Maybe there is an easier way to fix immigration

Front Page celebrating anniversary; Queensbury Ethics board waiting for response

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We've had a front seat to dying communities for decades.

It is common knowledge most of the small rural towns in the Adirondacks are struggling. The young people go off to college never to return. The remaining families have fewer children, small businesses struggle to hire, not only capable help, but any help at all, while churches attendance is diminished.

Without people, communities struggle.

Rural schools can't field sports teams and entire sports have disappeared.There are fewer volunteer firemen, emergency medical technicians and community volunteers.

Anyone talked into running for office is usually unopposed.

While tourism has been the economic engine for some time, even those businesses have to recruit overseas to fill the low-paying service jobs most of our children won't do.

It is the type of all-encompassing issue our local congresswoman could have addressed and her district a better place to live.

Hurling insults and accusations were easier.

In five days, Donald Trump will return to the presidency with promises of rounding up illegal immigrants while making it tougher for others to find a life here.

It's what the voters wanted.

That is clear.

There is little argument our immigration system in broken.

The more universal consensus is no one knows how to fix it.

But I saws some light this weekend.

The New York Times editorial board outlined a plan to solve the problem once and for all.

Because of the political affiliations across our region, I need to stop here and remind people that the New York Times does some of the best journalism in the world, and while it's editorial board often takes liberal positions, the reporters are driven by facts, its stories uncover malfeasance and corruption.

If you believe otherwise, you need to the New York Times and decide for yourself.

What the newspaper's editorial board - yes, "those liberal bastards" as Fox News might describe - have laid out a plan for solving the immigration crisis.

You should give it a look.

"Over the past four years, some eight million people settled in the United States, and most of them did so unlawfully. Instead of an immigration policy calibrated to the needs of the country, both Americans and immigrants are being let down by a set of outdated laws inconsistently enforced by underfunded agencies. Chaos has been a predictable result," The Times editorial board wrote.

If this was Fox News, I would have to write "the liberal New York Times," but what was refreshing was that the Times was laying the blame at the feet of the entire Congress, not one political party or the other.

As the New York Times described the solution, it reminded me of the problems we face here in upstate New York:

"Immigrants are America’s rocket fuel, powering our nation’s unsurpassed economic and cultural achievements. The famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty mischaracterizes those who leave their home countries behind. They are not the tired and the poor; they are people possessed of the determination, skill and resources to seek a better life. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 142 immigrants to the United States. Nearly half of the companies in the Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants or their children. Blue jeans, Tesla, basketball, “God Bless America” — all the work of immigrants."

"Those liberal bastards," you might hear our congresswoman say to this simple analysis. How dare they write immigrants are not all evil.

But what the Times is saying is what we in in upstate New York already know: America needs more people. We aren't making enough babies and without those babies, economic growth will decline and small, rural communities all around us will struggle to survive.

The editorial board concluded: "Without immigrants, the population would start to decline immediately, leaving employers short-handed, curtailing the economy’s potential and causing the kinds of strains on public services and society that have plagued Rust Belt cities for decades."

And rural mountaintops as well.

But those "liberal bastards" have a plan to solve the problem that doesn't involve billions of dollars in funding to deport the immigrants already here.

Here is the New York Times' three-point plan:

1. The government must make every reasonable effort to prevent people from living and working illegally in the United States.

2. Congress should legislate an orderly expansion of legal immigration, including a role for the federal government in directing people to the places that would benefit from population growth and in underwriting the transition costs. (Maybe places like the Adirondacks).

3. The nation must deal humanely with the 11 million illegal immigrants who already live here, including the more than three million “Dreamers” brought to this country as children. For too long, large parts of the economy have depended on the labor of immigrants neither paid nor treated as the equals of Americans, a system of exploitation that also undermines American workers and law-abiding employers. Most immigrants who have made their lives in this country should be given a path to citizenship.

It sounds reasonable.

More importantly, it sounds doable.

