Letters to the Editor | Feb. 17, 2026

The Thursday print edition of The Inquirer provided several reasons why we should applaud the current presidential administration for its contributions to criminal justice reform. For example, unlike many liberal state and local politicians who have talked the talk about providing employment opportunities for former criminals, Associated Press writer Ryan J. Foley reported that enlightened managers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have hired these individuals while they were still exhibiting criminal behavior. It should be mentioned that ICE has found creative ways for these individuals to sublimate their violent temperaments and offensive libidos into constructive law enforcement activities that have made cities like New York, Minneapolis, and Chicago so much safer.

In that same edition of The Inquirer, Washington Post reporters described how the U.S. Department of Justice has successfully kept the names of sexual predators in the Jeffrey Epstein files out of the public eye. In an era in which progressives have rallied to “ban the box” that would otherwise require job applicants to describe their criminal history, the Justice Department has gone one step further in assuring Epstein criminals will not be economically penalized.

It is refreshing to see that just like Lady Justice, the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice have undertaken their duties as if they were blindfolded.

Coleman Poses, Philadelphia

Recent reports that President Donald Trump is threatening to cancel elections and bypass Congress with an executive order on election reforms brought to mind another presidential power grab.

In 1973, White House counsel John Dean famously warned President Richard Nixon that the Watergate cover-up was a “cancer within — close to the presidency.” He cautioned that this corruption would consume Nixon’s presidency if allowed to fester. History proved him right, as Nixon resigned in disgrace.

Today, that warning rings with renewed urgency. By appointing Kurt Olsen as director of election security and Heather Honey as deputy assistant secretary for election integrity — both known election deniers — Trump has institutionalized systemic subversion. With his intent to nationalize elections on the heels of these appointments, the administration is poised to seize state-run processes, despite having no constitutional authority to do so.

Had it not been for the stabilizing counsel from the president’s first-term advisers, who have since been replaced with yes-men and ideologues, the republic may not have survived. With these guardians of democracy gone, the American Experiment is in grave jeopardy.

Jane Larkin, Tampa, Fla.

I read the article about plans by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to spend $38.3 billion on detention centers with revulsion.

Donald Trump’s administration spends a fortune of our tax dollars to create concentration camps across the country. The cruelty is mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, we have a housing crisis throughout the nation. Imagine if those funds were diverted from tormenting our immigrant neighbors and devoted to providing affordable housing for our communities.

Judith Silver, Philadelphia

ICE is going to spend over $38 billion on detention centers. This country has so many needs — medical costs skyrocketing, a housing shortage, people mired in poverty, disaster relief, drunk drivers who kill 10,000 people per year (far more than ever have been killed by foreign nationals in the last half century), and the list goes on and on — and yet, the Trump administration believes this is a good use of our tax dollars. This surge to “mass deportation” is just another solution in search of a problem.

Steven Morley, Philadelphia

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