(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Letter to the Editor)

Aside from the lack of any clear necessity for deploying large numbers of masked ICE and Border Patrol agents to cities across the country, the financial cost of these operations is staggering. Each employee incurs far more than a base salary: lodging, meals, scheduled overtime, airfare, rental vehicles, fuel, expendable equipment, and numerous incidental expenses all add up quickly. Even a conservative estimate of $3,000-$4,000 per employee per week may understate the true cost!

When multiplied across hundreds or thousands of agents, these poorly planned deployments cost taxpayers millions of dollars per operation. Compounding the problem, many of the personnel involved are recently hired, inadequately trained, poorly supervised, and deployed with vaguely defined objectives, increasing the risk of mistakes, rights violations, and tragic outcomes.

These actions represent a serious overreach by the federal government and an extreme waste of public funds. Worse still, innocent people have already died and others will continue to be harmed as a result of an incompetent and reckless approach to immigration enforcement that prioritizes political theater over effective, humane policy.

John D. Gainer

Parkersburg