Tell me exactly how this is going to work.

The cruelty of Trump's deportation plan is exceeded only by its absurdity.

Our time here is fleeting. Make every day count.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which included a drive to Connecticut for a lovely and long overdue family get together and dinner at my niece’s. The rest of the day I spent pondering this weekend’s list of To-Do’s, and contemplating the logistics of the incoming administration’s immigration policy. (Yes, things I actually think about in retirement.) I have a New Yorker’s view of immigration, and immigrants, which is to say that I grew up in a wonderful collage of neighbors and neighborhoods and food festivals, and actual Chinese and Greek and Cuban restaurants scattered among the Polish Clubs and Germania Halls and all the aromas and customs and cultural celebrations that come with all of that, and make New York, New York. We live in the Adirondacks now, but I still love visiting New York, which my wife and I try to do with quasi-monthly frequency. We will walk from our Metro North train at Grand Central across town to Restaurant Row on 46^th to grab a lunch before taking in a matinee performance. In that five block walk we will listen to conversations in numerous languages on every block and take in enough different aromas from the global array of restaurants to make us re-think our lunch destination every time. I revel in that experience every time I visit and it never gets old.

I grew up in restaurant kitchens, where at any given moment there were three languages being spoken – usually at the same time - and English was most definitely the second language. As Tony Bourdain was fond of pointing out, if we were to deport all the immigrant restaurant employees with questionable documentation, particularly from Mexico and South America, most of the restaurants in New York would close the next day. I’m pretty sure that the same holds true for the restaurants in many if not most major cities in this country. I am also sure that a similar condition exists in most dairy farming operations, in most meatpacking plants, and landscaping companies, and in numerous other industries that impose working conditions on their employees that most of us could tolerate for about an hour and a half. So – one of the things that I do not understand about this “illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs” story is - which of these jobs exactly were “stolen”. I suspect that the answer is closer to zero than a lot.

As cruel and malicious as this proposal may be, I shudder at the thought of the impact that a mass deportation would have on our communities - for us and for the immigrants. Has anyone actually thought about the logistics of rounding up and deporting an estimated 12 million people? I cringe just typing the words. Twelve million people exceeds the populations of eleven states – combined! How, exactly, and where exactly, do you detain, process, and transport twelve million people out of the country. I read a story yesterday about a Texas offer of 1,400 acres of land on the border to build a deportation center, so as long as we are talking about Texas, I’ll offer a Texas size thought experiment. AT&T (Dallas Cowboys) Stadium can be configured to hold 100,000 people. You would need 120 stadiums to hold all those people. Think about it. The cruelty of this proposal is exceeded only by its absurdity. I know that they are thinking tents and chain linked pen enclosures and not stadiums, but the scale of this endeavor would be staggering, and a scene straight out of a post apocalyptic dystopian novel, complete with neighbors turning on neighbors and actual jack-booted thugs.

I fully understand that our immigration policy needs to be fixed, and our borders need to be secure. There was bipartisan progress and agreement on both counts, but you-know-who scuttled the deal so he could talk about it during the election instead of actually doing something about it, so now we are back to screaming at each other. While we are doing that, I hope that we all remember that we are talking about people, usually desperate people. They have probably traveled hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles, risking the lives of their family and children just to get here, looking for a safe place to live and raise their family, not to eat our cats. Many have actually walked through Central American jungles risking everything they have to make it here. How desperate would you have to be to leave everything and move to another country? I can’t even imagine the agony of that decision, no less the ordeal itself. They have heard that they can make a life here. Maybe they can’t. Certainly, they all cannot. We can at least be kind while we figure this out.

I had the luxury of growing up in a community of immigrants. I have no idea how many were here legally, but I am sure that many were not. They were my friends and neighbors and co-workers. That exposure to different cultures and customs shaped my worldview. I think it shaped it enormously for the better. I think that if people have not had that luxury and privilege, if they live in a community with little exposure to the few folks who “came from away”, I hope that they try to get to know them - or at least learn the true story of the immigrant experience - not just because it will be helpful to our new neighbors, but because it might be even more helpful, and rewarding, for them.

Be kind.

I am thinking about offering these mutterings on a weekly basis on Saturday morning. I like the idea of posting on the weekends when folks are relaxing. I thought about posting on Friday but that would mean writing them by Thursday (read, on Thursday), but - Thursday is Paradox Brewery night. So, no. I’ll try Saturday mornings and we’ll see how that goes.

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