As an octogenarian, I believe I have been reading The Post for 70 years, but few articles have brought me to tears as did Petula Dvorak’s Oct. 10 Metro column, “An impossible choice for an immigrant mother.” Catia Paz has been told to self-deport by Friday,  leaving her husband and her daughters, ages 6 and 8, behind. Why? Because she was 17 and not 16 or younger when she fled her war-torn country of El Salvador. She has held a responsible job, is raising her children and is a homeowner, but the Trump administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents executive action, and now she must leave or face deportation.

What have we as a country become? Where is our moral compass? Where is basic decency? In this instance, certainly, it has vanished.

Claire O’Dwyer Randall, Springfield

SALT Member and Member of Our Lady Queen of Peace