6
CapitalPress.com
September 22, 2017
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editorial Board
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O UR V IEW
Congress must ‘let them stay, or make them go’
W
e must clarify our
position on the
disposition of 12
million illegal immigrants living
in the United States.
We continue to believe
the answer is to offer illegal
immigrants with otherwise clean
criminal records temporary legal
status and a path to permanent
residency (but not citizenship)
after 10 years if they meet
strict requirements. We think
the border should be secured.
A viable guestworker program
must be established, and
employers must verify the work
status of their employees.
Only Congress can do this,
and we think Congress should
act.
A reader correctly points
out that Congress has acted.
Under long-standing statute,
undocumented and unauthorized
entry into the United States
is illegal, and such persons
illegally entering are subject to
deportation.
We’ve never thought
otherwise.
But perhaps we have not been
clear that we do not support
the status quo, which supports
ongoing criminality. We want
Congress to pick between the
only two alternatives — “let
them stay, or make them go.”
More clearly, Congress
should change the law and grant
them temporary legal status,
or fund the executive branch’s
enforcement of current statutes
and provide for their orderly
O UR V IEW
Readers’ views
Every county should
have an ag commission
W
ashington’s Pierce
County Council has
appropriated $25,000
to re-establish the county’s
agriculture commission.
It’s a positive development.
Though ag commissions in
Washington serve only in an
advisory capacity, producers
and ag groups say having an
offi cial forum in which to
present the views of farmers
and ag businesses on policy
matters would serve agriculture’s
interests.
The county disbanded the ag
commission during the Great
Recession amid budget concerns.
The Farm Bureau, at the county
and state levels, advocated
restoring the advisory board
partly in response to a debate
in Pierce County over how
much land should be designated
“agricultural resource lands.”
Environmental groups said
increasing the number of acres
with that label would protect
farmland from urban sprawl.
Some farmers said that zoning
— a mixed bag of benefi ts and
restrictions — may preserve
farmland, but it wasn’t enough to
preserve the business of farming
and complained about not being
consulted.
The county code calls for
the county executive to appoint
seven voting members to the
agriculture commission. Five
must be producers.
We’re happy Pierce County
farmers will soon have another
venue to tell their story. We hope
other counties not now served by
such a panel will see the merit
and establish ag commissions of
their own.
Capital Press File
A Washington state dairy farm. Pierce
County, Wash., has re-established its
county agriculture commission.
Oregon needs stronger leadership
to improve forest health, prevent fi res
By KNUTE BUEHLER
For the Capital Press
T
his summer’s wild-
fi re season has trau-
matized Oregonians
across our state with more
than 500,000 acres burned,
so far, this summer. Fami-
lies have lost homes and
livelihoods. The special
places where we hike, bike
and camp are scarred or
still burning. We’ve en-
dured weeks of thick wild-
fire smoke creating public
health emergencies and
causing school activities
and other events to be can-
celed. The courageous men
and women fighting Ore-
gon’s fires deserve our deep
appreciation because with-
out them, this crisis would
have been much worse.
The southeastern Unit-
ed States has hurricanes
and the Midwest has tor-
nadoes. We have wildfires,
and each year our wildfire
seasons have grown longer
and the fires more severe.
The impacts of forest over-
crowding, drought and cli-
mate change are altering
our forests and grasslands,
making them more vulner-
able to fires, insects and
disease.
Simply stated, our for-
ests and public lands are in
trouble and Oregon needs
stronger leadership and
new policies to save them.
Guest
comment
Knute Buehler
Nearly half of the forests
in Oregon are owned by
the federal government.
Thousands of acres of these
forests are at immediate
risk of catastrophic wild-
fire, insects and disease.
A century of wildfire sup-
pression, worsened by the
more recent policies dis-
couraging timber harvests
and thinning, have resulted
in unnaturally overcrowd-
ed forests and high tree
mortality. In fact, the U.S.
Forest Service’s most re-
cent Forest Inventory Anal-
ysis found that Oregon has
571,000,000 standing dead
trees, with a large majority
on federal forests.
