Letters: Kim Reynolds, unlike Joe Biden, cares about Iowans' safety

States have a duty to defend citizens from immigrants’ crimes

The Register editorial board would have us believe Gov. Kim Reynolds’ common-sense attempt to mitigate Joe Biden’s flood of illegal (not merely “undocumented”) aliens is “plainly incompatible with federal law.”

Actually, federal law, prohibits illegal immigration. The three-judge appellate panel blocking Texas’ attempt to enforce border security did so for precisely that reason. The feds, not the states, are supposed to control the border, and when federal “politics” ignore our laws, the states have a moral obligation to protect their citizens.

Americans beaten, robbed, raped and murdered because of Biden’s scofflaw non-border policy would have been safe had our southern border been secure.

There was a time when Democrats, including Biden, were tough on border security, but now, as a matter of political survival, they want to import people and make them citizens who will vote for Democrats.

Even leftist echo chambers like NPR, the so-called fact-checkers, and major print media are forced to admit the number of illegal entries is in the millions under Biden.

The Heritage Foundation reports two-thirds of federal arrests involve noncitizens.

Nearly half of those arrested in 2023 had multiple charges and criminal convictions, but percentages are irrelevant. Had the border been secure, none of those crimes would have happened. This is according to Judicial Watch.

Has the editorial board seen those numbers?

John Burns, West Des Moines

A frightening look at what police think of us mere citizens

If you think the police have your best interests at heart, read the March 31 guest essay from former Des Moines police chief William Moulder.

His entire argument against citizen review boards is that it might be hard, and that it might cost money to remove bad cops and policies. He thinks police forces operate better when there is less accountability and not more, by entrenching power in the hands with less oversight and less transparency.

This former police chief holds a garbage position that even cites the Republican Party in a nonsensical way to justify less oversight on the most armed and funded department of the local municipality. It’s an embarrassing letter that would be laughable if it wasn't so outright dangerous and harmful to the citizens of all cities, let alone Des Moines.

If you don't like boards because you don't want cops accountable, because you don't want city officials accountable, just say that. Don't give me this hand-waving about how democracy and community building are just so hard, so just let the people with the guns handle it. It’s dishonest, disrespectful, and clearly shows what pro-police advocates think of the general public: They are a flock of sheep to be monitored and controlled, not a population to be accountable to or responsible for.

Citizen review boards are designed to create that transparency and create trust in their law enforcement organizations and city leaders, opposing review boards means you oppose doing either of those things and letters like that make that abundantly clear.

Jason Benell, Des Moines

Production animal agriculture has devastated Iowa

It was devastating to read the excerpt from Austin Frerick's "Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry."

To know that pigs in Iowa outnumber humans 7-to-1 is mind-boggling, not to mention that these pigs produce a volume of manure equivalent to 84 million people.  How have we let a few greedy 'barons” eviscerate what was once the family farm, the farm that nourished a family, that strengthened a community, that treated its animals with the respect they deserve?

Animals could breathe fresh air, see the sunshine, enjoy human interaction and, in the end, receive gratitude for their lives. I cannot imagine their pain and suffering now.  Those who have made hog confinements the agri-kings of Iowa may not live near enough to smell the stench emanating from their operations, but perhaps, like Clarice in "Silence of the Lambs," they can hear the cries of the pigs as they are led to be slaughtered having never experienced anything but pain in their brief lives.

It is the health of our families living close to these confinement operations that is most disturbing.  How can we as a state allow this to happen?  We can and must, as California has done, do something about it.

Patsy Shors, Des Moines

Are there too many people on Earth?

Mashal Husain states in her Register guest essay that the work of Norman Borlaug’s “Miracle Wheat” saved more than a billion lives on the Indian subcontinent.

All things considered, was this a good thing to do?  Does someone have a sustainable plan for feeding the many billions of new children the saved billion will soon create? Is it wrong to think about how many people can the world sustain 25 years from now? The fish in the oceans are disappearing. Over 50% of Iowa’s topsoil has already eroded and been flushed down the Mississippi River during my life. There is no hope of creating new topsoil for Iowa, and our rivers are full of excessive fertilizers now.

Michael Montross, Winterset

Iowa is on a path to permanent ruin

Ag business folks will likely look at the disaster on the East Nishnabotna River — 50 miles of dead river life — as the cost of doing business. The tiny fine for dead fish will mean nothing to the agriculture industry in Iowa. All the other life has no value apparently. Nor does the life downstream and in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ag economist will weigh the value of our corn, beans, chickens, and hogs against the tiny fines for killing what fish might be left in our waters. The Department of Natural Resources bragged for years about the trout fishing in northeast Iowa. That was before the DNR gave a permit to Supreme Beef on Bloody Run. Aldo Leopold and Ding Darling valued nature for its own sake. Others look at landscape and water only in terms of potential “earnings.”

It is no wonder that native people and the educated who are still here in Iowa are depressed. Maybe that is why our “cancer causing” alcohol consumption is so high. (Don’t look to ag for causes of cancer in Iowa.) Question: When they are done destroying Iowa to make fuel, what then? Our soil is the best of the best. There is no better place on the planet to grow food. Our ancestors grew food with much less impact on the soil and waters. Well water was cold, healthy and free. Country kids used to drink tile water!

Mike Delaney, Windsor Heights

Unlike Biden, Reynolds cares about our safety

Thank you, Gov. Kim Reynolds, for once again sending Iowa State Patrol officers and National Guard soldiers to the US/Mexico border, and thank you to those who have volunteered to go. It’s nice to see leaders who actually care about protecting our country and its citizens. The money being spent on this mission is coming from federal American Rescue Plan funds, and I can’t think of a better way to use this money.

Sue Vande Kamp, Nevada

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Letters: Kim Reynolds, unlike Joe Biden, cares about Iowans' safety