Comparing Trump to Hitler an insult to those he exterminated

Re: Sept. 7 letter from Teddy Altreuter, “Trump’s call to rid America of ‘certain people’ echoes Hitler”

I am a Republican but not a Donald Trump supporter and I am unlikely to vote for him if he becomes the Republican nominee so I find it ironic that I am writing this letter.

Nonetheless I found Teddy Altreuter’s attempt to draw a comparison between Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish race and Trump’s call for securing our borders and enforcing of existing immigration laws to be too preposterous to be left unchallenged.

While Trump’s remarks on immigration have been bombastic at times Mr. Altrueter has clearly mischaracterized them when he asserts that “There is a strange echo of Adolph Hitler in Donald Trump’s simplistic message that the USA will solve all of its problems if it will simply get rid of the Hispanic people who have come to our country.”

To begin with that is not Trump’s message. Trump has not suggested that we “simply get rid of the Hispanic people who have come to our country.” Trump’s message is that we can solve the burdensome and undeniable problems resulting from decades of a porous border and a failure to enforce the immigration laws by strengthening our borders and enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act. Trump’s aim is not at the “Hispanic people” but at people in this country illegally be they Hispanic or otherwise.

Unlike Hitler’s plan for the elimination of the Jews ,which required the enactment of a series of new laws targeting those “certain people,” Trump’s plan for deportation requires no new laws it simply calls for enforcement of the existing Immigration and Nationality Act and the exportation of those who violate that law. Any attempt to equate the extermination of the Jews under Hitler’s “final solution” and the deportation of illegal immigrants under the Immigration and Nationality Act is an insult to the millions of Jews who perished under Hitler’s plan, not to mention an insult to the Congress that passed the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Comparing Trump to Hitler is absurd enough but when Mr. Altreuter concludes that “those who admire and support Donald Trump believe, the way that the German people believed in the 1930s, that if we throw out the 6 to 10 million people who have come here in the last 15 to 20 years, all our economic problems will be solved” he becomes preposterous and insulting. I for one believe that the laws of this country should be enforced and that the failure to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act is wrong, and I do not see how holding those beliefs equates me to a Nazi sympathizer.

We need a solution to our border and immigrations issues and suggesting that deporting people who are in this country in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act is akin to Hitler’s extermination of the Jews is not going to foster an atmosphere in which reasonable debate can take place.

I was surprised that the Sun News chose to publish this editorial.

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Comparing Trump to Hitler an insult to those he exterminated."