Letters to the Editor | Jan. 22, 2026

The primary responsibility of law enforcement is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens.

Cooperation between jurisdictions and among all levels of law enforcement is a key component in obtaining that objective in our democracy. When state and local elected officials prevent their police from cooperating with federal officers enforcing federal law while allowing lawbreaking illegal aliens to roam their streets, it creates a dangerous situation for all involved — as we clearly see now. Through their inflammatory rhetoric, they incite and condone the type of resistance and violence against federal law enforcement that they would not tolerate if directed at their own police officers. Their words “inspire” Renee Good and many like her to put themselves in harm’s way while impeding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts illegally. Liberals decry Good’s death while curiously being silent when members of their community were the victims of murder and violent crime at the hands of illegal immigrants. It is a sad commentary on sanctuary states and cities when the plight of illegals is prioritized over the safety of their actual citizens.

What kind of democracy do we have where so many of these liberal elected officials ignore their oaths of office to defend the Constitution by obeying only the laws that they agree with?

Mark Fenstermaker, Warminster, markfense@gmail.com

“The moment you start dehumanizing people, the moment you start calling people Hitler, the moment you start doing that, it’s a slippery slope to violence,” Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick said during a recent interview with CBS.

If I‘m reading this quote right, Sen. McCormick is saying if you call ICE Hitler, you’re going to get Hitler. That’s the problem in the first place: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is operating like the Gestapo. All rhetoric aside, an American mother was killed on the streets of an American city while exercising her constitutional right to protest. How can anyone be OK with that?

Michael Galante, Philadelphia

The U.S. Department of Justice has said it will not be investigating the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. In Philadelphia, if a police officer discharges their weapon, it automatically triggers an Internal Affairs investigation, and I believe that is true for all local law enforcement agencies.

I retired from a federal law enforcement agency under the DOJ, and any use of force automatically triggered an investigation and after-action review by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). ICE is an agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. I have not seen any reports of the DHS OIG investigating this use-of-force incident.

Julio Casiano Jr., Philadelphia

Since Donald Trump’s invasion and arrest (kidnapping?) of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, I have been thinking about an analogy that could put this in a different context for Trump supporters.

Let’s go back to 1970. We are deep in the midst of the war we were carrying out against Vietnam. What if the North Vietnamese sent a secret commando force to Washington, D.C., and captured Richard Nixon, brought him to Hanoi, and put him on trial for crimes against humanity? Whatever we might think of him, Maduro was the head of state in Venezuela. If another country did to our head of state what we did to him, we would be outraged, too.

Peter Handler, Philadelphia

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