A modest proposal for the Divided States of America for our 250th anniversary

[This essay was originally published on the 4th of July on Substack here]

Dear President Trump, Governors and Mayors— 

If I may borrow from the play, A Thousand Clowns, that Herb Gardner wrote more than 60 years ago, “I personally don’t feel that you’re gonna work out your problems with each other, but I’m glad you came to me because I think I can help you. Donald, the governors are not going to respect you because you threaten them. Respect will have to come gradually, naturally, a maturing process.” 
We have gone well beyond an angry, partisan kerfuffle over immigrants and into dangerous, hate-baiting that is rending asunder the country we purport to cherish and possibly irrevocably dragging the United States into quicksand. Blame each other if it makes you feel better. There is no high ground in quicksand. 
Donald, clearly you consider immigrants to be a drain on society, no matter how much research points to the contrary and to have violated laws to get or stay here. Some, yes; most, no. The tired, poor, huddled masses who accepted the Statue of Liberty’s invitation at the expense often of death-defying journeys, financial exploitation, and family breakups need to go. 
They’ve overstayed their welcomes, even if they’ve worked in America’s broad economy, paid taxes, raised kids, and become fixtures in their communities…for years. The U.S. born citizens of undocumented immigrants should go too. 
Your posts and pulsating drumbeats and dog whistles lead the MAGA and GOP way.

You want immigrants out. MAGA wants immigrants out. You embrace a mandate to do whatever you want to get them out. Call in troops, mask federal agents, build up a HESTAFO of Homeland Security Task Forces, handcuff a US Senator, if protesters “spit, we hit,” and make up allegations against immigrants to have them appear dangerous and criminal. MAGA and the GOP are behind you. They’re your mandate, your rock and salvation.
As you feverishly do their bidding, in California in particular so far, the governor, LA’s mayor, legions of No Kings-mandate deniers, and protesters who support immigrants, see what’s become obvious, and, traumatized by historical parallels, dread that we’ve come to this.
At one point, you vowed changes to your immigration crackdown to protect migrant farmers and hotel workers. That ruse disappeared, as migrants have. They might have been allowed to live their lives peacefully and productively.
You threaten sanctuary cities, question the citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate in New York City, the home you abandoned, deploying the same line of rhetoric you used for Barack Obama: “A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally.” This time you have power and seem inclined to deport a mayoral candidate, even if you have to denaturalize him.
You’re in the process of pulling the welcome mat out from under people who have been legally in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). As of Sept. 30, 2024, the U.S. is providing TPS protections to more one million people from the following 16 countries, according to the National Immigration Forum - Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.

TPS status provides work authorizations and protection from deportation for individuals from countries experiencing ongoing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary circumstances that have prevented their safe return. The status for people from eleven of the 16 countries expires by December. The other five expire next year. Homeland Security has announced that all will be terminated and has already written letters to those from Afghanistan, Cameroon and Nepal, and some from Venezuela. Hondurans were added July 7. The letters inform them of the termination on dates this summer, making them ineligible to work legally in the U.S. and subject to deportation immediately.

To me, the tapestry of peoples from all over the planet feels more like the spirit in an Olympic village than the crammed quarters of detention centers, “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Evergladers or the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador…for now.
Donald, if we take a closer look at the mandate you invoke to propel your immigrant clearance sale, current data from the Pew Research Center shows less of a mandate than a coin toss:

• Your use of state and local law enforcement in deportation efforts (50% approve, 49% disapprove)
• Offering money and travel funds to immigrants in the U.S. illegally if they leave voluntarily (49% approve, 50% disapprove).

Or a squandered and lost mandate:

• 60% of Americans disapprove of the suspension of most asylum applications (39% approve).
• 59% disapprove of ending TPS for immigrants who came to the United States escaping war or other disasters at home (39% approve).
• 54% disapprove of increasing HESTAFO raids on workplaces where people who are in the U.S. illegally may be working (45% approve).

That’s the national story, but there’s much to be learned from data that shows the USA is actually the DSA (Divided States of America) when it comes to immigrants:

• 78% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents approve of the administration’s approach to immigration, including 51% who strongly approve. Just 12% disapprove.
• In contrast, 81% of Democrats and Democratic leaners disapprove, with 63% strongly disapproving. Just 9% approve.

