“I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.”
~George Washington
Let me tell you about Rasheeda. She was such a character. I’m not sure whether she was born in India or London, but she was a British Indian. From what I remember of her personal journey, she had been a child bride to a significantly older man and eventually having around 7 or 8 sons. She told us about living through the Blitz and sleeping in the Tube stations in London. After the war, she wanted to get out of England, so she married an African-American GI and immigrated to the United States.
I don’t think Rasheeda realized how really challenging it would be to live in the US as a person of color especially before some of the civil rights legislation had been passed. Furthermore, her second husband was not a good guy. He did not work steadily and was an alcoholic, so I think Rasheeda might have been the primary breadwinner.
Rasheeda came to work for us when I was around 9 or 10. She was like the white tornado — I could always tell the days she came, because everything would be sparkling in the house. I loved having lunch with her, when I came home at lunchtime. I think she worked with her first husband as a snake charmer or something. She spoke incredibly proper British English and her stories were amazing. When my sister was born, she was the loving baby-sitter as well and the two of them were very close.
We all loved Rasheeda.
Or let me tell you about Carmen. Carmen came to work for my dad when he was 89 and having significant mobility issues. Every morning, she would arrive at my dad’s apartment at 7:00am to help him get ready, make him breakfast, do any laundry and then sit and chat with him to keep him company, while he ate his breakfast. She confided to him that she didn’t have the proper papers, but she did pay taxes. She had come to the US as a teenager, spoke fluent English, got herself a CNA certificate and helped other seniors like my dad. I don’t know what we would have done without Carmen helping the way she did. After Dad moved into skilled nursing, every one of the health care workers taking care of him were Filipinos. They were so terrific. And as for Carmen, with her references and skills, she had no trouble finding another job.
Another person I really respected was Miguel. Miguel was the foreman of the landscaping crew that for over a decade mowed my lawn and weeded my gardens. He had been coming to work for my landscaper in the US for years. Every spring he would return from Mexico to his job and work the hot summer months. After the fall cleanup, he’d return to Mexico for the winter. He was prompt, reliable and my yard always looked superb.
Many immigrants have been a part of my life, and they have been wonderful people and contributors to the fabric of our country. I remember the Vietnamese refugee, Minh, who worked as a programmer on one of my client projects in Washington state. Again, incredibly hard working — putting in extra hours; his work was impeccable, etc. Or I remember Elena, my fabulous Romanian cleaning lady that I had in Chicago — she cried and hugged me, when I moved to the suburbs. I loved Lora, my Ukrainian manicurists; and Marysia, a lovely Polish woman who took care of my grandmother. Here in Asheville, my cleaning lady is German and my manicurists are Vietnamese. The guys who installed my hardwood floors were from Mexico — they did a superb job.
Just about every experience that I have ever had with an immigrant has been positive. (And as I’ve written before, I have a rather internationally diverse family: A Nation of Immigrants.) The people I’ve met along the way, are so reliable, hard-working and often doing tough jobs. I suppose that is why it’s really hard for me to understand Trump and his MAGA base acting so apoplectic about all these wonderful people being a part of our country.
There are so many immigrants in the Chicago area, that I didn’t really consider the situation at all strange or even remotely problematic. I suppose that’s why the Chicago mayor and Illinois governor have staked out the position that they will not cooperate with these draconian Trump actions. The immigrant community is simply too important to the well-being and economic stability of Illinois and for that matter, the US.
Here are some facts:
Welcome to MAGA’s ICE Age.
Before Trump was elected president in 2016, I knew very little about what ICE was. I confess, it just wasn’t a part of my reality.
Now it’s in the news every day…
A significant increase in funding for ICE has been approved making it the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency.
ICE is set to receive approximately $75 billion through September 2029. This includes $45 billion for detention facilities and $30 billion for hiring 10,000 new employees, removal operations, and upgrades.
ICE's annual budget was around $10 billion prior to this new funding.
Some sources suggest the annual spending on immigration enforcement, including ICE, could reach around $80 billion by 2028.
