Yesterday, I arrived at Starbucks at my customary time of 7AM.  The evening snowfall was ending and the roads were treacherous.  The parking lot was not plowed.  I was the only customer in sight.  Several staff had arrived and were preparing for the morning rush.  I offered to grab a snow shovel to clear the sidewalk around the front door.  Steve replied that the contractor who was to plow and shovel was late and would be here soon.

Sure enough, in about 10 minutes as I was settling in before this laptop screen, someone on the other side of the window was vigorously shoveling snow.  I thought to myself with an inner smile, “snow-elf with a shovel.”  The landscaping company had arrived; one man in the truck plowing, and the other with his shovel clearing the side-walk.  I went outside to move my vehicle to a cleared parking spot giving the plow-man in the truck better access.  I stood for several minutes watching the the truck work push snow.  The man with the shovel commented on how challenging it is when we have back to back days with snow fall. I understood his point.  Parking lots, drive ways covered with inches of snow need clearing at the same time, before the opening of the business day.

Without immigrants who is going to do that work?  Who is Starbucks going to call when non native-born citizens are under threat of deportation, and forced to leave?  Who is going to do the heavy lifting of landscape work, snow plowing for a little bit more than minimum wage?  The minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25/hour.  In New York city it’s $13.00/hour.  Taxes withheld diminish the take-home by about a third.

The millennial male, living in the basement of his parents home immersed in video game coding is not going to request an application at the local landscaping company.  Ditto for the youthful individual spending his days trading bitcoin.

Who is going to do the basic, necessary work at the current market value if the DACA young adults, the Dreamers, are for practical purposes denied citizenship, by a too long, or too expensive, legally onerous process?  What if legal immigration is choked down to only those with high level technical skills?  What if non-caucasians are subject to random detainment and interrogation by ICE, and by the local police to verify their citizenship status?

Where are we going to turn when we no longer have a humane society, that is not riven with fear and injustice?  How bad can it get?

As has been written, “Hell has no bottom.”

I do not have answers to the immigration problem because I am but one guy, not an elected representative tasked with immigration reform.  The Senate is to debate the matter this week, with the expectation that the House will receive the Senate’s work and forward a bill to the Presidents desk.  I pray that our representatives and our President do not make our situation much worse.  It can go either way.

Thank you for bearing with me, –for listening.