Editorial Roundup: Indiana
Kokomo Tribune. June 25, 2022.
Editorial: Broken system lets down Hoosier family
Home.
Home is what's familiar to you.
Home is where you grew up, went to school and where your friends live.
Home is where your family lives.
But a flaw in this country's immigration laws has left roughly 250,000 immigrants faced with the prospect of leaving the only home they've ever known.
At a press conference last month, California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla touted his bill to permanently protect these immigrants who grew up in the United States as dependents on their parents' temporary visas, and graduated from American universities, but aged out of that dependent status.
'œFor these young people, turning 21 means facing an impossible choice,'ť Padilla said. 'œEither to leave your family and self-deport to a country that you barely remember, or to stay in the United States living, undocumented, in the shadows.'ť
Among the documented Dreamers this legislation would protect are Khushi and Lay Patel, whose family moved to the Hoosier State from Canada in 2012 so their parents '“ originally from India '“ could work.
The siblings are still in America via student visas, but Lay, 21, is a senior at Indiana University and is planning to study for an extra semester in the fall in an effort to find a way to stay in the country he calls home. Khushi is also studying at IU, and she's hoping to get a job in Indiana to stay here as well.
Adding to the obvious flaw in the immigration system is the fact that undocumented Dreamers are protected by DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but documented Dreamers are not. DACA includes several requirements that documented Dreamers cannot meet.
'œIf my brother and I were brought here illegally, we would have a better chance of becoming citizens,'ť Khushi said told The Lebanon Reporter. 'œIf we were brought here illegally, we would have more rights than we do now.'ť
What the Patels and so many others like them want is to remain in the place they call home. Lay and Khushi want to remain with their family in Lebanon, Indiana, where their parents own and operate a business and where the siblings each captained their high school tennis teams.
'œI've been here in Lebanon as long as I can remember,'ť Khushi said. 'œMy home is here. My family is here. '¦ We don't want to leave.'ť
America must find a way to do better. Padilla's bill has bipartisan support in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Congress should approve this legislation, and President Joe Biden should sign it.
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Terre Haute Tribune-Star. June 24, 2022.
Editorial: READI grants will help places that truly need it
Efforts by communities to improve the quality of life for residents are not new. The prioritization of such quality-of-life improvements is relatively new.
It takes time to break through entrenched attitudes that the best methods for economic development in cities, counties and states are tax abatements and corporate incentives. The nation's most vibrant sectors are places where people want to put down roots because of the investment in local schools, roads, parks, trails, arts, culture and other public amenities. Millions of 21st-century jobs can be done remotely from anywhere, and workers will go where the living is best.
A community that truly wants to progress will invest in resources that enhance its existing assets and develop new ones.
The local distribution of Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) funds contains some promising examples of prioritizing both longstanding and developing community assets.
The funds flow through Indiana's READI program, modeled by the Indiana General Assembly after the state's similar Regional Cities Initiative of 2015. The difference is the funding source. While three selected metro regions split $126 million in 2015 from a state tax amnesty program through the Regional Cities Initiative, the READI program is disbursing $500 million to 17 Hoosier regions from Indiana's allotment of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. The Terre Haute metro - including Clay, Knox, Parke, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo counties - received a $20-million READI grant for 23 different projects throughout west-central Indiana. Like other regions, the Terre Haute area was represented in the READI grant process by an regional organization - the Wabash River Regional Development Authority.
The Wabash River RDA received a $20-million grant for those projects, a healthy amount, though disappointingly not as robust as the $50-million grants allotted to the South Bend, Northwest, Evansville, Fort Wayne and Jeffersonville regions.
Like Regional Cities, the READI program delivers an investment in cities, small towns and rural communities that is long overdue. Too many of Indiana's bedrock cities and towns - blue-collar industrial communities like Terre Haute, Muncie and Kokomo - have seen their urban appeal fade as factories closed. The assets that gave such places character, faded as well. Many of those assets represent the foundation for a revitalization of those 'œRust Belt'ť metros - points of distinction that attract new residents and keep longtimers.
Much of the growth in Indiana ballyhooed by state officials has been concentrated in affluent sectors, such as the doughnut communities around Indianapolis. The READI grants can help cities and towns that actually need help. The grants require matching local funds of 2-to-1 for government entities, 3-to-1 for nonprofits and 4-to-1 for private projects.
The Wabash Valley projects include some amenities established years ago to bolster the quality of life - $250,000 for historic Billie Creek Village in Parke County; $1 million for the Sullivan city pool; $50,000 for Terre Haute's Rea Park; $150,000 for Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute; $2 million to enhance the William Henry Harrison mansion in Knox County; and $150,000 to continue the Turn to the River project connection downtown Terre Haute to the Wabash River. Others are new, like the downtown Terre Haute hotel and parking garage, which drew the top amount of $4,300,000.
Perhaps the poster child for a quality of life investment is the $100,000 READI grant to bring a long-needed clinic and pharmacy to West Terre Haute. That grant will bring the incoming Valley Professionals Community Health Center closer to a reality for Vigo Countians living west of the river.
Venerable Sullivan, a 179-year-old town of 4,126 people south of Terre Haute, received four grants totaling $4.3 million, representing existing and new efforts. Along with the upgrade of its pool, Sullivan got grants for a plaza pavilion for outdoor entertainment and events, a new homes development and a new downtown hotel.
More people will choose to move to or remain in the Wabash Valley because of an enhanced riverfront in Terre Haute, clinical care in West Terre Haute and activities in Sullivan. That is progress.
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Anderson Herald Bulletin. June 23, 2022.
Editorial: Felony nonsupport charges could spur more payments
The Madison County prosecutor's office recently reached coast to coast in seeking justice for families whose male head of the household hasn't paid child support.
Lawsuits were filed against men living in California and Maine while also seeking support payments from men in various towns in Indiana.
This is a commendable courtroom venture that has slowly developed over decades, notably with the 2021 state law in which anyone who knowingly or intentionally - which is not that hard to prove - fails to provide support commits a Level 6 felony known as nonsupport of a child. It can yield a prison sentence of six months to 2.5 years.
If that person has a previous conviction for nonsupport, the felony rises to Level 5, which can result in a sentence of one to six years.
Those penalties, one would hope, reinforce the seriousness of payments.
Also, a decades-old program has gained momentum.
In 1975, Congress enacted legislation that required each state to establish a program to enforce child support obligations. The program was a condition of receiving federal funds. The program is known in prosecutorial circles as Title IV-D because Title IV, Part D, of the 1975 Social Security Act created the Child Support Program.
The federal government reimburses direct costs of child support enforcement at 66%. Counties also get performance incentives using collections based on measures such as establishment of maternity, establishment of a support order, support paid and cost effectiveness.
Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings knows the formula. In 2002, he was the Title IV-D prosecutor for the county.
These cases can get sticky and time-consuming, particularly when divorce is involved. But parents who are owed child support expect justice for themselves and their children.
That is why it was wise for Cummings to recently hire two investigators to go after those who don't pay child support; educational neglect cases are also in their realm.
Once nonpayment goes above $16,000, Cummings' office will consider felony charges. Cummings also said there are 7,000 child support cases in the county. Some involve arrears upward of $80,000.
In the past, such cases had to be tried through civil courts. Now that felony penalties are in place, families direly seeking child support payments might feel there's more hope of getting the financial means to raise their children.
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