I’d like to suggest a modest compromise for you, our governors and mayors.
Donald, pull out your pen and issue an executive order that plays to your mandate of the 312 electoral votes you won. Homeland Security and HESATAFO should have little trouble arresting and deporting thousands of busloads of immigrants in states where you won by more than 30 percentage points - Wyoming (+46 percentage points), West Virginia (+42), Idaho (+37), North Dakota (+36), and Oklahoma (+34). No need for troops, masked agents, deputizing more HESATAFO. No mayors crying sanctuary.
Let the blue states have their immigrants. They seem to want them. There are 20 blue states - California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Let them prove they want to keep immigrants, including TPS residents.
We had a chance to test that out a few years ago when during the Biden years, in 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis executed a plot to send immigrant families from Texas and Florida to blue states.
At the time, DeSantis issued a statement: "States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration."
Rather than pre-empting the clever grandstanding move by offering without prompting to welcome immigrants to help offset complaints from besieged red states near the borders, blue state mayors and governors backed into trying to make it work with little notice or resources.
Time to put up or shut up, blue states and mayors.
Donald, let the people in 20 states go…on to live in peace, without terror, and with a prospect for citizenship rather than deportation. If you’ve never gone to a naturalization ceremony, I recommend it. It’s where the Olympic village convenes.

2022 naturalization ceremony- Auditorium Theater, Chicago

I live in Evanston, Illinois, which is a Welcoming City. Trump received 8% of the Evanston vote in both 2024 and 2020. I damn well better support this compromise. And I do.

If I don’t and if residents of other blue cities like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Ann Arbor, Madison, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Burlington, Detroit, Hartford, Oakland, LA, and NYC prefer to be subject to the Trump-MAGA immigration agenda, we can trigger a home rule referendum scheme and cue the handcuffs. Until then, let’s give immigrants hope rather than terror and dehumanization.

Deportations and self-deportations can be replaced with self-departures and left to the likes of Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and Tom Homan. Or what’s a 250^th anniversary of independence for?

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Immigrant disappearances in Chicago: How to heed the call?

 [Earlier version published at https://jackcdoppelt.substack.com/p/immigrant-disappearances-in-chicago]

If you’re like me, you’ll find it hard to believe this story. Yet, it happened here in Chicago earlier this week, it was painfully predictable, and it leaves a deep boot print of what’s afoot. 

The CBS News Chicago headline: “ICE agents detain several people at immigration supervision program site in Chicago” only hints at the state of affairs. 

I sought out the story after I heard a report on WBEZ. In it, a person who was interviewed referred to the incident as “shameful, chilling and dystopian.” That caught my attention. 

Both accounts report that the vigilantes were masked, that they wore gear that had the words POLICE or HCI or both emblazoned on their riot gear. Videos confirm it. 

HCI is synonymous with the Hestafo (Homeland Security Task Forces), Trump’s reconstituted storm troopers. 

How did the Hestafo know when and where to round up immigrants? Easy ploy. They used databases to text official messages to immigrants, instructing them to appear for routine appointments that had been set up as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance program that allows authorities to monitor those facing immigration proceedings without placing them in custody. Immigrants are summoned to the facility periodically to ensure they are complying with the conditions of their release from custody, and to make sure they appear in court when required. 

If they don’t appear? It’s an unforgiving violation of the law, making them subject to deportation. What would you do? 

Go on the lam and be a fugitive inching your way up the ladder to THE WORST FIRST criminal elements that ICE and Trump pretended they were after to make America safe or be duped into the trap they’d sprung for you as part of the evolving selective foreign eradication policies that are reinforced by increased aggressive policing and militarization of local law enforcement. Keep your eyes on the due processes that are the ones that now matter, as Trump: 

• transformed almost all aliens, including green card holders (lawful permanent residents), asylum seekers, refugees, and even some students on F1 visas into “illegal” immigrants. 
• ended temporary protected status for Afghans. 
• suspended the US refugee program the day Trump took office. 
• selectively grandrefugeed in South African whites for privileged admission into the US. 
• revoked student visas for international students, most notably at Harvard. 
• issued a travel ban on citizens from 12 countries - Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, along with restrictions on citizens from other countries. 

