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. 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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