To the Editor:
Re “Devices Have Haitians in Ohio Feeling Shaken and Shackled” (front page, Aug. 23):
Where is the outrage? More than 100 Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, are now wearing ICE-issued ankle monitors 24 hours a day. The monitors, bulky and constantly blinking, act more like shackles.
The article tells the story of Jonas Julien, a 35-year-old Haitian man who is a husband and father. Mr. Julien was given Temporary Protected Status — now terminated by the Trump administration — with an asylum petition and approved work permit until 2029. Mr. Julien is law-abiding and works 12-hour shifts at his job.
Our nation was founded and built largely on slave labor. We shackled millions of Africans and packed them like sardines in “coffin ships,” where up to one-third died in transport. Now our ICE agents turn to the shackles again.
The explicit message to our Haitian community is: You are unwelcome, unworthy of human dignity and dangerous. Our president and his hateful minions follow a tried and true formula: Denigrate the immigrants’ culture and vilify them. Claim that they are dirty and carry diseases, that they will eat your pets, steal your jobs and hurt your family, and that their religious beliefs are evil.
What has happened to us that we have become so hardened to these daily injustices and the way our government treats others so inhumanely?
Michael J. Blyth Staten Island
To the Editor:
Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, aren’t the only ones being shackled with ankle monitors. Since 2025, the Trump administration has been paying a private prison giant, GEO Group, to drastically increase the number of immigrants subjected to 24-hour GPS monitoring.
Last summer, ICE secretly adopted a new rule directing personnel to slap GPS monitors on immigrants “whenever possible.” Since then, nearly 50,000 people have been forced into a system of constant electronic surveillance. It’s an arbitrary, cruel and costly extension of the administration’s for-profit detention playbook.
As immigration attorneys, we’ve seen the consequences of these devices. Our clients regularly report burns, shocks and bruises. The devices are also prone to malfunction, interfering with work schedules and leaving people in a constant state of fear that they’ll be found noncompliant and possibly detained. One of our clients, a pregnant woman who worked as a cleaner, was fired from her job because of the stigma of her ankle monitor.
GPS monitors are ICE’s most expensive and intrusive form of supervision. The administration’s expanded use of these devices with no individualized justification benefits no one — except for the private prison companies raking in the profits.
Sarah Decker F. Evan Benz Washington Ms. Decker is a senior staff attorney at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. Mr. Benz is a managing attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights. Their organizations have filed a class action lawsuit challenging the use of GPS monitors.
Dear Democrats, Rebrand
To the Editor:
Re “In a Florida Upset, Door Knockers Lift the Left” (front page, Aug. 20):
Angie Nixon’s primary victory in Florida shows the power of old-fashioned organizing. When voters know who the candidate is and what is at stake in an election, labels lose some of their sting.
But a primary is not a general election. Democrats still have a branding problem, and it keeps costing them. Phrases like “defund the police” and “democratic socialism” may have started as policy shorthand, but too often they have become political liabilities: easy to distort, hard to defend and poorly suited to winning over the voters Democrats need to persuade.
So call me a Social Justice Democrat — someone who believes that fairness, human rights and equity can strengthen, not replace, a capitalist economy.
Michelle Schimel Port Washington, N.Y. The writer was a member of the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2016.
Trump’s Lake Effect
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Orders Lake Ontario to Be Named Lake America” (news article, Aug. 28):
I see that President Trump has renamed Lake Ontario, calling it Lake America. But he picked the wrong shared body of U.S.-Canadian water to rename. If he really wanted to aptly leave his mark, he should have renamed Niagara Falls. America Falls!
Ashley Adams Roslindale, Mass.
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