Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania:

DACA RECEIPIENTS NEED TO BE PULLED FROM LEGAL LIMBO, Dec. 15

Aroche Enriquez, 27, is a graduate of Lampeter-Strasburg High School. He works as a stonemason. He was brought to the United States from his native Guatemala as a teen and has lived here for more than a decade.

He has an infant son with his fiancée, who has a green card. Their American-born baby will turn 1 on Saturday - possibly without his father.

It would be easy for us to say that Aroche Enriquez should return to his home country, Guatemala. But after more than a decade of living in the United States, Guatemala doesn’t really qualify as his home country anymore.

Moreover, he was following the correct steps to renew his DACA authorization. It appears that his application - along with several thousand others - was delayed by a postal service screw-up. He must feel like a character in a Kafka story about bureaucratic insanity.

According to the website Vox, which first reported Aroche Enriquez’s detainment, his application arrived at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service center in Chicago three weeks after he mailed it and five days after the deadline. So it was rejected.

Carrie Carranza, an immigration legal adviser with Church World Service, told Vox they didn’t really understand what had happened. “We told him, ’We’re so sorry this happened; you did everything right; it was just a fluke, a debacle, out of your control.’ “

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service told The New York Times that there had been an “unintentional temporary mail processing delay in the Chicago area.” After that issue was brought to light by the Times and Vox, the USCIS said DACA recipients whose applications were delayed should wait for a letter telling them they could reapply.

Aroche Enriquez was waiting for that letter when he was detained.

Vox said Aroche Enriquez “might be the first known case of an immigrant getting detained by ICE after his DACA expired under the administration’s new rules. He’s almost certainly the first known case of an immigrant getting detained while waiting to reapply for DACA renewal.”

We urge our elected officials in Washington to work on a broader DACA fix.

Most Democrats and Republicans believe that such a fix is necessary. DACA recipients have worked to make something of themselves - that’s actually a requirement of the DACA program.

To retain DACA status, recipients have to be educated or getting an education; more than 75 percent of DACA recipients are employed. Criminality is a disqualifier.

The DACA program never offered a pathway to citizenship. It was a reprieve that allowed young adults to get educated and work - and pay taxes - in the country they consider home.

U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, who represents a portion of Lancaster County, joined 33 other Republican U.S. House members in signing a recent letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan calling for legislation “to protect DACA recipients before the holidays.”

Other GOP signatories from Pennsylvania included Reps. Ryan Costello, Charlie Dent and Brian Fitzpatrick, whose congressional districts are close to one of our own, the 16th.

As the lawmakers wrote, DACA recipients are “contributing members of our communities and our economy. For many, this is the only country they have ever known. They are American in every way but their immigration status.”

They noted that business leaders, university officials and civic leaders alike support a permanent DACA fix. DACA recipients represent an enormous pool of trained and educated talent that the U.S. shouldn’t want to lose.

Former President Barack Obama made a mistake when he launched DACA as an administrative program through executive order, leaving it vulnerable to future executive action.

Congress can remedy this, and should, without delay. We realize that tax reform is taking priority now. But we have faith in the multitasking abilities of our elected officials.

DACA is a program on which most Americans agree. As conservative LNP Editorial Board member Stuart Wesbury noted in a Dec. 6 op-ed, it should be an issue on which compromise is possible.

Aroche Enriquez already fell into a bureaucratic nightmare. More such nightmares await DACA recipients whose statuses are in limbo unless Congress acts - and soon.

-LNP newspaper

-Online: http://bit.ly/2BeQrbP

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MIGRATION PLAN A NONSTARTER, Dec. 17

By removing itself from the United Nations Global Compact on Migration (GCM), the United States avoids a Turtle Bay entanglement that could snare future U.S. immigration policy at a time when that policy is very much in flux.

It’s hardly surprising that the Obama administration would sign what’s known as the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which sets up the GCM by 2018. After all, this was the same administration that freelanced U.S. immigration policy with measures such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - implemented not by Congress but by a memorandum issued by Homeland Security in 2012.

Among commitments contained in the GCM is that signatories create expanded opportunities for immigrants, such as education for children within “a few months” after arrival. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley pointed out that U.S. immigration rightfully is determined by Americans and that “the global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”

Apart from any infringement, committing to the GCM would make an even bigger mess out of the existing mishmash that is U.S. immigration policy. As it is, immigration enforcement is being flouted by so-called sanctuary cities, which refuse to turn over illegal aliens to federal authorities.

