This letter to the editor is not in response to any other letter writer. It is aimed at our so-called neutral news agencies. They have been making comparisons of the mass migration from Ukraine as compared to those from Africa and the Middle East into Europe. The continual drumbeat is that those nations that are accepting the refugees from Ukraine are at the same time doing everything to prevent those from nations in Africa from landing or taking residence. The implication is that Europe is trying to avoid allowing Muslims and people of color in but accepting Ukrainians because they are white and from Christian backgrounds.

I am taking umbrage at this simple argument. No one on any news channel is mentioning that there is one very obvious difference, and it is not religion or skin color. The mostly males who have travelled across the Sahara Desert, then across the Mediterranean Sea are intending on “staying” in Europe. They have planned to find better paying jobs, more political freedoms than in their home nations, and have no intention of returning. The Ukrainians are only women and children, with little personal belongings, and with no intention of staying away.

In fact, some of the Ukrainians have even tried to return and due to the danger, shouldn’t be attempting it. They have no intention of taking jobs away from other Europeans, no intention of staying any longer than it takes for the Russians to go home and for peace to return to Ukraine. They love their country and its culture and are not interested in staying in any other nation. They are not just willing to go home; they are desperately trying to get there. They are not a threat to any other European nation’s population, welfare state, or employment numbers.

This simple explanation is totally ignored in the press, regardless of the news outlet being left or right.

Eugene Clegg

Enumclaw