Backed by this excessive new funding, the administration is launching an aggressive immigration enforcement expansion — including hiring 10,000 new ICE agents, doubling detention capacity, building more border wall, and deploying AI surveillance — in pursuit of mass deportations. One can only believe that this rapid ramp-up could lead to rushed hiring, abuse, and lasting changes to the U.S. immigration system.
The criminalization of immigration in the U.S. began in 1929 with the passage of the Undesirable Aliens Act, also known as Blease's Law. This law made it a misdemeanor to cross the border outside of official ports of entry, marking a shift towards criminalizing unauthorized border crossings. I was reading about the history of the system and it was pretty interesting.
In the 1990s, Congress expanded these laws. A major surge in migration-related prosecutions came with the post-9/11 restructuring of the immigration enforcement landscape in the early 2000s, and prosecutions continued at high rates under the Obama administration. The Trump administration has weaponized these laws to new heights, using them to block asylum seekers and separate families. If you’re interested, read the whole report.
Before ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), we had Immigration and Naturalization Services, but in around 1999 that the name was changed. Once ICE was established, we militarized enforcement to a degree that was previously unseen in the United States.
I think it’s time we rethink this entire organization and what its role should be. I’d like to see the name be Naturalization Services again. Immigrants have been and continue to be essential to our country and its future.
It’s time for the ice to melt.
Thought for the day in honor of her birthday…
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
~ Ida B. Wells
Must Read Article:
What ICE’s big payday means for America
There is a question of how quickly ICE can build up its infrastructure and personnel using its newfound resources. But just days after the bill passed, the administration made a show of force at Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park on Monday, with heavily armed immigration agents in tactical gear and military-style trucks showing up to arrest undocumented immigrants.
That may only be the beginning. ICE may not yet be able to deport 1 million undocumented immigrants in a single year — the goal that the Trump administration has privately set.
However, the agency is already infringing on civil liberties under this administration in ways that should worry not just immigrants, but every American, said Shayna Kessler, director of the Advancing Universal Representation Initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice reform advocacy group.
“The tactics of this administration are sweeping and indiscriminate,” Kessler said. “The administration is continuing to widen the circle of people that they’re subjecting to criminalization, to detention, and to deportation. It’s happening in a way that is undermining due process and our fundamental values.”
Quote of the day:
“At ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, which has long focused on cartels and major drug-trafficking operations, supervisors have waved agents off new cases so they have more time to make immigration-enforcement arrests. ‘No drug cases, no human trafficking, no child exploitation. It’s infuriating.’ The longtime ICE employee is thinking about quitting rather than having to continue ‘arresting gardeners.’”
“Morale is in the crapper,” another former investigative agent told me. “Even those that are gung ho about the mission aren’t happy with how they are asking to execute it—the quotas and the shift to the low-hanging fruit to make the numbers.”
From The Atlantic
What I’m reading today…
Trump's new wall: His push to oust immigrants legally in the U.S.
President Trump's plan to deport "millions" of immigrants has reached a critical point: Its success likely will depend not on removing criminals, but on telling people who are in the U.S. legally they're no longer welcome. For all the showy raids and tough talk, the largest targets in Trump's crackdown include immigrants who've had temporary protection to stay in the U.S. — more than 1.2 million people who fled wars, oppression, natural disasters, poverty and more.
US undocumented farm workers feel ‘hunted like animals’ amid Trump’s immigration raids
Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) have caused workers to lose hours and income, and forced them into hiding at home, according to interviews.
With many US farms reliant on undocumented workers to function, the US president and his administration have sought to reassure their owners in recent months. But Trump’s pledge to put farmers “in charge” of immigration enforcement alarmed workers’ rights advocates, who suggested they were being asked to surrender “their freedom to their employer” just to stay in the country.
A crisis of faith: ICE raids force some churches to take ‘extraordinary’ action
A month of sweeping immigration enforcement actions has sent people underground, leaving businesses empty and upending daily life across Southern California. It’s also sparked a crisis of faith for many Catholics who have spent their lives worshiping at Sunday Mass and are now questioning whether it’s safe to connect with God in such a public space.
