Postal bureaucratic mess in Chicago gives immigration excuse to deny man

Let’s hear it for the U.S. Postal Service, which at least is willing to admit it screwed up in its efforts to deliver to a Chicago-based immigration office in a timely manner a New York man’s application to remain in the United States.

Admitting their error

The result, as reported by the New York Times, is that the man who had been in this country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has been denied the legal permission to remain in this country and is now expected to leave on his own – or else face deportation.

A RESULT THAT may well please the ideologue nitwits who think serious reform of our immigration policies is anything that results in more deportations.

But this particular situation, even when one takes into account the fact that in this Age of Trump officials are looking for any way they can to encourage people to leave, is little more than an embarrassment to those who believe in the “American Way” of life.

It definitely is evidence that Trump-ites don’t have a clue how to “Make America Great Again,” and most likely have no real interest in doing so.

This particular incident involved a New York area resident who back in mid-September sent through certified mail his paperwork to gain an extension on the status by which he has been able to live openly in this country in recent years.

Not their problem. Or so they say!

ALL THROUGH THE DACA program that was the creation of now-former President Barack Obama and meant to let people who had lived the bulk of their lives in this country remain here – even if their immigration status and circumstances of their arrivals here were less than pristine.

But current President Donald Trump has made it clear that DACA is one of the many initiatives of Obama that have to go – as though Trump is determined to have the legacy of the man who erased Obama from the national conscience.

Maybe the ideologues think they can pretend that Obama never really existed, and that the electorate of this country never was deluded enough to pick someone so unlike themselves to be our nation’s chief executive?

Trump types might be pleased, but that's all

In this particular case, the application was mailed from New York on Sept. 14. It needed to be received by a regional processing warehouse of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office by Oct. 5.

RECORDS SHOW THAT the piece of mail made it to the Chicago-area by Sept. 16, then from Sept. 17-19 was “in transit to destination.” At which point, it sort of disappeared until Oct. 4 when it was “on its way” and ultimately delivered on Oct. 6.

But if you note the dates and consult a calendar, you’ll see his application that was sent nearly a month in advance was received one day too late.

Which is the reason immigration officials officially gave for rejecting the application. Not because of the merits of the case, but because of the postal delay – which Postal Service officials admitted to the New York Times was a problem on their end.

It should not have taken anywhere near so long for that piece of mail to get from New York to Chicago. But immigration officials are claiming that’s not their problem, and they’re not about to do anything to resolve this case in a responsible manner.

Some determined to erase Obama from memory

IT MAKES ME think of whenever conservative ideologues complain about government bureaucracy and try channeling Ronald Reagan by saying “government IS the problem.”

They actually don’t care. They like it if bureaucratic bungles wind up advancing their ideological desires. In this case, they’d probably think it just that a mail delay were to cause someone who has lived the bulk of his life here and is more than capable of making contributions to our society were to be given the boot.

All of which is such an embarrassment to those of us in the majority who’d like to see the so-called “American ideals” implemented in ways that actually benefit our society.

Otherwise, we wind up looking buffoonish and mean-spirited – if we’re willing to let a Postal Service glitch determine the outcome of someone’s life. That’s most definitely not something that “Makes America Great Again.”

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EXTRA: United States of America presence and ideals for which it stands?

GARY, Ind. -- It’s kind of depressing, if you think about it.

What it once was

But I spent a chunk of my day Saturday in downtown Gary, Ind., participating in a city tour of the area and the many structures remaining that have significant local history behind them -- but in many cases have become decayed and remain in ruins.

What it is today

WHILE IN ROME the millenniums-old Coliseum sports arena’s ruins are regarded as culturally significant, we can’t quite say the same for the structures that remain at the far southeastern corner of the metropolitan Chicago area. Although maybe we should?

I got to see the City Methodist Church whose ceiling long-ago collapsed and now has trees growing inside. There was the one-time Union Station that long-ago quit servicing passenger trains to New York City.

But the ruins that most caught my attention were the ones at 6^th Avenue and Massachusetts Street just off the main strip along Broadway. Those were the ones of the building that for nearly five decades served as the U.S. Post Office for Gary and the surrounding northwest Indiana area.

Inside the Post Office

For like many post offices in smaller cities, the building also doubled as the offices of the U.S. government. Any federal agencies that felt the need to have a physical presence would have their office space on the upper floors, while the first floor was devoted to the delivery of the U.S. mail.

WHICH IS HOW it really breaks down for units of government, which may talk about high-minded ideals but usually have a specific function that most completes their use to the taxpaying public.

Watch your step!

