A PSA about mass deportations

 A PSA for anyone stressing over mass deportations:

In the course of my work at the Johnson County Adult Detention Center, I come into contact with law enforcement officials from all levels of government. A few weeks ago, we were releasing a guy to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). An overly enthusiastic deputy eagerly asked the ICE agent if he was "ready for the mass deportations!" The ICE agent laughed out loud. He then said, "Not happening anytime soon."

Here's how he explained it. First of all, there is no budget to do mass deportations. More importantly, there is no infrastructure. ICE does not have any where near an adequate amount of detention centers to house detainees, does not have the network necessary to utilize more detention centers and certainly does not have the personnel needed to run said detention centers much less actually round people up or facilitate them through the process. He was a senior agent and said, in his estimation, it would be a minimum of two years before any of that would be in place and mass deportations could even be thought about. He also figured that the actual cost of doing them would be far more than any politician would be able to stomach. The moral of the story here is that if you want to know what's really going on, ask the people who would be tasked with doing the thing you're worried about.

Now, does this mean we shouldn't be outraged? That we shouldn't be fighting bigoted stupidity every step of the way? Of course not. It just means that mass deportations are not starting today, tomorrow or even next month. We have some time to breath, to gather our thoughts and energy and then give the powers that currently be a whole lot of hell.