To the Editor:

Like Betty Filkins, I care deeply about the safety of our community. But safety depends on clear thinking, and clear thinking depends on evidence. When fear-based, one-sided rhetoric replaces facts, we risk shaping policy around assumptions rather than reality.

Several claims in Ms. Filkins’s letter rely on common logical fallacies that deserve scrutiny.

First is hasty generalization. The letter suggests that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] operations primarily target “illegal aliens with heinous criminal histories.” In fact, publicly available ICE data, and independent analyses show that many people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions at all, and only a small fraction have been convicted of violent crimes. Immigration enforcement is largely civil, not criminal. Conflating civil immigration violations with violent crime creates unnecessary fear and obscures what is actually happening on the ground.

Second is false equivalence: treating immigration status as a proxy for danger. The evidence consistently shows the opposite. Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are less likely to commit violent crimes than United States-born citizens. States that track arrest data by immigration status, such as Texas, show that native-born Americans are far more likely to be arrested for violent offenses than undocumented immigrants. If our primary concern is safety and violence, the data suggest we would start elsewhere.

If we want policies that truly reduce harm, we must ground them in evidence, not fear. And the evidence shows that immigrants are not driving violent crime in our communities; that distinction overwhelmingly belongs to American-born men. Yes — this is confirmed by the data. If we are serious about reducing crime and creating safer neighborhoods, we need to start there.

Ms. Filkins asks, “Do you really, really know your neighbors?”

For many of us, the answer is yes — and that is precisely why we work to protect people in our community. We know our neighbors as parents raising children, as small-business owners, as caregivers, farmworkers, construction workers, and service workers doing jobs others often turn up their noses at. We know them as people who show up to school events, volunteer, attend church, and quietly keep our local economy running.

So I would gently ask in return: Have you met or formed friendships with any undocumented immigrants? Much of the fear surrounding immigration is not grounded in lived experience. When we take the time to know people whose life stories differ from our own, we often discover that the unfamiliar is far less frightening than we were led to believe.

Third is an appeal to authority without accountability. Saying “ICE is federal law enforcement” does not place the agency beyond question. In a constitutional democracy, no federal agency operates above the law. Courts have repeatedly found that some ICE practices have exceeded statutory authority or violated constitutional protections, including unlawful stops, warrantless arrests, and violations of due process. Questioning those actions is not obstruction; it is civic responsibility.

This raises a serious question that deserves honest reflection: Are we comfortable with any federal agency violating the Constitution — the most sacred document governing our nation — in the name of enforcement? Public safety and constitutional rights are not competing values; they rise and fall together.

Fourth is false certainty, expressed through claims that people “here legally have nothing to worry about.” History and recent reporting show otherwise. U.S. citizens and legal residents alike have been wrongfully detained, questioned, or swept into enforcement actions based on the color of their skin. Mixed-status families live with constant uncertainty. Pretending the system operates cleanly and flawlessly ignores documented reality. This is a system that is harming even those who are here legally.

Finally, there is a troubling moral inversion in portraying neighbors who share information or educate others about their rights as “protecting criminals.” Community education efforts — including whistleblower kits — are about understanding legal boundaries and civil rights, not about aiding violence [“In wake of Good’s death, scores turn out at Guilderland library to make whistleblower kits,” The Altamont Enterprise, Jan. 13, 2026]. Treating civic engagement as dangerous undermines the trust that actually makes communities safer.

Which brings me to a more human point. Letters to the editor and online comments are no longer enough. The rift between “sides” has grown too wide. So I’d like to offer an open invitation to Ms. Filkins — or anyone who shares her concerns — to sit down for a cup of coffee and talk. Let’s look at the data together, ask honest questions, and engage as neighbors.

Civic dialogue shouldn’t end at the page margins of a newspaper. If we want safer communities and better policy, we have to continue to do the work face to face.

Katie Fahrenkopf

Altamont