Readers React: The Obama administration’s inhumane, indefensible deportation of Central Americans

To the editor: History will not remember kindly The Times’ stance in support of deporting families back to extreme danger and death in Central America just because a judge ordered them out of the country. When we prioritize enforcing a broken bureaucracy over embracing the basic humanity of people who are suffering, we open the door to unspeakable tragedies. (“Why the Obama administration is right to deport migrants ordered to leave,” editorial, Dec. 29)

Yet, despite acknowledging the injustices deeply embedded in the deportation system, the editorial board insists we must “follow through on legal processes that have been completed.”

No matter the great inadequacy of those processes? The Japanese internment was also found to be legal, after all.

No matter the human cost? We’re talking about sending traumatized mothers and children back to countries that have the world’s highest murder rates.

The Times seems to think its position is distinct from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s drive for mass deportation, but it’s really just paving the way.

Jon Rodney, Oakland

The writer is communications manager for the California Immigrant Policy Center.

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To the editor: The subheadline of your editorial reads, “If we are to be a nation of laws, would-be immigrants who lose bids for asylum can’t stay in the U.S.” The editorial goes on to take on the subject of the immigrants who live among us illegally and the logic of why, upon losing bids for asylum, they must be deported.

While I do not dispute the complexity of the immigration problems found in this country or even the “nation of laws” concept, I find your choice of words more than slightly incongruous.

Your editorial was published the day after we heard that two police officers in Cleveland will not be prosecuted for the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Also, the officer who shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in Chicago more than a year ago pleaded not guilty on a first-degree murder charge Tuesday.

Perhaps it’s time for us to reexamine a little more closely just whether we are indeed a nation of laws.

Immigrant or not, legal or not, ultimately we are a nation of people, and as such, we are obligated to ourselves and each other — each and every one of us, without exception.

Renee Provitt, Los Angeles

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