Go Back to Where You Came From

And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

One reason I retired is so that I could attack the piles of books and magazines blocking access to every room in the house. Just ask my spouse.

I just finished Wajahat Ali’s excellent book, Go Back to Where You Came From.

Buy it. Read it. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll get pissed off. Amazingly, he ends on a note of hope. (He has kids, so he is contractually obligated to be hopeful.) And he has a wicked podcast, The Left Hook, on which he fights fascism. Recommended.

AND NOW THE NEWS:

• “[T]he Administration’s interest in boosting ICE’s headcount from 20,000 to 30,000 is bumping up against multiple challenges, including finding applicants who are both qualified and willing to live in parts of the country where ICE is intent on deploying more agents. “You’re talking three years before you see a significant increase of ICE agents on the street, which is the end of the administration,” predicts John Sandweg, who was the acting director of ICE during the Obama administration. … In the first week of its new recruitment campaign, the Department of Homeland Security said it received more than 80,000 applications. There are signs that most of those applicants were not what the agency was looking for. … And for new hires, it takes time to train new deportation officers on how to properly carry a gun and conduct arrests. Such training for ICE agents takes place at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) in Glynco, Georgia. That’s created a bottleneck because there are only so many instructors and space to train new officers. “The administration wants boots on the ground as quickly as possible to ramp up arrests and ramp up deportations, but you can’t just bring them in off the street,” Sandweg says. “You’ve got to hire, background check, once they’re on board and cleared for a security clearance, you’ve got to get them down to FLETC.” … Geography is also an obstacle. Under the Trump Administration, ICE aims to find and arrest more immigrants to deport in cities run by Democrats like New York and Chicago and Los Angeles. It’s those same communities where it’s harder for ICE to poach law enforcement in the area because local police already pay better, says Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. Moreover, many of ICE’s harsh actions in the past few months—showing up at court houses and workplaces to arrest people, often while masked—has further chipped away at the public perception of ICE nationally, but especially in those cities. “People do not just get attracted to jobs just for the money,” says Chishti. “There are other factors that come into play—location, people’s perception of the status of the job, people’s perception of how they are perceived in the job. All those are a bit of a problem for ICE today.” - Time, Aug. 12, 2025.

• “Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) was once again illegally denied access to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn today, where more than 100 immigrants are currently being held. Last week, Representatives Goldman, Espaillat, and Velázquez were blocked from touring the facility, with Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials promising to accommodate a tour of the facility if given advanced notice of a visit. Congressman Goldman gave BOP advanced notice of today's visit on Friday, August 8th, yet BOP once again refused to allow the Congressman to inspect the facility without providing an explanation. Prior notice is not required under Section 527(a) of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, which grants Members of Congress the authority to inspect any facility being used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain or house immigrants. "The Bureau of Prisons is now complicit in the Department of Homeland Security’s illegal refusal to allow members of Congress to conduct oversight over immigration detainees. Despite promising to accommodate an advance request to inspect conditions at the MDC Brooklyn where immigrants are being detained, the BOP denied my request to do so. “Just yesterday, a federal judge found that DHS was holding immigration detainees in illegal and unconstitutional conditions at 26 Federal Plaza and ordered DHS to immediately improve those inhumane conditions. For months, DHS denied allegations of dreadful conditions and prevented me from accessing the 26 Federal Plaza detention facility to inspect the conditions. Now we know that DHS has been lying to the American people for months. “BOP is now helping DHS stash immigrants in their jails and preventing members of Congress from conducting oversight. The American people deserve a government that tells the truth, follows the law, and does not cover up abuse.” The denial of access comes less than 24 hours after a federal judge ordered DHS to improve conditions at a separate ICE detention facility at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, where Goldman has been leading efforts to expose inhumane conditions (full statement here). DHS has continuously rebuffed Congressman Goldman’s past attempts to inspect the 26 Federal Plaza facility. Congressman Goldman and 11 other Members of Congress filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration last month over its continued refusal to allow members of Congress to access ICE detention facilities, including the 26 Federal Plaza, which is also located in the Congressman’s district.” - Dan Goldman, Aug. 13, 2025.

• “Here are three key takeaways about Trump’s formation of an immigration police state, drawn from work we have published. One: This Was Never About Criminals … Two: This Was Always Going to Require Militarization and Lawlessness … Three: This Will Have Consequences for Every American…” - Birch Smith, Aug. 12, 2025.

• The Verbatim Salon: Immigration & The United States: “The Verbatim Salon is a monthly public event where actors share stories from interviews recorded with people interacting with the US immigration system. These stories are performed using an in-ear verbatim technique. Actors listen in real time to the recordings via headphones as they speak the words aloud in front of the audience. This technique protects the anonymity of the interview subject, allows stories to be recorded in more intimate one-on-one settings, and includes people who might not be able or willing to share their story in front of an audience.” - Verbatim Salon.

LET’S CLOSE WITH GOOD NEWS:

• “Amid a wave of litigation from the federal government seeking to end in-state tuition rates for undocumented students, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says the decision by voters to make college more affordable for noncitizen students in the Grand Canyon State complies with federal law — insulating it against attacks from the Trump administration. … More than 3,600 undocumented students graduate from Arizona high schools every year, and their ability to continue their education may depend on the law’s future. In a legal opinion issued on Tuesday, Mayes appeared to allay fears about that future, writing that the law Prop. 308 created is perfectly legal. She concluded that the two federal laws the Trump administration has so far employed to challenge higher education access in other states can’t be used to block the Arizona law. “Prop. 308 is consistent with federal law,” the Democrat wrote in her one-sentence conclusion.” - Arizona Mirror, Aug. 13, 2025.

Enough for today. Comments always welcome. THANK YOU! to all subscribers, free, paid and NEW! (This morning we crossed the 1,000 subscriber Rubicon!)

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