Readers React: Terrorism from abroad isn’t a big threat anymore. So why build a border wall?

To the editor: Thanks to columnist Doyle McManus for alleviating fears stoked by President Trump over the overblown fears of terrorism in the United States. As McManus writes, “The Pentagon’s most recent National Defense Strategy said bluntly that terrorism is no longer the biggest threat the U.S. faces.”

While domestic terrorism is still a threat, building a wall at the border does not address this problem. Nor does it address drug trafficking — as has been widely reported, drugs are almost always smuggled into the U.S. through legal ports of entry.

So, why is the budget standoff still preventing so many federal workers from receiving paychecks and causing so much human suffering? Hubris is the wall that prevents Trump from backing off false claims of threats to national security at the border.

The threat is in the White House; there is no other.

Lenore Navarro Dowling, Los Angeles

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To the editor: I am so glad to see McManus back in the Los Angeles Times on a regular basis.

Betsy White, Costa Mesa

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