From the Chetco Bar
Fire in Southwest Ore-
gon to the Eagle Creek
Fire in the Gorge, we’re
witnessing what happens
when fires ignite on feder-
al lands and are allowed to
grow and spread to nearby
communities. Science now
clearly shows that actively
managed forests have few-
er dead trees and are more
resilient to fires. As we’ve
seen with fuels reduction
near Central Oregon’s Mil-
li Fire, fires become less
severe and easier to con-
repatriation. It seems reluctant to
do either.
If we are to honor the rule of
law, the 12 million cannot be
allowed to stay in the shadows as
they have for decades.
Let them stay in the light, or
make them leave in the light.
Congress must make the hard
choice of what law it wants to
uphold.
tain on forests that have
been thinned. As governor,
I’ll replace the decades of
preservationist dogma that
has flourished under Kate
Brown with science-based,
common-sense forest man-
agement policies.
We should utilize Or-
egon’s modern, efficient
forest products businesses
to create more family-wage
jobs by restoring the health
of our federally owned
forests. Hamstrung by her
fidelity to narrow special
interests, Governor Brown
has done little to either lead
or raise awareness of the
need better forest manage-
ment policies that can ben-
efit both our environment
and economy.
Instead, Governor Brown
has proposed cutting state
fire protection programs,
done little to use the fed-
eral “Good Neighbor Au-
thority” to allow Oregon
to help treat federal lands,
and pursues policies that
do nothing to address the
real climate change impacts
of allowing our forests to
burn.
If we’re serious about
reducing carbon emissions,
Governor Brown would
support efforts to expedite
fuels reduction projects on
public lands. In 2007, for
example, emissions from
Oregon forest fires pro-
duced enough greenhouse
gases to equal Orego-
nians’ 3.5 million cars be-
ing driven for three years.
Rather than allowing our
unhealthy forests to burn,
we can put Oregonians to
work harvesting trees from
overcrowded forests and
sequester carbon as man-
ufactured wood products.
The wood can also be used
to promote green buildings
through the use of cross
laminated timber.
Having grown up in
Douglas County, I have a
unique appreciation for the
economic and social value
of healthy, productive for-
ests. And living in Central
Oregon, I’ve witnessed
first-hand the devastation
that arrives with each fire
season. As governor, I’ll
be a strong advocate to in-
crease the scale and pace of
active forest management
and restoration on public
lands.
And, rest assured, when
the radicalized environ-
mental activists start pro-
testing my leadership and
decisions, I won’t be in-
timidated and I won’t back
down. Oregon’s forests and
public lands and the lives
and livelihoods of Orego-
nians are too important.
Knute Buehler rep-
resents Bend in the Oregon
House. He is seeking the
Republican nomination for
Oregon governor.
Congress has
already passed an
immigration law
The Capital Press has ad-
vocated for total amnesty for
over 12 million illegal aliens,
for DACA, for DAPA, and has
said, of illegal immigrants that,
in their place, “we would do the
same.”
These are all wrong posi-
tions, legally and morally. Sys-
tematic breaking of American
law should not be rewarded.
Illegal aliens and DACA recip-
ients have broken American law
by illegal entry or overstay, and
violated American law every
day — every day — by using
false/forged/stolen documents
to obtain work and benefi ts, by
lying and using false documents
on I-9 forms, by tax fraud, driv-
ing without licenses and insur-
ance, and so on. These are not
minor crimes, and are deeply
corrupting to America’s Rule of
Law.
American citizens are prop-
erly prosecuted and punished for
such crimes. DACA recipients,
and their parents, have no re-
spect for rule of law, and believe
that they may pick and choose
which laws to obey. This is a
deeply corrupting and immoral
idea. Perhaps they learned from
Mexico’s deep corruption that
laws have no moral content, but
are only something to be dealt
with. They fl ed Mexico, but
brought its corruption here.
Complicit in this are many
Americans, who likewise are
corrupted by using and defend-
ing illegal aliens, especially as
workers when the employers
know they are illegal. These
are crimes when committed by
American citizens, and are no
less crimes, and moral wrongs,
when committed by illegal
aliens or complicit Americans.
