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August 19, 2025

Robert Kohl’s recent letter tries to frame cruelty as common sense. According to him, anyone who opposed Trump’s immigration policies is either a greedy business owner, a conniving politician, or someone trying to buy sainthood with “other people’s money.” It’s an easy way to avoid the truth: we oppose those policies because human rights are not negotiable.

Calling Trump’s immigration record “highly successful” requires ignoring the reality. That “success” looked like families ripped apart, children in cages, asylum seekers criminalized for following legal processes and America’s moral standing shredded on the world stage. If that’s what passes for success, it’s success in state-sanctioned cruelty.

Kohl’s sudden concern for labor rights — suggesting businesses should pay immigrants fairly — rings hollow when paired with loyalty to those who ensure immigrant workers stay vulnerable and exploitable. If he truly cared about fair wages and safety, he’d be standing shoulder to shoulder with immigrant workers fighting for those very things, not attacking their right to be here.

Then comes the pièce de résistance: the “GoFundMe” scheme for who gets to come to America. In this dystopian thought experiment, human lives are reduced to a Kickstarter campaign. Can’t raise enough money for your safety? Guess you’ll just have to stay in the war zone, famine, or dictatorship you’re fleeing. This is cruelty wrapped in faux fiscal responsibility.

Immigrants are not “demographic shifts” or statistics for partisan daydreams; they are people with complex lives, histories and beliefs. And the facts are clear: immigrants contribute billions more to our economy than they take out, often without accessing the benefits their taxes fund. Meanwhile, corporate tax breaks, billionaire loopholes drain public resources on a scale far beyond what it costs to educate a refugee child or treat an asylum seeker’s illness.

What Kohl calls “open borders” is actually asylum laws and immigration processes we’ve had for decades. What he calls “the rule of law” has historically included laws that upheld slavery, denied women the right to vote and interned Japanese Americans. So forgive me if I’m not impressed by the empty invocation.

Immigration isn’t a mess to be cleaned; it’s a moral responsibility to be met. The Statue of Liberty doesn’t say, “Give me your tired, your poor, but only if they can cover the overhead.” Human dignity is not negotiable and it sure as heck isn’t for sale on GoFundMe.

Sonya Mavis

Farmer