Letters to the Editor | Week of May 5-10, 2025

Save USAID

Please imagine with me how it felt for my daughter:

Many years of working long hours and living in difficult and dangerous countries around the world.

Dedicating her life to providing food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, education for children, jobs for the poor.

Seeing the direct impact of the goodwill of the American people.

Making prayerful decisions and witnessing many beautiful results.

She was asked to quit her job as a USAID diplomat or leave the foreign country and family for D.C.

Upon arrival, she was blocked from entering the USAID building, her work computer-server was shut down and her work phone turned off. Is this how people should be treated?

It is painful that politicians are dismantling the agency and attacking USAID as “radical,” “criminal” and “fraudulent.” It has been a frequently audited agency with consistent oversight by the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

Please remember that each program under attack was once approved by these politicians including Marco Rubio when he sat on that very committee.

These hardworking USAID people created markets for our Texas farmers to sell their goods and for Texas universities to develop partnerships. These programs were shut down and many lost jobs — Texas A&M University, Baylor University, Tarleton State University, Texas State University, Texas Tech University, University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston and West Texas A&M University.

Is this how we want to be treated?

Please help change this decision and make USAID once again a force for good by writing and calling our representatives.

Jana Turner

Austin

Not about nationality

I’ve experienced the murder of two older brothers and two nephews at different times and places by “legal American citizens.”

Recently, while joining our son preaching at a Denver Hispanic church service, my 72-year-old heart was so moved by the praise music and spirit of these beautiful mostly Mexicans. Even though their singing was truly from unknown tongues, their sincerity shook my heart with some tears falling.

Out of nowhere, I was reminded of the federal judge ruling that immigration agents could interrupt a sacred religious service for their investigations. My heart was crying, “No, please don’t rush in the House of God.” Please be patient, unlike the late U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno’s April 19, 1993, decision to storm the Waco Branch Davidian compound killing men, women and children.

Mike Sawyer

Denver

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