To the editor:
Voters in New York’s 19th Congressional District are shaking their heads again. Their representative, Marc Molinaro, kicked off the new year by spending taxpayer dollars on another political stunt: a junket to sunny Texas to “find the facts” about the immigrant crisis at the southern border. We voters know that he already holds strong anti-immigrant opinions on the subject, which he frequently expresses to whip up zenophobic fears among his base. Last year he voted for the “Secure the Border Act of 2023” (HR2). Focusing exclusively on enforcement approaches to the problem, and ignoring the causes of migration, the bill’s MAGA sponsors and Molinaro all knew it was DOA in the Senate, but this is circus, not governance.
We voters would have preferred that Representative Molinaro had joined the recent Congressional delegations that met with survivors of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. There’s a connection: U.S. weapons exports to Mexico and Central America also feed the gun violence there, which in turn is a major driver of immigration into the U.S.. That, however, would mean that Molinaro and the Republican caucus were interested in actually solving the problems at the border, rather than using it in their Do Nothing circus act.
The upshot: we voters know that Molinaro brought nothing back from his Texas vacation he couldn’t have acquired by telephone, email or internet research, apart from a sunburn and photo ops to collect images for his next campaign flyer attacking the Governor and the President.
Mark Vian
Palenville