The Times pointed out this type of approach has been embraced by political leaders in both parties in the past.

It concluded: "Both Parties need a reality check."

What I fear most is the new administration will begin a process that does not address the real problems, but just continues political rhetoric.

Ezra Klein, a columnist and another one of those "liberal" bastards" at the Times, wrote a column Monday entitled "Now is the time of monsters."

If you weren't depressed enough already, this might push you over the edge.

And while he included Trump's threat to democracy as one of the monsters, he pointed out that addressing artificial intelligence, the warming of the planet and a collapsing global fertility rate are also problems with monstrous ramifications that few people in the new administration are talking about.

None of these issues are part of the Project 2025 playbook.

"To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through," Klein writes.

Maybe that's why so many people voted for Trump.

The dramatic changes heading our way, endangering our world and way of life were too much to comprehend.

"Democracy does not die in darkness," Klein argues. "It degrades through deal-making — a procession of pragmatic transactions between those who have power and those who want it or fear it. We have seen this termitic corruption consume democracies elsewhere, including Viktor Orban’s Hungary, which Trump and his allies cite as a model. Money and media make peace with the regime because to do otherwise is too costly. Once proud political parties become vehicles for the individual ambition they were designed to replace."

And it all starts happening in five days.

This is what the people in the Adirondacks wanted.

It seems to me there are simpler solutions to problems like immigration and that would allow much more time and energy to face down the real monsters.

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Front Page anniversary

Next month will mark the fourth anniversary of writing this column on Substack. My original goal was to use the Substack space as a way to promote my books, but it has evolved into its own force.

During that time it became obvious to me there was a void in local news coverage when it came to editorials, commentary and opinion.

What I think The Front Page has shown is there is still an appetite for consumers to read commentary and debate the issues whether they agree with them or not.

When the Adirondack Almanack runs our opinion pieces on their site, the number of comments takes off. We have a regular group that comments escalates. I was proud to see one reader promote our site by saying it is mostly "devoid of trolls" and when problems have occurred we have dealt with it appropriately.

That civil commentary has made it enjoyable for everyone.

It was a year ago, we opened The Front Page to voluntary monetary support. Many of you who contributed to a year's subscription last February will be coming up for renewal next month. The coming year may be even more challenging than last year.

Thank you again for supporting this new kind of journalism.

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Ethics update

Last week, I wrote that the Queensbury Ethics Board acknowledged receipt of my complaint and that it had contacted Town Councilman Tim McNulty for a response.

I followed up by asking for a time line of when it might review the complaint.

Chairman Kurt Koskinen replied: "Until he (McNulty) responds to our letter we are at a temporary impasse."

So I asked: "What if he never responds?"

So far I have not received a response to that question.

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Endorsement

On Friday, a former Glens Falls resident named Paul Hamlen sent me an email. He now lives in Hampton, N.H. but says he still has a lot of Glens Falls in him.

I wish everybody could start their Friday with this type of note:

"Hi Mr. Tingley,

I just want to tell you how much I enjoy your columns and how you have become a wonderful part of my day. I subscribed to The Front Page about a year ago, and I look forward to each entry. My wife gave me your first book for Christmas, and I couldn’t put it down. I finished it today and just purchased volume 2.

Your book did such a wonderful job of illustrating how essential a local newspaper is to the community. I fear that a majority of citizens don’t even realize they are uninformed. As a salesman, I spent many hours in the car, and I was constantly shocked by the power of Rush Limbaugh. I believe he paved the way for Fox News and Trump.

The real intent of this email is to praise you and let you know that you are a very positive part of each of my days. Thank you!

Paul Hamlen

Hampton, NH

It's a reminder that 2025 is going to be challenging year for all of us and that Will Doolittle and I will continue to weigh in on the issues we find important.

Climate change

I don't see how anyone can doubt the existence climate change after witnessing the photos of the Armageddon left by the wildfires in California.

It should be the one and only issue for the new administration to address.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.