Letters to the Editor | March 2, 2025

Donald Trump doesn’t want you to have birthright citizenship — but you can buy it if you have $5 million.

Patricia A. Westerfer, Philadelphia

My parents and I came to this country legally after World War II. We had to wait seven years before we could even apply for citizenship. The process required patience, perseverance, and a deep commitment to becoming Americans. It infuriates me Donald Trump wants to sell “gold cards” to the wealthiest foreigners as a pathway to citizenship — for a price of $5 million. This is an insult to those who followed the legal immigration process with no shortcuts or special privileges. We are now living in a world controlled by oligarchs and autocrats, where money determines access and power. This is not the America my family sacrificed so much to reach.

Sandy Berenbaum, Richboro

We are being disappointed daily by our government. We see former Mayor Michael Nutter shilling for the fossil fuel industry in his recent Inquirer op-ed, using the most cynical argument possible: that we need more fossil fuels on behalf of poor people, as if poor people have not yet been adequately victimized by climate change and pollution. He is part of a lobbying group for the gas industry, and that’s what makes it the most disappointing. We have become used to seeing state attorneys general sue the federal government along party lines in opposition to new laws and regulations they don’t agree with, but now Pennsylvania’s Republican AG, Dave Sunday, is not willing to act when the Trump administration withholds funds that have been contractually committed under programs passed by the U.S. Congress. Apparently, the elected lawyer for the people of Pennsylvania is not even on our side — even more disappointing.

Karen Melton, Philadelphia, kmelton2020@gmail.com

Opinion columns in The Inquirer are proof the paper has not yet (hopefully never) gone the way of the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Even the New York Times seems to have softened up its coverage of atrocities being committed toward women through the Trump administration. I call them atrocities because that is truly what they are. Even under a more sympathetic administration, everyday life for women was often filled with hostility and threats.

Now, women with decades of U.S. military career service and leadership are having to endure an overtly misogynistic workplace where their boss, the secretary of defense, has just written a Times bestseller titled, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. Well, women were and are there, too. In the thousands. Some in active combat, some in support roles. They were killed, injured, they were also raped in some cases. They face the same physical and psychological challenges male veterans do, plus more.

For these women who sacrificed their careers, their health, and often their lives, the secretary of defense wishes they would just disappear. As if their service and sacrifice for the freedom of our nation never even happened. It is only through the consistent courage of opinion column writers that we can hope for the necessary public pushback required to right this wrong.

Francine Mulligan, Philadelphia

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