The Jan. 21 Sun-Gazette has an article about a bill PA Senator Doug Mastriano is introducing in the legislature. The bill would require all Pennsylvania state and municipal law enforcement agencies to cooperate fully with ICE operations in our state. Our legislature is divided, and the article points out that this makes substantive legislation difficult and encourages legislation like Mastriano’s which is of a political in nature and does not address the problems of Pennsylvanians. The editorial in this same issues describes one of those problems: the closure of the maternity unit in UPMC Cole, just one of 38 such closures in rural Pennsylvania.

As it happens, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have already put in place policies to limit their cooperation with ICE and protect their immigrants from the violent removals we have seen in so many ICE operations.

Perhaps the current ICE invasion of Minneapolis is not something Pennsylvanians would like to see in Philadelphia. The killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, an American citizen who may not even have been protesting ICE operations, who was on her way to pick up her child from school, is not something Pennsylvanians would like to see repeated in Philadelphia. And her death is just one of four others at the hands of ICE, in addition to 17 others injured by gun-wielding agents.

It seems very clear that ICE agents are acting like vigilantes, with little or no control by the federal government or Homeland Security. There is currently a spending bill in the US House of Representatives that includes funding for ICE. At the very least, our law makers should amend this bill to include guardrails for ICE activities, to bring their agents under the rule of law.

In terms of Mastriano’s legislative efforts, Pennsylvanians should be asking what we would like to see our legislators do. Would we like legislation that would create the conditions for another tragic killing after an invasion of Philadelphia? Wouldn’t we prefer legislation that would create the conditions in which rural hospitals, doctors and nurses can support the lives of women in labor?

ELLEN A. BLAIS

Mansfield

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom