Public needs to know whereabouts of released criminals
Re: “ICE’s ‘catch and release’ puts illegal immigrant criminals back on the street,” Oct. 19
The name, photo and address of every illegal alien convicted of a crime and released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be entered into a database. The public must be able to use ZIP codes to search the database. There must be no delay in letting the public know their location.
Until such a database is created, the various sex offender databases should be used to list released criminal aliens as well. A few years ago, an illegal alien raped and sodomized — at knifepoint — a 59-year-old woman in our neighborhood. Such a database might prevent at least some of these horrible crimes.
Jim McDonald
Alexandria
Democrats want us to follow ‘The French Way’
Re: “Fuel supplies low as French protest pension reform,” Oct. 16
Protests in France have profound implications for America, pointing to the radical differences between the Democratic Left and the Republican/Tea Party Right.
Our Founders knew that big government and large welfare states weaken the character and spirit of the individual. When France, a country in financial extremis, asked its citizens to help by simply increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62, millions of “the entitled” responded in fury by trying to shut down the entire country.
The Left wishes to transform America into a European nation like France, while the Right trembles at the change Mr. Obama and his ideological allies have been waiting for.
Howard Sachs
Chevy Chase
O’Donnell was right on church/state issue
Re: “Newsmakers,” Oct. 13
Most readers probably missed the four-sentence brief that insinuated that Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell was laughingly ignorant about our own Constitution. The fact of the matter is, she was right. Nowhere in that document are the words “separation of church and state” used.
While it’s true that the First Amendment insists that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it does not expressly mandate that the two entities cannot cross over from time to time.
Thomas Jefferson, the creator of the phrase we now know as the “Establishment Clause,” was a deeply religious man who valued the presence of religion in our society, but also recognized the danger of having Congress interfere with religion in any way.
Jefferson’s phrase was meant to keep government out of religion — not religion out of government. I was deeply disappointed that a publication of The Examiner’s caliber and quality did not explain the issue better.
Caitlin Blaney
Ellicott City, Md.
