Letters to the Editor | July 24, 2024

Do you remember back in February when the bipartisan immigration and foreign aid bill was killed at the insistence of Donald Trump? Trump made it clear that such legislation — designed to increase personnel and relieve pressure at the border — would deprive him of an issue on which he desperately wanted to run. The Republican lawmakers gave him what he wanted.

Fast-forward to Trump’s Republican National Convention speech, where he evoked images of “lunatics,” Hannibal Lecter, child killers, and rapists flooding into our country. And, according to Trump, those who weren’t busy committing heinous crimes were taking jobs from Black and brown citizens, in particular, while living for free in air-conditioned comfort in luxury hotels. Where would Trump’s campaign be without the terror-inducing lies about the border?

There is no doubt Kamala Harris will be the target of even more lies about the problems at the border, an area of responsibility for her.

Please remember what Trump did in February, and the cynical strategy that puts his lust for power before everything.

Ginny Goldberg, Wyndmoor

When discussing tuition-free initiatives at medical schools such as Johns Hopkins and New York University, one must consider who truly benefits — it may not be the underrepresented medical students you would expect.

Johns Hopkins is tuition-free but with a caveat: only students with a family income below $300,000 will have tuition fully covered, and if their income is below $175,000, then their living expenses will be covered, as well. This is very different from NYU, which has a blanket approach of covering tuition for all students regardless of family income and does not offer additional stipends (excluding merit scholarships) to cover living expenses. A low-income medical student may be offered more financial aid at a need-based school that considers family income and takes all costs associated with attending into account instead of just tuition. As such, is NYU’s tuition-free program truly equitable?

I applaud Johns Hopkins for taking a more holistic approach to being tuition-free. By expanding the benefits beyond tuition and providing aid by family income level, Johns Hopkins gets around NYU’s limitations and is one step closer to supporting diverse low-income students.

Layla Abdulla, Philadelphia

Will I-95 between Callowhill and Cottman ever be completed? I used to live in Bridesburg and have now lived in Virginia for over 30 years. Of course, I returned to visit family in the area. It is unreal that construction has seemingly been ongoing, and a nightmare, for all of those 30-plus years. A worker could have started and finished a career in a one-mile section of the highway. I am sure there are second- and maybe third-generation workers on that stretch. Is that the plan? Job security on a project that will never, ever end? The Bridge Street interchange alone has taken well over a decade just to pile up dirt and remove that old school. Add in that it is a filthy mess of a road. Tires, car parts, trash just clutter the entire section. What is the endgame? State-funded welfare for work in perpetuity? I am guessing this is the reason city leaders do nothing about it.

Michele Baird, Virginia Beach, Va.

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