Dear Editor: I am an Eastern Rite Catholic, retired senior citizen, 80 years young who contributes to a number of charities each year, yet one who vehemently objects to a Syrian resettlement within the United States of America.
We currently have enough issues involving crime, decaying infrastructure, education, health benefits allocation, homelessness, unemployment (which does not include those who are no longer receiving unemployment checks but also no longer seeking gainful employment) and welfare. The middle class is being squeezed with over-taxation. Our churches and schools are closing or being consolidated with churches and schools of other localities because parents can no longer afford the cost of a Catholic education. Some of these schools are overwhelmed with children of newly arrived immigrants, some legal and some illegal, who may not have the capacity of contributing toward their children’s tuition. How are we to sustain all of their needs? How is the vetting process to be formulated so as to avoid a terrorist infiltrating the migratory process?
Another major hurdle is the government’s lack of tracking refugees after their arrival!
The bigger question is why haven’t the oil-rich nations of the Middle East participated in resolving the Syrian resettlement problem? I have read and also seen on National Geographic TV and some of the travel show channels where a number of these oil-rich nations of the Middle East have built some of the tallest buildings in their region, a multi-billion dollar indoor skiing resort in the desert of all places, creating islands upon which multi-million dollar condos have been erected. They have spent billions of dollars purchasing and refurbishing resorts throughout the Caribbean and Far East. They have invested heavily in many companies and have purchased a number of major hotels in the United States.
Why couldn’t these wealthy, oil-laden nations of the Middle East along with the major powers, including the United States, allocate a specific area in Syria as a no-fly zone and protected by NATO where the necessary amenities would be provided to sustain their livelihood until the Syrian situation is resolved? Personally, I don’t believe this will occur. Just look at the plight of the Palestinians.
PETER T. KONIUCH
Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
