Jeers to the bureaucratic roll of red tape and the frustrating injustice of current U.S. immigration law that’s forcing Lisbon Street’s Three One Cafe owner, Mahamed Mahamud of Lewiston, to leave a successful business in our city and return to war-torn Somalia.

We could go on and on about why Mahamud and his family — two of his children were born here — should be allowed to stay in America.

But online reader Tim McClure of Lisbon Falls wrote it very well for us in a comment on the story earlier this week.

“America was founded by people seeking refuge and freedom,” McClure wrote. “People who seek a decent life for themselves and their families. In this case Mr. Mahamud is a business owner and is active in his community. A great example of why we need to reform our immigration laws.”

Jeers to Mahamud’s situation. But cheers to his enduring spirit, his sense of responsibility and all of the other positive contributions he’s made to our downtown community.

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Jeers to the Cumberland County Jail and those in charge of it. Security was so slack there recently that one inmate, facing charges of shooting at a federal officer, was able to slip out of his cell and into the cell of a female inmate for consensual sex. Both inmates apparently rigged their cell doors to help accommodate this, but apparently nobody was checking. Romeo — not his real name — got caught while crawling along the floor toward his cell after the encounter. He was supposedly in a “maximum security” portion of the jail. Makes us wonder what goes on in the less secure portions of the facility. A serious review of jail policy, procedure and protocols is in order.

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Cheers to the four Rumford cops recently honored by Maine State Police for their work on a double homicide case in their town in 2009. Recognized with letters from Lt. Brian T. McDonough were Chief Stacy Carter, Capt. Daniel Garbarini, Detective Sgt. James Bernard and Sgt. Tracey Higley. The men not only preserved the crime scene in a “textbook” manner, they also spent long hours working as a team with state police to interview witnesses and eventually find suspects that led to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the crimes. Cheers to top-notch police work in Rumford.

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Cheers to the Spruce Mountain Area Robotics Team and its robot, Bowser. The 24-member team was recognized with the Rookie All-Star award at a competition in Massachusetts earlier this month. The team is focusing young people and giving them some real-world experience in developing advanced engineering and technology skills, which are critical to future workplaces.

One goal of the robotics team is to help the Jay, Livermore and Livermore Falls area develop the next generation of highly skilled workers to rebuild the region’s communities, team mentor Dan Lemieux said. Cheers to that.

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Here in L-A, the future’s looking brighter all the time.

Cheers to the energy and effort being put toward shaping the future in a way of which we can all be proud in the form of the L/A Future Forum — a volunteer spinoff group of the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council. The group unveiled some of its work this week at a community forum, and with community power-hitters like businesspeople Gene Geiger and Kathie Leonard leading the charge, we can’t help but believe good things will come of these efforts.

The group hopes to highlight the valuable, worthwhile and fun things going on here, including strides in higher education, the environment, entertainment and quality of life. The goal of making our community “the place to live, learn, work and play” in Maine is indeed “lofty,” as Leonard put it, but big goals often yield big results.

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The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.