LETTER: Trump, Miele spell trouble

I get The Daily Inter Lake for three reasons: I like the sports early, the crossword puzzle, and Andy Capp in the comics. I DON’T get the paper to read Frank Miele’s inane columns.

I did happen to read though, “A deplorable immigration policy revisited,” about how Miele’s demigod Donald Trump, if elected, is going to clean house (believe me, believe me) with illegal immigration, thinking he can ignore reality (and Congress), and throw out anyone he sees unfit and doesn’t Pledge Allegiance to the flag (taking a chapter right out of the playbook of Hitler and Saddam Hussien).

Granted, illegal immigration is a huge problem, but Miele ignores facts and heads right to wonders of Trump’s B.S. about immigrants in general. The passage about the dangers of “importing millions of people with foreign values, with foreign loyalties [and] foreign languages” jumped out at me and caused me to think of a story from my grandfather, that I hadn’t thought of since I was a teenager 50 years ago.

He emigrated from Poland at the end of the 19th century. Once, when he was showing me an old house, that was a one-room school back in the day, he told me about attending his first day of class. He got all decked out, complete with a derby hat, didn’t speak English, and most likely had “foreign values.” Anyway, the other kids teased him and he didn’t go back (I don’t know if he ever did).

I do know he lived pretty well, working his own small farm and raised eight kids (including my mother), five of whom were WWII veterans.

It scares me to think if mouthpiece Frank and “The Donald” were around back then, where I’d be living today? Probably in Warsaw.

Believe me, believe me. —Tom Horelick, Libby