Dear Editor:

A decidedly Republican Wyoming House failed to introduce a bill last week (H.B. 0062) that would make sanctuary cities (like Jackson Hole) illegal in this state. As a Wyoming Republican, I’m deeply disappointed.

Representatives of districts located in Albany, Fremont, Laramie, Natrona, Sheridan and Teton counties were largely responsible for the bill’s failure. Can I take this to mean that their constituents, the residents of Laramie, Lander, Cheyenne, Casper, Sheridan and Jackson Hole, do not have as their priority the security of the state of Wyoming and the rule of law in the United States of America, but rather, their pocketbooks?

Let’s get real. It’s greed on the part of businesses and individuals in these counties that’s taking precedence here. Hiring and harboring illegal aliens willing to work for much less than citizens affects the bottom line. Cheaper labor costs mean bigger profits.

The argument that illegal alien workers are “valuable” contributors to the state economy and that they do the jobs that citizens will not do would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. You know the ones who should really be up in arms? The citizens “marginalized” by this argument: the less-educated who are limited to lower-paying jobs, high school and college students and the middle-class taxpayers in these counties, on whose backs it falls to pay for the health care, welfare and education for their illegal alien neighbors!

Wyoming, you’re smarter than this! I urge all citizens, most especially those living in the above-noted counties, who still value the principle that we are a nation of laws and that no one is above the law, to contact their Wyoming state representatives and senators and urge them to pass legislation that would outlaw sanctuary cities and penalize employers who hire and harbor illegal aliens.

Cathy Simons,

Torrington

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