ICE is touting, through Fox News, more than 2,300 immigrant arrests per day en route to Trump’s proclaimed goal of 3,000+ daily arrests. Yesterday’s devious smoke-out in Chicago took place at 23rd & Michigan in the south Loop and disappeared about a dozen people. Who’s to know? Not their families or lawyers. 

Or Chicago police who seem to have been bamboozled into appearing like they were part of the action. They were not notified of the trick. Officers showed up at the scene, the CPD says, to ensure that the confrontation didn’t get out of hand. Hard to pierce the subterfuge. Hestafo’s gear says POLICE in bold letters. Clever way to undercut the city’s sanctuary laws, its Welcoming City ordinance and Illinois’ Trust Act, which prohibit local law enforcement agents from collaborating with federal officials to arrest and detain immigrants. 

Almost a year ago, before Trump’s election but when it seemed pre-ordained, I reflected on who I would be and how I would act if it came to this. Painfully predictable, yet now what? I anticipated I’d need to confront the real portent of resistance. 

It was abstract. Here’s how I left it: 

“It is not something I know how to engage in. I have no playbook. When I think about it, it seems like a dystopian fantasy or the musings of a savior complex. When it goes beyond organized peaceful protests or legal strategies, its actions can’t be publicly shared or disseminated. Texts, email and social media would be mostly off-limits. 

If peaceful protesters are arrested, would I and others join in to swell the ranks to make arrests less feasible? If immigrants are rounded up for deportation, would I and others hide people in our homes? Would I and others seek out churches, synagogues and mosques for sanctuaries, solidarity and moral guidance? Do undergrounds form organically? 

I’m in uncharted territory here.” 

And now it’s real.

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Let your kid speak: Aftermath of Kent State

[Also available at https://jackcdoppelt.substack.com/p/let-your-kid-speak?r=bmiv]

Dr. Heing, Miss McDonald, Mrs. Nesbit, Mr. Fink, Mr. Myrent, inductees, parents and friends— 

We are gathered here today to witness the induction of the Mather Chapter of the National Honor Society. The Ceremony you are about to witness marks a distinguished achievement in the lives of these young people for in order to become a member of the society, each inductee had to have, in addition to a notably high scholastic average, outstanding leadership ability, fine character traits and an imposing record of many hours unselfishly devoted to some school service. Herein lies the purpose of this nation-wide society: to create an enthusiasm for scholarship, to stimulate the desire to render service, to promote good leadership and to develop character traits above reproach in the students of secondary schools throughout the United States. 

The development of one’s character is a step which alters a teenager, a youth, a student into an individual. The strength of people’s convictions changes an apathetic, silent majority into a knowledgeable society. Apathy is a word that has been tossed around Mather ever since I’ve been here. Lately, I have noticed the thoughts of my fellow students manifest into ideals. 

In the last few days with the change in strategy in Southeast Asia and the unfortunate, almost inconceivable deaths of the four students at Kent State University, I have witnessed the maturing of students’ thoughts into strong beliefs. There is no more an attitude of what do I care? Every student has taken a position and is backing up his convictions by action. Not violent action but action that has made an astonishing amount of sleeping thinkers wake up and ask, “What have I missed? There must be something I don’t know about the world.” 

That is the purpose of the Mather students who walked out of school at 9 am yesterday. We gathered together yesterday and first made it clear to ourselves what we wanted to show. There varied opinions on the war, varied possible solutions but one point was constant and that was …everyone wanted it known that he did have an opinion and was going to stand by it and convince others to carry out that opinion. 

Some students remained in school and they made their opinions perfectly clear by doing so. Many others wanted to have their voices heard but are being hampered by their parents’ demands to “stay out of trouble.” If there are any of you in the audience, please listen to something which I hope will convince you to let your “individual” be heard in a manner that he thinks will do the most good. 