America needs to restore order to its own immigration enforcement before taking on any new migration diktats from the United Nations.

-The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

-Online: http://bit.ly/2BOBo8g

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EXCITING BLACKSMITH SHOP CONCEPT MIXES HISTORY, ECONOMIC VISION, Dec. 17

Could a throw-back industry become the symbol of progress in downtown Johnstown?

And could an icon from the city’s industrial heritage be reborn as a link to a brighter future?

The Center for Metal Arts in New York has proposed opening an educational center in the former Cambria Iron Works blacksmith shop.

Last week, the nonprofit organization gave a presentation to the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority, which owns the landmark.

The Center for Metal Arts is looking to locate a trade and arts school in Johnstown, where blacksmithing and metalsmithing workshops would be offered in areas such as toolmaking, metal sculpture work and custom production of items such as cutlery, handrails and gates - as our Jocelyn Brumbaugh first reported.

Learning opportunities would be available for beginners to experts. The school would offer public workshops, internships and training for those looking to fire a forge professionally, especially metal artists.

Patrick Quinn, program director for The Center of Metal Arts, even hopes to restore and use the shop’s five steam hammers - including a 10-ton hammer that is owned by the Smithsonian Institute.

“Using them is the best way to preserve them,” Quinn told the JRA board. “It’s exciting to see all those tools up there waiting to be used again.”

Quinn has been working with Korns Galvanizing Co. Inc. of Johnstown to create a business plan that could make the idea a reality.

Kathleen Sheehan Ortel, president and CEO of Korns Galvanizing, said Quinn and his team “have the energy and experience on the entrepreneurial side that this project needs.”

The blacksmith project has already received a boost in the form of a $70,000 grant from the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies. The grant will offset about half the costs of relocation for The Center of Metal Arts, which would set up operations in the former pattern shop while the blacksmith shop is being renovated by the JRA.

This is an exciting development for Johnstown and would be another feather in the cap of the redevelopment agency, which has also acquired an important property at 416 Main St. - the former home of a Presbyterian church and most recently the Greater Johnstown/Cambria County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The JRA is preparing the Main Street site - a beautiful structure with a glass facade - for other potential tenants.

“I think it’s certainly a building that could be renovated and brought back into use,” said Raymond Balta, the JRA’s chairman. “I think we’ll be able to find people that will be interested in utilizing that space.”

That’s the creative approach that will move Johnstown ahead, even as the city works itself through challenges - such as high pension costs and declining population - that have conspired to keep the municipality in Act 47 distressed status.

Johnstown may someday reap the benefits of efforts to establish economic and cultural “bridges” with Pittsburgh, and especially the push to expand commuter rail service between the two cities.

And the Vision 2025 endeavor is seeing success through many community projects that are working together to help revitalize the city.

The blacksmith shop proposal should be a hit with economic development enthusiasts and history buffs alike.

What a wonderful concept: Utilize a site that once stood at the heart of the Bethlehem Steel empire of Johnstown’s heyday to energize and inspire future growth, all while preserving the Cambria Iron Works facilities for their historic value.

The JRA and other local agencies should pound the anvil with vigor until this deal is set in steel.

We look forward to the day that the forge is fired once again at the Cambria Iron Works.

-Johnstown Tribune-Democrat

-Online: http://bit.ly/2D5bXNA

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STATE DELIVERS ON KEY PROJECT FOR ERIE’S FUTURE, Dec. 17

Last July, officials of the Wolf administration came to Erie to deliver $2.6 million to begin refining concepts and doing preliminary engineering on a crucial piece of reinventing Erie: fully connecting the bayfront across the Bayfront Parkway to downtown Erie.

On Friday, state officials returned to commit $30 million to turning that idea into reality. The money will pay for design and construction of improved links for vehicle traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists across the parkway, which now acts as a physical and psychological barrier between some of Erie’s most important assets.

The funding was announced at a news conference at Erie Insurance by Transportation Secretary Leslie Richards and Dennis Davin, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development.

A key recommendation of Erie Refocused, the city’s comprehensive plan, is creating an “iconic connection” between the bayfront and downtown Erie within 10 years. With Friday’s announcement, that work is funded and ahead of schedule.

