Editorial Roundup: Indiana

Kokomo Tribune. June 25, 2022. Editorial: Broken system lets down Hoosier family Home. Home is what’s familiar to you. Home is where you grew up, went to school and where your friends live. Home is where your family lives. But a flaw in this country’s immigration laws has left roughly 250,000 immigrants faced with the prospect of leaving the only home they’ve ever known. At a press conference last month, California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla touted his bill to permanently protect these immigrants who grew up in the United States as dependents on their parents’ temporary visas, and graduated from American universities, but aged out of that dependent status. ‘œFor these young people, turning 21 means facing an impossible choice,’� Padilla said. ‘œEither to leave your family and self-deport to a country that you barely remember, or to stay in the United States living, undocumented, in the shadows.’� Among the documented Dreamers this legislation would protect are Khushi and Lay Patel, whose family moved to the Hoosier State from Canada in 2012 so their parents ‘” originally from India ‘” could work. The siblings are still in America via student visas, but Lay, 21, is a senior at Indiana University and is planning to study for an extra semester in the fall in an effort to find a way to stay in the country he calls home. Khushi is also studying at IU, and she’s hoping to get a job in Indiana to stay here as well. Adding to the obvious flaw in the immigration system is the fact that undocumented Dreamers are protected by DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but documented Dreamers are not. DACA includes several requirements that documented Dreamers cannot meet. ‘œIf my brother and I were brought here illegally, we would have a better chance of becoming citizens,’� Khushi said told The Lebanon Reporter. ‘œIf we were brought here illegally, we would have more rights than we do now.’� What the Patels and so many others like them want is to remain in the place they call home. Lay and Khushi want to remain with their family in Lebanon, Indiana, where their parents own and operate a business and where the siblings each captained their high school tennis teams. ‘œI’ve been here in Lebanon as long as I can remember,’� Khushi said. ‘œMy home is here. My family is here. ‘» We don’t want to leave.’� America must find a way to do better. Padilla’s bill has bipartisan support in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Congress should approve this legislation, and President Joe Biden should sign it. ___ Terre Haute Tribune-Star. June 24, 2022. Editorial: READI grants will help places that truly need it Efforts by communities to improve the quality of life for residents are not new. The prioritization of such quality-of-life improvements is relatively new. It takes time to break through entrenched attitudes that the best methods for economic development in cities, counties and states are tax abatements and corporate incentives. The nation’s most vibrant sectors are places where people want to put down roots because of the investment in local schools, roads, parks, trails, arts, culture and other public amenities. Millions of 21st-century jobs can be done remotely from anywhere, and workers will go where the living is best. A community that truly wants to progress will invest in resources that enhance its existing assets and develop new ones. The local distribution of Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) funds contains some promising examples of prioritizing both longstanding and developing community assets.