Border czar Tom Homan said the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants from the United States — when their home countries can’t, or won’t, take them back….The deportations to places like South Sudan and El Salvador where migrants have no connections have raised concerns among lawyers and immigrant advocates who fear for the men’s safety in countries with a history of human rights violations.
US sends third-country deportees under secrecy to the small African kingdom of Eswatini
In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos, had arrived on a plane, but didn’t say when or where.
The Shocking Details of the L.A. ICE Raids
Starting on or around June 6, 2025, the federal government unleashed immigration agents and officers into the streets, worksites, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles and surrounding counties, creating an illegal detention and deportation dragnet that shows no signs of ceasing.
Immigration agents demand tenant information from landlords, stirring questions and confusion
Immigration authorities are demanding that landlords turn over leases, rental applications, forwarding addresses, identification cards and other information on their tenants, a sign that the Trump administration is targeting them to assist in its drive for mass deportations.
Eric Teusink, an Atlanta-area real estate attorney, said several clients recently received subpoenas asking for entire files on tenants. A rental application can include work history, marital status and family relationships.
Is the Hispanic Red Wave for Donald Trump Starting to Crash?
Local activism against the federal immigration raids has been growing. In February, a lively and well-attended protest march took over the streets of downtown McAllen; a news site compared it to a celebration after a high-school-football victory. “It’s a lot of new people who are showing up, people who have not typically participated in these events,” Michael Mireles, the civic-engagement director for LUPE, a nonprofit group that supports low-income community organizing, said. “And you have elected officials who are speaking out for the first time.” (Mireles added that he finds it “frustrating” that leaders are framing the issue mostly in economic terms. “People are not willing to take a moral lens on the issue because they don’t want to come off as far left or something,” he said.)
The Trump administration excludes undocumented children from Head Start
The Trump administration is reversing decades of federal policy to exclude undocumented children from the federal preschool program Head Start, in its latest attack on immigrants in the US. (Amazing —assimately immigrants was the one of the missions of America’s public school system in the 1800s)
The one border crisis that won’t be solved by a spending windfall
The Border Patrol, in particular, has the additional challenge of finding people willing to do an often difficult job in a remote outpost like Sanderson, Texas, or Ajo, Arizona. Just hiring, screening and training new agents can take a year — and many people don’t want to spend years in a desolate place where their spouse can’t also find a job.
Immigration lawyers and pro-Palestinian activists have previously suspected that immigration authorities were plucking the names of academics from the Canary Mission site and seeking to revoke their visas with little independent research. But the depositions reveal for the first time how broadly Trump officials relied on the website.
Is your family member or client at Alligator Alcatraz? We obtained a list
The DeSantis administration has not made public a list of names of the immigrants held at the facility in heavy duty tents at an airstrip in the Florida Everglades. Individuals sent to the makeshift detention center do not show up in an online government database that allows the public to search for immigrant detainees’ whereabouts. Lawyers say they have had difficulty locating clients sent to the site, often learning that they are there when detainees call family members.
Tracking Controversial Deportations and Detainments Under the Trump Administration
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have deported or detained some individuals who arrived in the US legally or held protected status. Reasons range from anti-Israel speech, to alleged gang affiliations, to “administrative errors”. Some are accusing the Trump administration of stifling First Amendment rights and other constitutional protections.
Top Trump Official Escalates Attacks on the Pope and Bishops
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan — a self-professed lifelong Catholic — has launched blistering tirades against Church leaders. In February, after Pope Francis condemned Trump’s mass deportation program as inhumane, Homan lashed out.
He told Fox News the pope should “leave enforcement to us” and “stick to the Catholic Church,” even sniping that “he’s got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?”
Now Homan has turned his anger on an American bishop. This week Bishop Alberto Rojas excused immigrant parishioners from attending Mass amid fears of ICE raids. Homan derided the move as “BS,” claiming “not a single incident of a church arrest” has occurred, calling the bishop a liar. In fact, ICE recently made arrests at two local churches in his diocese.
Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated
30% of Americans want immigration decreased, down from 55% a year ago
Record-high 79% consider immigration good for the country
Support down for border wall, mass deportation
What I am watching…
What I read every day…