For the state government, that’s the motor vehicles bureau within the Illinois secretary of state’s office. They issue us our driver’s licenses, identification cards and the license plates that we put on our automobiles.

For the feds, it’s the Post Office.

Suggestions for structure's future?

It really is a Federal Offense to tamper with the delivery of the mail, because we’re supposed to be able to count on reliable mail delivery – even though in today’s day and age there are those people who don’t have a problem with paying a larger fee to have their packages delivered by UPS or Federal Express.

YET THE CLASSIC old building in Gary is in ruins. The roof leaks, the upper floor is a wreck, the floor that separates it from the lower floor barely exists and the first floor where generations of people dropped off and picked up their mail is filthy and graffiti-ridden.

It almost looks like some post-apocalyptic vision of the collapse of our society, and these being the remains of the ideal once known as the United States of America.

Kept head safe and sound

The Gary Redevelopment Commission, as part of its preservation tour and with advice from the Chicago Architectural Foundation, actually allowed people to enter the Post Office that has been closed since 1970 – which is how I managed to get these images of the rubble.

Yes, I had to wear a “hard hat” to protect my head from the potential of falling debris (then also sign a waiver promising not to sue Gary, Ind., in the event I got injured).

NOTHING WOUND UP falling, but I did slip on the steps that are so chipped away as to barely be existent. Although if I had been hit in the head, I wonder if the results would have been similar to those of the famed baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean, who upon being hit in the head by a ball during a game supposedly produced headlines along the line of X-rays of Dean’s head reveal nothing.

It also amuses me to see how the Post Office managed to replace its classic structure with something so incredibly blah, and so much like the generic Post Office structures that exist in so many communities across the United States.

An architectural snoozer compared to its predecessor

Is this truly the image we want to give of our nation? Is this what we truly think of ourselves?

How “blah” can we get?!?

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Tax Day creeping up on all of us

I have a lazy streak within me. Never put off in my personal life until tomorrow what I can do next week!

Ordeal will end here on Monday

This weekend, I’m going to pay for it.

FOR TAX DAY is coming up on all of us Monday. That is when we have to have our income tax returns to the federal and state governments at least in the mail.

And if we’re being completely honest here, I haven’t even thought about it yet. Which means this is the weekend I’m going to have to make some time to sit down and figure out just how much I owe the governments of the national and state entities in which I reside.

I doubt I will be one of those people who will be desperately trying to figure out some tax dodge Monday night, then rushing to find a post office that will be open until Midnight so I can get that all-desired postmark that confirms I “filed” my returns on time.

But it means I probably will not be a pleasant person to be around this weekend. So I’m warning those of you who have any personal contact with me to “Leave Me Alone!!!!” It’s for your own good.

ACTUALLY, MY RETURNS won’t be complex. They’ll just be painful.

I don’t have any investments or real tax loopholes that complicate the situation. I just have income – which means calculating the amount of money owed and paying up.

For one of the drawbacks to being a self-employed freelance writer is that no one is withholding income on my behalf to pay the tax collector. I’m responsible for making those payments myself.

There won’t be a refund, because for me, April 15 is all about accounting my income and reconciling my debt. I owe, and I will have to pay up.

AND NO, I don’t gain any sympathy for those ideologues who want to rant and rage about the evils of taxation and how government is wasting “their” money. I support the concept that government works on our behalf, and that there is something of an obligation to help support it financially.

So perhaps I should view this time of year as another moment of civic duty – similar to how I make a point of casting ballots on Election Day. It gives me my right to complain about what is going wrong.

But I’m not that high-minded. What I’m really going to feel is the pain of having to make payments to reconcile my accounts and ensure that the Internal Revenue Service does not take any special interest in my existence.

I’m going to be broke for awhile. So that might be another reason to “Leave Me Alone!!!” I will probably have a less-pleasant than usual personality for some time.

I HAVE TO confess, I stumbled across a long-ago friend whom I went to college to who was able to boast last month that he had finished his tax returns. A part of me was envious.

Then again, I’m also realistic enough to admit that I don’t have the energy to compute my finances because I know I’m going to feel that moment of depression when I have to confront just how much money I owe!

In fact, there’s really only one fact that brings me any solace these days. It reminds me of a time in my third year of college when I was two weeks away from Final Exams with four papers that needed to be written – and I had only barely started on one of them. What kept me from cracking up then was the constant reminder I gave myself that regardless of what happened (I wound up finishing all of them by deadline), it would all be over in two weeks. I’d be on break.

Tax Day is Monday. No matter how frazzled (and financially busted) I will wind up, it will all be over in two more days.

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