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County’s sanctuary status must reach jails

Re: “Jails a prime source for arrests by ICE” (Page B1, March 6).

Santa Clara County’s sanctuary jurisdiction status is failing our families. In 2026, students from nine high schools and one university walked out, protesting a climate of fear that had crippled attendance in January and February.

While ICE cannot raid campuses directly, its presence on perimeters like Snell Avenue turns the commute for Oak Grove and Santa Teresa students into a challenge. A heartbreaking gap in protection occurs at Elmwood Correctional Facility. This month, a family waiting for a loved one watched helplessly as ICE agents pulled up and took them away the moment they were released.

Our students are using their voices to demand truly safe neighborhoods. If our sanctuary protections don’t extend from the schoolyard to the jailhouse door, they are merely empty promises. It is time for county leadership to provide real safety, not just a label.

Nahtalia Jacinto
San Jose

Chavez’s misdeeds will outlive the good

Re: “Blind devotion to Cesar Chavez harms the cause” (Page A6, March 25).

In the March 25 edition, Matt Garcia wrote an opinion piece about Cesar Chavez. He quoted Shakespeare’s line from “Julius Caesar” — “Then fall, Caesar” — as an appropriate lesson. The trouble is that Julius Caesar said those last words after being betrayed by his friend. Chavez never got a chance to comment, having been dead for 33 years.

More appropriate would have been Marc Anthony’s speech in the next scene: “The evil men do lives after them, / The good is oft interred with their bones. / So let it be with Caesar.”

Stu Goodgold
San Jose

Paper helps shape next generation of writers

Re: “Students support BART tax measure” (Page B1, March 30).

I would like to commend the Mercury News for its commitment to developing young writers as evidenced by the article written by Sophie Luo, a participant in Mosaic.

Thanks to programs like the Mosaic and READ THIS, another Mercury News program way back in 2005, many young writers have had the opportunity to see their work in print. My youngest daughter, Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint, was a participant in READ THIS, and so far, she has produced two books – “The End of Peril, the End of Enmity, the End of Strife, a Haven,” which won an Asian American Award for literature, and “Names for Light: A Family History,” which won the Greywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.

We are grateful to the Mercury News for giving Thirii and other aspiring authors the opportunity they needed to grow as young writers.

Myokyaw Myint
San Jose

Trump’s face on debtor nation’s money is fitting

Donald Trump’s signature will, reportedly, appear on U.S. paper currency later this year. That actually seems appropriate to me since the United States is the largest debtor nation globally, now surpassing $38 trillion and at the highest debt-to-GDP ratio since World War 2.

Trump (the self-described “king of debt”) was a master at financing hotels and casinos with borrowed cash. Of course, trustworthy businesses and households are using digital currency these days and may never have occasion to use Trump’s paper dollars. Still, it’s nice to know that they will be available for mobsters, grifters and drug dealers.

And, placing Trump’s signature on our money will provide emphasis to his own contributions to our country’s debts, including those connected to his unnecessary war on Iran! He might also like to add his mug shot as a photo ID.

Jerry Meyer
San Jose

Iran conflict shows no easy ending

Re: “Iran escalation more likely than peace deal” (Page A7, April 1).

In his excellent op-ed, Nicholas Kristok expresses grave concerns that American troops will be sent on the ground in Iran to remove the chokehold Iran has on the Strait of Hormuz and the world economy. That is highly unlikely.

Iran is a master of its terrain and waterways, having inhabited and defended its country for thousands of years. Any foreign soldiers sent there would be sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for the Iranian army to pluck. Hundreds and thousands of American soldiers would come back in a casket. The optics would be too much for our reality television commander-in-chief.

Donald Trump is at an impasse both in his choreography skills and his narrow-minded political prowess, and we’re all stuck in the middle between him and Iran. It’s all a toxic, interminable stalemate, and there is no end in sight.

Guy Vigier
San Jose