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International students are here legally after being granted student visas. Now, they fear that they will be the next student to have their permissions unexpectedly revoked and be required to leave.

Some get no warning of their status change before suddenly being seized by masked plainclothes ICE agents in unmarked cars, held in jail, and removed from the country without trial or due process. This is a violation of their rights.

Most have neither broken laws, nor broken any of the rules they agreed to follow when granted their student visa. They were targeted using AI data-mining via Musk and DOGE for their social media and protest activity regarding the Gaza situation.

ICE is capturing citizens and permanent residents. A “60 Minutes” special report found 75% of 200 migrants deported for $6 million per year to El Salvador had no criminal history (despite false claims they were MS-13 gang members.) El Savador refuses to return Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, mistakenly deported by “administrative error.”

Trump is exploring options to send “homegrowns” next while claiming he has no power to bring people back home.

Appealing to empathy and constitutionality isn’t swaying politicians who “trust in Trump,” so I’ll appeal logically to the party proclaiming fiscal responsibility.

Do we have so many university students in this country that we can afford to weed out the ones who disagree with this administration? These actions rob these individuals of their aspirations, it harms their families, our communities, the economy, and society when we lose out on their productivity, diversity and education.

Understaffed hospitals hire international graduates who came to our country seeking education and a better future. So do schools, tech companies, law firms and all business sectors. Students come for an education and stay to live and work. They contribute to a better educated public. Our country already can’t fill positions for skilled labor like teachers, doctors, plumbers, IT, electricians, engineers and more. Student deportations worsen these labor shortages.

Immigrant workers fill crucial roles in our economy. Many perform backbreaking but necessary jobs, like seasonal field workers and construction laborers.

Immigrants pay property, income, sales and fuel taxes. They patronize our local businesses, buy our products, and circulate money in our economy.

For various reasons, more people are choosing to have fewer, if any, children. Birth rates in most developed countries are declining and lowering their economic growth. An aging population strains their social programs and health care systems.

Immigration helps offset lower birth rates by increasing the number of working-age adults. It helps America maintain a healthy age-dependency ratio and mitigates the threat of shrinking productivity experienced by our fellow developed countries. Immigrants build families, contributing to more births.

Trump’s unconstitutional efforts to cancel birthright citizenship would further shrink our working-age population and future generations.

America is a melting pot of immigrants. We are neighbors, customers, employers and friends. We desperately need these people and should encourage immigration. Please, call your representatives and tell them that we can’t afford the cost of losing our immigrants.

Bethany Greiner
Albert Lea