In response to Mr. Blair’s letter in the May 29th edition.

So glad to hear that Mr. Blair is an American patriot, as am I and the vast majority of people reading this paper. One aspect of being a patriot, for me, is respecting our ability and opportunity to disagree under our Constitution, an amazing document, even if it’s not perfect. I also appreciate our system of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution, which the current President seems to treat with distain. He’s enabled in this performance by a shirking of their constitutionally required job of managing the budget process by the current iteration of Republicans in Congress. Any criticism of the President is met by a vitriolic and fact-scarce tirade. Clearly, he failed to listen to the “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all” mantra.

On immigration, both parties have failed in the last few decades to adopt a meaningful policy upgrade which could have led to a realistic policy to deal with the illegal immigrants in this country. We need these immigrants; they are important, productive members of society and, despite Mr. Blair’s assertion, actually commit crimes at a far lower rate than American citizens do — see FBI data. As a former farmer I am well aware that we could not raise the food and get it to the consumers without the help of immigrants, nor could we do many of the service jobs, construction jobs etc., that keep our economy flourishing. They strengthen our economy and do not take jobs from Americans. The President’s policies are mean-spirited in his aim at soft targets, students exercising their freedom of speech, or refugees who are here temporarily. If you have evidence of crimes, real crimes, not speeding tickets, why not have that reviewed in a judicial proceeding?

I am thankful that we have judges, even locally, but also appointed by many Presidents, including the current one, who are using their training and oaths of office to uphold our system and Constitution. How sad that they are vilified by this administration and members of the public for doing their jobs.

John Roberts

Cornwall