Dear Mr. Trump,

Stop playing games with people’s lives! More than 800,000 federal workers are not receiving their paychecks, even though many of them are forced to continue working. In 2013, a court found that the United States government violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by forcing its employees to work during a government shutdown without paying them as the law requires. You pledged to obey the law. Why don’t you?

In your misguided calculus, you think that prolonging the shutdown is to your political advantage. The facts are otherwise. Only one-third of Americans believe that the shutdown is the fault of the Democrats. So toss in your cards. You’re playing a losing hand.

If you wanted real border security, you would agree immediately to the $1.3 billion bipartisan-negotiated funding for the Department of Homeland Security. You would recognize, e.g., that drones are much more effective in securing the border than a wall that can be tunneled under or climbed over.

Supposedly, you’re a dealmaker. Make a deal that opens the government in return for an additional 100 new high-tech drones to add to our border’s security.

If you wanted real border security, you would’ve agreed in the past to get money for your stupid, useless, inefficient wall by agreeing, at the same time, to grant a path to citizenship for the Dreamers.

Supposedly, you’re a dealmaker. Make a deal that takes proper, moral, and compassionate care of the Dreamers in exchange for wall money.

Come on, Orange-Dream-Crusher. Get off you know what and open the government.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger