A huge mahalo to the editorial board for your editorial on the U.S. Supreme Court’s DACA decision last week (“Congress should protect Dreamers,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, June 22).

Not only do Dreamers in America deserve to stay in the only country they know, they deserve to have their future settled — to not worry if their plans to go to school or buy a home will be taken from them suddenly.

While this decision did not close the door on the Trump administration ending the DACA program, it did make it unlikely that he will be able to do so within this term.

Hawaii has benefited from having more than 1,000 DACA recipients as a part of our ohana. We can do even more to make sure that the 19% of our foreign-born population is supported and given every opportunity to thrive and grow.

When they succeed, we all succeed.

Liza Ryan Gill

The Legal Clinic

DOH should change policies on testing

State epidemiologist Sarah Park and state Department of Health (DOH) Director Bruce Anderson once again confirmed they still stand by guidelines requiring that COVID-19 testing be restricted to symptomatic patients. But what guidelines are they talking about?

Guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been updated to recommend COVID-19 testing of asymptomatic patients who are close contacts and in settings with a high risk of spread like nursing homes. Does anyone really think it is good policy not to test immediate family/household members of a person who tests positive for COVID-19? It is time for DOH to change this obsolete policy and adhere to CDC guidelines.

Tim Brown Sumner La Croix F. DeWolfe Miller

Honolulu

State must show it can enforce quarantine

Why isn’t there more fuss about our unenforced quarantine? Tourists are obviously aware, since numbers continue to increase and they don’t come to be cooped up for 14 days. Until leaders can show they can control quarantine, it’s negligent to open up tourism and the additional screening, tracking and managing that it requires.

Also, give Hanauma Bay marine life and local residents a continued reprieve from overtourism with a schedule of two days closed, two days for kamaaina and three days for tourists, with online reservations. It may mean not every tourist can visit the bay, but they’ll adjust and plan ahead.

I beg our officials: Prove to us that you can enforce quarantine before reopening. Otherwise it’ll just be another rule you don’t enforce at the expense of our quality of life, like zoning laws and illegal vacation rentals. Put residents first (marine and human), and show us you can follow through.

Melody Heidel

Kailua

Cult members sent home to keep Hawaii safe

This letter is in response to “Cult members should have been jailed, fined” (Star-Advertiser, Letters, June 22). The 21 cult members of the group, Carbon Nation, were sent home after being arrested by Hawaii County police for breaking the 14-day quarantine, to keep our residents and visitors in Hawaii safe.

First, no local taxpayer money was used for these airline tickets to send cult members back. The tickets were paid for by the transient accommodations tax on visitors, known as the hotel room tax. Second, the cult members did spend time in jail.

The coronavirus has taken thousands of lives. When you consider what could have happened, with the potential spread of the disease, among other situations that could have taken place, sending the cult members back was money well spent.

Jessica Lani Rich

President, Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii

Waikiki

Give responsible renters a chance to catch up

There is growing concern over the very real possibility of big increases in evictions due to non-payment of rent. This has been largely due to substantially reduced household income during this pandemic. Most landlords must be anxious, too; they need to have the rental income in order to maintain the property, pay taxes and service debt. They are probably growing as desperate as their tenants. After all, if they do not make their payments, lenders may start foreclosure action. The vicious cycle is frightening!

I believe it is better to keep good tenants who otherwise have been on-time, than to kick them out. If they are kicked out, it would seem that there will be very few out there to replace them, and landlords won’t know a thing about their replacements. Equally bad, where will the ousted families go?

If banks foreclose on landlords, how many would be anxious to buy rental properties during this economic state?

I ask that cool heads prevail, and please be forgiving for as long as possible.

James Kennedy

Ewa Beach

Kamaaina should visit reopened Iolani Palace

I want to commend the Friends of Iolani Palace for their amazing work on artifact acquisition and restoring a sense of time and place. I took a friend to Iolani Palace this weekend for my first visit in years and I am grateful that I did.

I would urge kamaaina who have not visited recently to take advantage of this quiet time in our community and go for a tour. It is a beautiful, educational and deeply moving experience.

Steph Kendrick

Palolo

Recognize shameful past, but don’t celebrate it

Regarding the recent reckoning with our country’s racist past and the physical reminders of that time: I hear the argument that “you can’t erase history,” which is true. But you can erase honoring that shameful period and its perpetrators by removing the flags, banners and statues that represent and promulgated that past.

The history of this early time will always be available to anyone to study, but let’s not celebrate it in any way. Any display that recalls that era is frequently used to glorify that past and perpetuate hateful behavior.

After World War II, Germany banned the display of Nazi symbols. And to this day, there are no statues or other shrines of Adolph Hitler in the country. The history is well known, but the celebrations and reminders of it are banned.

Let’s not continuously remind ourselves of our differences, but celebrate all we have in common.

James Crittendon

Waialua

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