This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
You may have received the email sent Tuesday by Sen. Mike Lee using the pain felt for the terrible deaths in Paris as a reason for preventing immigrants their promised entrance into our country.
His email began: "My thoughts and prayers are with the people of France…" His conclusion was that we should consider preventing all Syrian and Iraqi refugee immigrants their legally promised entry into our country.
The senator's "thoughts and prayers" ought to be for the tears flooding the eyes of the lady of the Statue of Liberty. His "thoughts and prayers" ought to be on the unwarranted, inconsiderate, imagined fear lurking in his brain to make choices that are completely opposite to the generous and courageous hearts and sincerity of Americans clearly stated in our Constitution.
Immigrants discovered, built and sustain this country. We are all partial immigrants. All of us together are an irreplaceable part of the tightly-knit fabric of our way of life and our fruitful economy. Lee wants to derail those blessings.
His knocking knees succumb to the terror tactics of murderers. His trembling severely underestimates the extraordinary capabilities of our country's security systems and personnel. His fear dishonors everything we stand for, everything positive, everything productive, even everything righteous. This is not the Second World War. We are not sentencing American Citizens of Japanese heritage to prison camps because of their physical appearance. We learned from the shame of that act. We will not repeat it.
Americans, along with the other responsible people of the world, can prevent insane killers from entering our countries. We will not capitulate to propaganda generated by murderers, capitulation promoted by a senator who caves-in the moment he hears footsteps in the attic
John Dombek
Santa Clara