Late yesterday afternoon, I went downtown for an interview with a person from a scholarship committee. I met my mother and we were to go together. My mother saw this armband, my way of showing people that I do have an opinion. She begged me to remove it, at least for the meeting. It might ruin my chance for a scholarship. I told her that if I had to throw away what I believed in, it wasn’t worth it. She finally agreed but was visibly disturbed. We entered the interview and discussed my beliefs. The interviewer told my mother how proud she should be of those who care to say something and do something and if people would learn to be tolerant of others’ beliefs, a worthwhile solution might be arrived at with the support of the majority—a knowledgeable and active majority. The pride in my mother’s face was enough to make me realize that we must be heard, in our own ways and that we mustn’t fear the consequences of an open mind. 

Today at 10 am, the students have decided we are again going to prove that we do care by meeting in Mather Park and walking peacefully to Loyola Park for a rally. We want to be heard, our purpose is clear. We would appreciate all of your support. Come with us if you are not clear on our purpose. I’m sure we can convince you we want something done, and done before our country, and not in a foreign land but right here dissolves into a land of puppets not by strings, but by ignorance. 

In any case, each individual should have an opportunity to do his share. Don’t hold him back. You will be gratified to know that your son or daughter has solid convictions and is now the individual you worked so hard to mold. 

Now I would like to introduce a man, who through working with him, I have realized how fortunate we at Mather are to have. He is the most cooperative, innovative, respected man I have known and I’d like you to welcome our principal, Dr. Heing. 

[This is taken from a talk that I delivered in the Spring of 1970 at the induction ceremony of the Mather High School Chapter of the National Honor Society]

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The lesson of stories gone untold

Thank yous are on me – to Pres. Schapiro, Provost Linzer, Katherine and Nancy McCormick; to my faculty colleagues who recharge the batteries with me every day; to my students, the ones here and the 30 years’ worth who are out there spanning the globe and putting hopeful lessons into practice and passion; to my family – Margie [who is in large part responsible for me choosing to take the position at NU in 1986] Sylvie and Noah – who are my lifeblood; to my in-laws – Sheldon & Jewell – who’ve taken over for my parents; and to my parents, Marcus and Dora, who provide the dramatic tension and irony for this reflection. 

On paper, federal income tax forms, for instance, my parents were department store salespeople. They told me virtually nothing about their past, where all the dramatic tension resided. I never knew any of my four grandparents, and to this day, know very little about them. I went into life rootless or root-free. I was always a good student; motivated when a teacher and I conspired to click, and adept at cruise control, for instance, when a 6th grade teacher would turn me upside down in a garbage can, or an 8th grade arts teacher would force me to get on my knees and push a paint brush around with my nose. 

By the time I got to NU-Medill to teach, I’d divined that teaching is a collaborative process that can hit its glory days through transformative experiences. For inspiration, I would periodically walk over to the theater building to visit a colleague, with whom I’d gone to school at Grinnell. I’d sit in on an improv or story theater workshop, and like diving into Lake Michigan in the spring, I’d get revitalized. The puzzle, that I still haven’t solved, is how to transport the energy jolts, self-discovery and emotional liberties into a journalistic learning environment. In search of a metric equivalent, I lean on the likes of Rives Collins to bottle the elixir of storytelling. It is part of a potent formula, but it’s not all of it. 

Periodically I meet someone who knew my dad. We talk and I find out that my dad was a Talmudic scholar, one of considerable measure, who became a Rabbi at the age of 21, and who underwent a number of rounds of electroshock therapy en route to working as a salesman at Goldblatt’s. 

I was sitting in my mom’s apartment, where I’d grown up. I was post-college, probably late 20s, with my Israeli cousin Uri. We were telling stories. I was noting that his mother was the eldest of the family when he corrected me. To the side, my mother was saying, “shhhh, shhh,” only to have my cousin say, “don’t you tell him anything?” Turns out my mom was the oldest of her siblings, that in obtaining phony papers before leaving home in Sanok, Poland, during the Holocaust, she reduced her age on the document by five years so she and her sister who lived as Catholics in Krakow during the war could appear to be girlfriends of the same age rather than sisters. When my mom came to the United States a few years later, she kept the age, thinking that changing it would trigger suspicion. So my mom’s passport and her social security benefits years later are based on lies, fraudulent documents, just the telltale proof to have her deported. 

Stories for my parents to tell, gone untold. 