Over and over again, the Capital
Press justifi es law-breaking un-
der a plea of “necessity.”
Please note that President
Trump did not “end” DACA,
a temporary program which
would have expired on its own
terms. Instead he temporarily
extended it, which passing the
responsibility to Congress to
approve it or not. When you say
that “Congress must act,” Con-
gress has acted: we have an im-
migration law. It is illegal aliens
and law enforcement who have
broken the law and/or failed to
enforce the law, and who “must
act.” Many readers of the Capi-
tal Press know illegal aliens, and
know precisely of what I write:
every day they break the law,
and they teach their children by
example to break the law.
The 1986 Amnesty was
attended by huge amounts of
fraud, and extended by out-
rageous courts for decades
for those who were never in-
tended to be eligible. DACA
already is attended by huge
amounts of fraud, by lack of
vetting and interviews, and by
approval of those recommend-
ed for denial. We are told to
be sympathetic to “children”
who have “no connection with
their home country,” yet over
50,000 promptly visited their
home countries with Advance
Parole, and then obtained
Green Cards based on these
visits.
I know many Mexican fami-
lies here, who retain deep family
ties with Mexico. In decades of
working with legal and illegal
Mexican families, I know of
scarcely any who lack deep ties
to Mexico, and those who can
go there regularly to visit. The
“no connection” idea is a myth
or lie.
Moreover, DACA children
in the U.S. have had the ben-
efi t of a free education, some
through college, and free health
care (not available in Mexico)
and years of welfare benefi ts,
which would give them signifi -
cant advantages if they returned
to Mexico, which needs such
educated people. Many have
abused the U.S. tax system,
claiming unqualifi ed depen-
dents, illegally claiming Earned
Income Credits, using false/
stolen Social Security numbers,
and so on. We watch DACA
recipients easily leave home to
go to college, but then are told
they cannot go to Mexico, the
major destination of American
tourists and where thousands
of Americans live. Mexico is
an advanced country, No. 12
in the world in GDP. In spite
of its very real problems (Have
you all visited Chicago or Balti-
more recently?), it is an incred-
ibly rich and beautiful country,
which needs educated citizens
for its culture and economy. We
would not be sending DACA re-
cipients or illegal aliens to Hell,
but to a great country, which
needs and wants them (in spite
of the potential loss of billions
of dollars in remittances, $120
billion in total, $23 billion to
Mexico).
Mexico exports its problems
to the U.S., and receives $23
billion in remittances annual-
ly, while U.S. employers gain
cheap employees. The econom-
ic advantages to some are clear,
but it is morally wrong.
Alan Gallagher
Canby, Ore.
Wolves needlessly
kill bull
We love our DeBruycker
Charolais bulls. In 2015, we
traveled to Great Falls, Mont.,
and bought #480, by JDJ Wy-
man X3006, for $5,250.
On Sept. 2, #480 was a
confi rmed wolf kill. He was
3 years old and vigorous and
healthy — about 1,900 pounds.
At 6:30 a.m. that morning,
we four-wheeled up to our
privately owned allotment to
scatter out some of our cows
onto another privately owned
pasture we had leased. #480
was just standing there. When
we tried to move him he slow-
ly walked a short distance and
laid down under a sage brush.
We were gone at most a half-
hour. When we got back to him
he was dead.
Because there had been
around 10 confi rmed wolf kills
in the forest directly above us,
we called our government trap-
per to come look at him. Upon
skinning his face, he found
multiple bite marks all over
it, under the hide. There were
multiple little bite marks under
his fl anks, on the inside of his
upper hind legs and lower bel-
ly. In our area, the wolves do
not usually eat our cattle. They
are only training their pups to
kill. They run them to death,
then leave.
If you fi nd one of your an-
imals dead — no blood, no
visible cause — and you have
wolves in your area, call some-
one in authority to come exam-
ine it. Do not skin it yourself.
How did we let these mon-
sters get turned loose on us, and
what kind of people enjoy their
killing ways?
Sandy Dunham
Dunham Ranch
Indian Valley, Idaho