From naughty to N.I.C.E.

I loved it! A tongue-in-cheek comment from someone who mentioned that we should call it the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement or just simply NICE. So what we have a building north of town can just display NICE on the signs along Highway 83. Not a bad way to think of the agents that will be working there either. Welcome to McCook.

Grannie Annie and this old guy drove around town and noted that the new fence to surround the upcoming ICE facility is getting rapidly built. Ten-foot high with razor wire on top—tough to crawl over! So there will be physical changes to our old Work Ethic Camp. I didn’t poke my nose in further so any changes to the interior of the facility weren’t evident. Just curious –no need to know.

I was interested to find how many Illegals have been deported since President Trump took office, closed the borders and upped the numbers of (N)ICE agents. I found a number on my internet search page stating in 250 days over 2 million have been deported. Of that number 1.6 million have accepted the self-deport route which leaves 400,000 which have been processed and transported back to where they came from. Those 400,000, according to ICE are mainly those who have committed crimes in the U.S. and members of gangs that definitely don’t have the best interests of our population at heart.

Deportation capacity continues to ramp up as Secretary Noem negotiates new deportation facilities such as our Cornhusker Clink when it comes online. All of these successes will make arresting, detaining and departing illegal aliens more efficient and streamlined than ever before – paving the way to continue the surge in deportations.

The program of encouraging the self-deportation of illegals is of interest to me. The Department of Homeland Security has announced a historic opportunity for illegal aliens to receive cost-free travel, forgiveness of any failure to depart fines, and a $1,000 exit bonus to facilitate travel back to their home country or another country where they have lawful status through the CBP Home Mobile App. That App reads like this “IF you are here illegally, use the CBP Home App to take control of your departure and receive financial support to return home,” said Secretary Kristi Noem. “If you don’t, you will be subjected to fines, arrest, deportation and will never be allowed to return. If you are in this country illegally, self-deport NOW and preserve your opportunity to potentially return the legal, right way.” Evidently, that program is working as so far three times as many illegals have used it to depart versus those that are arrested by ICE processed through a facility like our Cornhusker Clink and flown out of the country.

Still putting the number of illegals yet in this country best estimates that during President Biden’s administration, 7.2 million were processed through our southwestern border, and that doesn’t include the got-aways. We may be seeing our Cornhusker Clink in operation for quite a way into the future. Knowing this community, I feel that we will make the best of it!

There is always a plus side. With all the non-resident labor gone, it should open a lot of opportunities for our youth to be meaningfully employed. We see many signs locally advertising job openings, but few workers seem to apply. One of the current problems, as I see it, is that too many government programs offer handouts and people seem to prefer lazing at home in mom’s basement rather than take a job. Then too, minimum wages pushed by unions and Democrats make hiring tough for enterprising employers. Hopefully, Trump will work on that too.

It was interesting to fly my old Champ over our local area a couple of days ago. All the fields seem to be wet from our generous rains of late. About every terrace channel is full. Every little pasture pond is full, and even our Kelly Creek dam looked like it had been full but is now back to the pretty empty normal due to the way its release is constructed. People also tell me that one needed hip waders to walk through Barnett Park, but that it is pretty well back to normal now.

I tickle at our local farmers’ eternal complaints about the weather. Last year, they planted wheat in the dust, but the crop turned out better than expected. This year, the complaint is that it is too wet. Terrace channels are full of water. It is tough going around, and they will have to go back later and fill in the gaps. Grumble, grumble, grumble! My second career was farming, irrigated farming, and I probably grumbled too, but part of it was my fault for voting for Carter! It was tough having to borrow money at 18 to 20 percent interest. Instead, I took up Corporate Flying and loved that too!

That is how I saw it.