As a resident of Maine for the past decade, I was disgusted to see that one of Gov. LePage’s first official acts was to change an order that had barred Maine state workers from inquiring about people’s immigration status. (“Immigrant status rule rescinded,” Jan. 7).

The practice of asking will effectively put people who are often already in a dangerous situation into an even more desperate position, benefiting no one.

Additionally, I was also disappointed to see The Portland Press Herald use the term “illegals” in the lead of the article. While I’m aware that many feel that words are just words and that making a fuss about them is pointless, I expect journalists are uniquely positioned to understand the way language can influence and shape thoughts.

No human being is ever just an “illegal.” People who are here illegally are still people, and the circumstances that have brought them here are rarely, if ever, simple.

Perhaps if we kept this in mind, we’d be less likely to look toward simplistic solutions (like preventing people from seeking help for their children who are sick or hungry) for complex problems.

Brooke Faulkner

Portland

Former Gov. Baldacci’s executive order barring state officials from asking immigrants about their legal status was controversial from the beginning, which is why he made adjustments later on.

On his signing it, Maine became the only state in the country with a policy that intentionally compromised enforcement of federal immigration law. Gov. LePage’s decision to rescind it simply brought Maine back into the mainstream of other states. It was nothing radical.

Those who argue that this common-sense decision will have a “chilling effect” on immigrants seeking services should be asked to provide data from the other states. If it’s not happening elsewhere, why is it supposed to happen here?

And when did enforcing federal immigration law become an “anti-freedom agenda,” as the MCLU claimed?

When Baldacci signed it, more than 500,000 illegal immigrants were settling in America on a permanent basis every year. Maine’s executive order was unneeded and totally inappropriate. Thank you, Gov. LePage.

Jonette Christian

Mainers for Sensible Immigration Policy

Holden

Just for the sake of argument, let’s forget the morality of caring for our neighbor. Don’t even consider Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan and who is our neighbor. Forget the Golden Rule found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Give no credence to the compassionate concerns and teachings of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. Ignore the comments of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

Instead, let’s look at the governor’s policy pronouncement that would have the effect of denying social services to undocumented immigrants, solely through the prism of selfishness and pragmatic concerns for us law-abiding taxpayers.

Does the governor’s policy benefit us? I think not. Denying services and creating a segment of the population “ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, insecure,” fearful of seeking medical care, fearful of seeking police assistance, will produce some disastrous consequences.

Some of these consequences are diseases that could be contagious, crime, a greater burden on law enforcement, ignorance and alienation causing disregard of the mores of our communities. Common sense and history teach that these results only increase the economic and social burden on law-abiding taxpayers.

It’s true that the Congress needs to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. Ironically, the governor’s own party refuses to realistically and humanely work toward solving the problem. Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins excepted, find greater political gain in pandering to our baser, more thoughtless instincts than in working for a solution.

Our governor has made a bad situation worse.

Richard Jamborsky

Durham

The Second Vatican Council and Catholic social teaching provide sound moral guidance for church leaders in political matters and for politicians.

But you would never know it. Mainers have judged Bishop Richard Malone’s and the Christian right’s moral delinquency in refusing to recognize the state’s obligation to provide legal safeguards for same-sex unions, in their interest and society’s, in favor of imposing their view of marriage on all.

By contrast, Mainers — and many beyond Maine — are too ready to give a pass to politicians whose moral delinquencies in tolerating environmental degradation, militarism, greed, unjust wars, governments’ slaughter of their citizens, and inhumane treatment extending from torture in Maine prisons to assassinations and torture in secret prisons abroad are far more serious.

That tolerance of moral delinquency has been glaring regarding the continued readiness of Sens. Susan Collins, a Catholic, and Olympia Snowe, often joined by their House counterparts, to fund unjust Afghanistan and Iraq wars and government slaughter in Colombia, and to license, support and fund the racist Zionist dispossession and brutal dehumanization of millions of Palestinians — all actions that ill-serve legitimate U.S. interests.

Now we have Gov. LePage’s heartless moral delinquency in turning his back on the most vulnerable among us and on the common Christian obligation enunciated by John XXIII — to “welcome the stranger in our midst” (who seeks only to feed his or her family which is often impossible in post-NAFTA Mexico, U.S.-dominated and exploited Haiti, etc.).

Moreover, when undocumented immigrants contribute much to the Maine economy, it is disingenuous for LePage to argue that balancing the budget requires dismissal of our neighbors’ human dignity and of the U.S. Bishops’ 2002 recognition that “All of the goods of the Earth belong to all people” — that the need for survival takes priority over the luck of having gotten here first.

William H. Slavick

Portland

It was worth asking why Obama would praise Vick

I would like to give a well-deserved thank-you to Michael Ehringhaus for writing a letter regarding President Obama defending Michael Vick.

I’ve been searching for such outrage and happily found it. Every word filled me with hope and inspiration that there are others who feel as I do. I want to know why, too!

Jo A. Schwartz

Portland