlation between broken families and crime, and Trump’s mass deportation policies will undoubtedly break up families.

Gregory Cunningham

Spokane