Open Letter to Our National and Arizona State Leaders,                                        3/15/24

It is easy to sit in a tall building looking down at what the common folk must manage and tout your flawed perception of kindness for all.  After suffering through the pandemic and the many ramifications that effect physical and mental health it would be wise to use constraint when welcoming anyone to cross our United States border from who knows where?

                My entire working life, as an RN at the young age of eighteen, I have experienced the disasters of health and safety, from the Asian flu, Spanish Flu, Ebola, Aids and Covid to name just a few.

                I had nursing students in a pediatric clinic in Los Angeles where they treated entire families for tuberculosis.  Half the first graders at an elementary school were treated for over a year with a TB medicine because a grandmother from Mexico would stand at the gate waiting for her grandchildren to walk them home…keep them safe. All the while she was coughing at everyone who left the campus through that gate.

The most dangerous thing law breaking people crossing our southern border bring to our country along with drugs, is disease.  That is why it is important to ensure everyone entering our country does NOT have a communicable disease.

                Catch and release or “return for a court date” does not work.  Our system should test for disease before anyone can enter. Last year after an extended stay in Canada, we (as passport carrying citizens) needed to provide a negative covid test before entering our own country.

 I ask, “How is it fair to legal citizens, working and living in our country for you to release drug pushing, gang members with the great possibility they carry disease into our cities. Ellis Island tested immigrants for a variety of diseases including “pink eye.”  My grandparents described, “Officials would lift eyelids with button hooks to look for red sclera of the eye, and a temperature was taken of each person who departed the ships that were pouring onto the docks along the east coast. On top of that everyone was required to have contact with a citizen and resident of the USA to give support during adjustments to new language and living circumstances.

To prevent a health and economic disaster in our country we need to carefully re-visit our laws (which are not followed) for health and safety before people have the privilege of entering our country.  We have the law. Why are they Not being adhered to? Why have other state leaders recognized this crisis. Why are you putting this burden on hard working law-abiding families.  

From a retired Professor of Nursing, Wife, Mother of five and Grandmother of 14.