People move — is a part of life as old as time, as basic as breathing. But U.S. immigration laws have been written through scapegoating, not sensible debate. They are not logical, and do not work the way they did over a century ago, when my relatives came to this country. They also do not work the way most people think they should, or want them to.
SB 172, which may be on the floor of the Ohio Senate soon, is more of the same. It’s up to Congress, not the Ohio Statehouse, to provide a better set of immigration laws, and the Executive Branch to administer them in a logical way. Right now we have chaos. President Trump is not implementing immigration laws efficiently, he’s making the system more dysfunctional.
SB 172 would turn Ohio into a police state, facilitating the masked abductions of more community members in all sorts of public places. This bill would cause more Ohio children to lose the daily presence of mothers and fathers, instead of creating pathways to legal status, and allowing people who are already following a process to continue it. We need lawmakers to bring people together, and call on the federal government to enact sensible solutions. And for those who claim to be following traditions of faith, it's a good time to evaluate what their traditions truly teach.
No one — immigrant or U.S. born — feels safer today. No one is helped when President Trump takes legal status away from Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Cameroonians, and others in Ohio who currently have it. No one benefits when masked ICE agents arrest immigrants at their immigration court hearings, while they are following the process. When ICE tricks a high school soccer star into showing up for an appointment, and arrests him on the spot. That doesn’t help anyone, at all.
Emerson Colindres has a U visa waiting for him. One branch of the federal government is processing it, while another branch of the same government is trying to deport him. And U.S. tax dollars are paying to incarcerate this 19 year-old, recent high school graduate in a jail, where he is NOT being charged with a crime, while his mother, sister, and entire community are rallying for his release.
SB 172 is unworkable and must not pass. The other immigration bills under consideration in Ohio’s legislature, like the racist measures restricting property ownership based on one’s national origin, HB 1 and SB 88, and the citizenship status bill HB 42, must also be rejected. It's hard to believe we are even having these debates in 2025. Ohio has to be bigger than this.
Immigrants bring energy, hard work, strong families, and so much more to Ohio. Alongside native-born Ohioans, they are helping small towns and key industries survive. We can’t keep demonizing people and then counting on their labor, purchasing power, presence at houses of worship, school enrollment, tax contributions, and more to help our communities stay strong.
Let’s value each other and come together as one Ohio family. Because Ohio is home — for all of us.