Though that was the biggest headline, state officials also delivered other good news. The Wolf administration committed to grants and tax credits to fight blight and strengthen core neighborhoods, especially on the east and west bayfront, that brought the total funding announced Friday to $32.5 million. All of that work is directly aligned with the recommendations of Erie Refocused.

The funding includes Keystone Communities grants of $300,000 for the Bayfront East Side Taskforce to fight blight and renovate property in the bayfront neighborhoods, and $50,000 to the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Network for facade improvements in the Little Italy neighborhood.

The tax credits to a variety of nonprofits, to be provided under the Neighborhood Assistance Program, total $1.6 million. They will leverage $2.5 million in private donations to those groups, officials said.

State officials emphasized that the funding results to a sizable degree from political, business and civic leaders speaking with “one voice” about Erie’s and the region’s priorities. That hasn’t always been this community’s strong suit.

Local leaders had made clear to the state that connecting the bayfront and downtown was a top priority and a key to executing the vision of Erie Refocused. On Friday, the state responded to that consensus.

The result is a dramatic step forward for the burgeoning drive to turn Erie around. It adds considerable juice to the momentum building on a variety of fronts.

Remaking the Bayfront Parkway corridor dovetails perfectly, for example, with fast-developing plans by major players in the business community to invest downtown via the Erie Downtown Development Corp., and with the planned Harbor Place and Bayfront Place developments.

It all adds up to recognition by the state that, in Richards’ words, “something very special is happening in Erie.”

-Erie Times News

-Online: http://bit.ly/2BAVY9T

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THIS CITY IS MURDER: TIME TO HALT RISE IN HOMICIDES, Dec. 19

At 11:59 p.m. Dec. 12, Talik Monsanto became Philadelphia’s 300th homicide victim of 2017.

“He was a good, loving child,” says his grieving mother, Atiya Wilson. “He loved his friends. He was outgoing, a people person, affectionate.”

Monsanto loved his friends so much that when he heard they were in a fight, he tried to help. For his loyalty, he was shot in the back of the head. No one was around when police found his body face down on the cold sidewalk at American and Westmoreland Streets.

Monsanto was only 21 when he became the 300th homicide victim this year. By midnight Dec. 18, the number had hit 304. This is the highest the city’s homicide rate has reached since 2012, and a considerable increase since the city’s lowest rate, in 2013, of 238. With fewer than a dozen days left this year, it’s likely Philadelphia will have more homicides than New York City, which reports 267 homicides so far this year and has a population of 8.53 million to our 1.56 million.

But there are important differences. Philadelphia is the poorest of the nation’s big cities and New York City’s so rich, it has 114 cops per square mile. In Philadelphia, it’s 41. And our army is out-gunned in a city flooded with illegal weapons that are so easy to get, a criminal can even rent a piece for a quick job. New York, by contrast, has some of the toughest gun laws in the country.

At least 80 percent of the city’s homicide victims were killed with guns. Shooters are using guns to settle turf battles in the lucrative drug trade, to extract revenge, to finish arguments, and to kill themselves. At the same time, police started the year about 400 down from the department’s roughly 6,500 staffing level. And, the homicide clearance rate - the percentage of cases cleared by arrest or other means - has slipped to its lowest in 15 years.

It’s all pretty dismal, but there are signs the city is going into 2018 on firmer footing.

Police Commissioner Richard Ross said the department will be close to full strength early in the year, and he’s already making gun-related policy changes. Ross created a gun intelligence bureau, which rapidly investigates shootings with an eye towards figuring out if there will be a retaliation shooting. That task force can also follow the illegal gun trade, stemming the easy access malevolent individuals have to lethal weapons.

To follow up on gun arrests, which number over 1,000 a year, Ross wants a gun court with judges who specialize in gun crimes and punishment. This is an excellent idea that should be funded and up and running as soon as possible.

Monsanto’s murder illustrates a problem that smart policing can’t solve. His so-called friends, the very crew he died helping, didn’t have the courage and decency to wait with his body and give police leads on his killers.

From reluctant witnesses to elected leaders, the entire city has to take on this fight. Leaving it just to the police and emergency room doctors to patch up victims isn’t enough.

-The Philadelphia Inquirer

-Online: http://bit.ly/2oZJNRi