Letter: Send buses and tents to border

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The policy to send young adults to impoverished Mexico and Central America is well intentioned. Hoping to elevate folks spiritually is commendable. However, we are sending subliminal messages about the land of "milk and honey." Impressionable children do not have any chance to immigrate, dead or alive. Legally or illegally, it doesn't matter. Life matters. The Donner Party mattered.

Throwing Halloween candy onto the Interstate highways of America would be deemed reckless endangerment and irresponsible behavior. Utah has no politically correct options or moral unity to deal with the consequences. Kids are dying on our borders.

Rather than re-enact stoic pioneer days with Wyoming hand-cart treks, let's send buses and tents. Let's act in the present instead of reveling in the past.

It's time to reap the seeds we've sown or acknowledge that, indeed, we are the grim reapers. Folks advocating states' rights ought to take a stand on humanitarian grounds.

Peter Kolbay

Holladay