For the past few years, I’ve taught a class, Immigrant Connect, that has students venturing off campus into communities to tell stories, and they do an impressive job of it. We’ve met and told evocative stories, of Ahlam Mahmoud, an Iraqi refugee who’s become a single-source safety net for other refugees; of Eugene Peba, who was deported back to Nigeria as my students were documenting to the government that his marriage to a Chicago woman wasn’t a sham; and of Poe Clee whom I accompanied to Myanmar-Burma which he was preparing to call home though he’d never lived there before. We in journalism have recently come to define what journalism is as all about as storytelling, just as theater is all about storytelling, and other disciplines from the sciences to the classics are being schooled to appreciate the verities of storytelling. True, but not true enough. 

When I observe in classes that something educational and informative has flashed into something exhilarating and transformative, I’m sensing that it’s less often the final product, the varnished story itself, than it is the process - the interview (in journalistic terms) - but more than that, the inter-connecting, the exchange, the give-and-take, or as we at Northwestern have come to call it, the engagement – global, civic and interpersonal, both on campus and away from the cocoon. 

There is something incalculably empowering in listening as well as telling. It is often said that the highest calling in journalism is to give voice to the voiceless. A true virtue, but there’s something more that is at the heart of journalism and of teaching…and that is to give voice lessons to the voiceless. True for the teacher to the student, and also true for the student to those in the community whose stories we commit to tell. 

So thank you very much for this opportunity to tell this story, for listening to it, and for engaging with me in a reflection on the exhilaration of teaching. 

[This is taken from a talk that I delivered on May 22, 2013 at my installation as a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University]

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Steve Goodman is a doorway to my life and heart

 [Adapted from Storied Stuff, published originally on March 16, 2022]

I bought this album used for $2.

Steve Goodman album cover, 1971

I didn’t own a stereo until freshman year in college, when some of my high school buddies hitchhiked from Chicago to Grinnell to present me with one. My family had no stereo or record player, so growing up, I played no albums or 45s. I spent most of my time at home, watching TV with my parents. Otherwise, I listened to music on AM radio.

The stereo gift and the weekend sojourn to Grinnell were surprises rendered insignificant by the happenstance delivery method that accompanied the gift and my friends. The guy who picked up my hitchhiking buddies was Steve Goodman, for us one of the most exhilarating performers we hitched our wagons to. I'm told my buddies got into the car and Goodman asked where they were headed. They said Grinnell and he said, “What a coincidence, I'm playing at Grinnell tonight.”

The gig was in an intimate setting. At one point, Goodman said, “Apparently somebody here has a birthday. Why don't we give that person a chance for a request.” I asked for I'm My Own Grandpaw, a goofball song from the’40s that Goodman sang with relish.

The Goodman connection doesn't end there. When I met Margie--who would become my wife--our first date was to go to Milwaukee Summerfest because they were featuring Steve. We fell in love that day, of course.

Early the following fall, on Sept. 24, 1984, the Cubs clinched their first post-season opportunity since 1945. Goodman, possibly the Cubs’ most enduring fan, didn’t get a chance to celebrate. Twelve years into his bout with leukemia, he died four days before the Cubs clinched. He had written “The Go Cubs Go” anthem and “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” which he'd been singing since 1981.
At the time, I was working at WBBM Newsradio and was responsible a few months later for writing a year-ender about Goodman.

Original script for WBBM Newsradio year ender

Fast forward to children. We have two. A couple of years ago, Noah the younger and I decided to create a game together. It's evolved into Lines n’Lyrix, an online game that riffs off of song lines. From the lyrics on the screen, you guess the name of the song, who's known for singing it and who wrote it. We release five questions online a day.
If you play, and we hope you will, we’re providing the readers of Storied Stuff an exclusive hint and two teases. You’ll find I'm My Own Grandpaw in the country edition.

You can find five Goodman tunes buried in various editions. You might want to play to unearth them. It’s worth it. Where else would you find, “Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car, ​penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.” ?

Goodman's spot in my life doesn't end there. There's mystery afoot. For that, check out A Dying Cub fan's last bequest.

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Jack Doppelt is an emeritus journalism prof who’s created a music lyrics game with his son.