Letters to the Editor: Mass deportations aren’t just cruel. They’re expensive, too

To the editor: Gustavo Arellano’s column about the Department of Homeland Security’s “sanctuary cities” list was a little entertaining (“Homeland Security’s ‘sanctuary city’ list is riddled with errors. The sloppiness is the point,” June 3). That Huntington Beach and Santee are on it must have been a bit upsetting to those cities’ leaders.

But to clarify the cruelty aspect of what DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are doing: They’re not merely deporting people they determine shouldn’t be in this country (without due process). They’re deporting people to locations where they will experience a greater chance of torture and death. And they’re doing this at a huge taxpayer expense.

Wouldn’t deporting the people back to their home countries, likely at a much lower cost, make more sense? But it seems that imperiling their lives is more important than how much it costs. Truly American exceptionalism.

Les Hartzman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Human lives, the Constitution, her own dog: It seems they’re all the same to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Get in her way and you deserve to be destroyed. Cruelty is one point, to be sure. Another is the risk we take in daring to challenge the head of a Cabinet department that is meant to protect, not endanger, us.

So much for democracy.

Joan Walston, Santa Monica