Deporting migrants, extending yellow traffic light
Most drivers see the yellow light as a message to speed up, a reader writes. Credit: Newsday/Víctor Manuel Ramos
Deportation will harm in many ways
It’s not just the hospitality industry that will suffer from deporting migrants [“Concerns over deportation policy,” LI Business, Nov. 22].
I’d guess that millions men and women living here illegally are working on almost every farm in this nation, including on the East End of Long Island.
We should all realize that whether it’s at home or at a restaurant, these men and women are employed to make sure that food in the field makes it to our families.
Millions may be deported or detained in camps when President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies take effect. Many are our family members, friends, neighbors, and many are business owners, service workers, farmworkers, construction workers, and caregivers. Trump indicates he wants to deport most of them, and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said he’s willing to help.
With the migrants’ removal, all of their contributions to the labor forces and the sales and other taxes they pay will go with them. It would be an epic economic blunder.
Mass deportations will ruin lives and create mass labor shortages, plenty of rotted food, inflation, and economic turmoil. The price tag for taxpayers will be in the billions of dollars. We don’t have to let this happen. We need to pass laws to protect workers with or without legal status.
— Joe Sackman, Hicksville
The writer is chief of staff for the Long Island Progressive Coalition.
Extending yellow light a bad idea
A reader’s idea to increase the length of time for yellow traffic light change intervals makes sense in theory, but I don’t see it as practical on the Long Island I know [“Glad to see ruling on red-light cameras,” Letters, Dec. 3].
While the purpose of the yellow is for drivers to slow down before stopping for the red, it seems that most drivers see it as a message to “speed up and beat the light.”
Increasing the length of the yellow change interval will only invite more drivers to indulge in this practice.
— Frank Lofaro, Westbury
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