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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Everything takes its sweet ol’ time in world of Ill. government operations

In a quarter-century of watching up-close government in operation, the lasting impression I have gained is that nothing is done in a timely fashion.

Relying on government agencies for something (regardless of what level the agency in question is at) ensures you will ultimately get the benefit in question. As far as how quickly, it will come whenever it comes.

PEOPLE WHO ARE capable of doing things on deadline (such as myself) are often the most frustrated with the endless delays – some of which were due to bureaucratic bumbling while others were due to politically-partisan delays.

Sometimes, people who desperately oppose something count delays in its implementation as being a political victory.

Take the whole matter of health care reform – which is in law and which in theory should start showing benefits next year. But Republicans in the House of Representatives (at least the most ideologically-motivated ones) are engaging in any actions they can to cause delays.

Although their blatantly-partisan efforts will be aided by those efforts by the state governments that will encounter their own delays in helping people enroll in the efforts meant to provide some form of health insurance coverage for all.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported this weekend that while Illinois expects to eventually have 1,200 workers in place to help people with questions as they decide exactly what health coverage plan best suits their needs, there are only about 100 such workers currently in place who are fully certified.

Considering that the six-month period in which people have to get themselves some sort of health insurance begins Tuesday, it would appear obvious that many people will have to figure out things on their own.

Perhaps the state figures that many of us are inherently procrastinators, and that the need for all those people trained and certified to help on this issue will not be needed until later in the process – perhaps around March when the sign-up period is coming to an end.

Will we get an ugly rush of people by the end of March seeking health insurance; similar to the ugly rush we get every year around April 15 when the masses decide to finally break down and file their income tax returns?

OR WILL THERE be early applicants who will become so frustrated with the lack of help that some may wind up erroneously deciding that those Republican ideologues may have been on to something with all their rhetoric about how health care reform was some sort of messed-up scam?

All I can say at this point is that I hope people are patient as they work their way through the intricacies of GetCoveredIllinois.gov – the site that people are supposed to use to sign up for help with health insurance.

But health insurance isn’t the only issue where the state is lagging behind in offering help. Take “concealed carry,” the matter of people being allowed to carry a pistol on their person in public for self-defense.

People wishing to have their firearm holstered (or tucked away in a purse or duffle bag) will have to gain permits from the Illinois State Police, who will require them to complete 16 hours of training from state-approved instructors. The process for applying to take such training will begin Jan 5.

BUT IT SEEMS that thus far, the state police only have 54 instructors approved to offer such training – and most of them are in the more urban six-counties of the Chicago metro area.

Some downstate Illinois counties don’t have any instructor yet, and it’s not clear when they will.

I’m sure from the perspective of the people who wanted to start carrying a pistol in a shoulder-holster the very day that the General Assembly overrode Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of the issue, this is an unconscionable delay. Plus the fact that they won’t be able to go to a local office and may have to make a trip to a distant county to get the permit is scandalous to them!

I’m not as offended by that concept, because I realize it can take time to get people into place – just as it will take time to get all those workers certified to help people gain health insurance.

I ONLY HOPE that the delays for both of those groups of people can be resolved in a timely manner – and not with one significantly taking longer to fix than the other.

Because I’d hate to think that sometime in the near future, someone who could not get some sort of health insurance coverage would wind up dying from gunshot wounds inflicted by someone who was too quick on the draw because they thought their personal safety was being threatened!

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Secrecy in public life

Earlier this week, I covered a school board meeting for one of the suburban daily newspapers, and I encountered a woman who had never been to such a session before.

In fact, the woman had just moved to suburban Calumet City a few months earlier, after living her entire life in Chicago where she had come to accept the political culture of the city.

WHAT CAUGHT MY attention about her was her mystification about the fact that the local school board consisted of elected members, while the board of education for the Chicago Public Schools is a government body consisting of mayoral appointees.

“You go to a Chicago school board meeting, and those people act in secret. You don’t have a clue what they did, or why?,” she told me.

My initial reaction was to chuckle, because I happen to know people who think that particular school board (for the local high schools) is overly secretive, or inept, or whatever other hostile terminology their minds can concoct.

But it also popped into my mind again when I read a report by WBEZ-FM radio, which did a story about just how secretive the political culture of the Chicago Public Schools truly is.

MY OWN FIRST-HAND experience in dealing with the Chicago Public Schools as a reporter-type person is about two decades old. I haven’t been to a school board meeting in Chicago in years.

But somehow, I doubt that much has changed. In fact, if the Public Radio report is at all accurate, nothing at all has changed.

Which is why I find it interesting that incoming school board President David Vitale (NOT the incoming superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard, who will wind up being the public “face” of the schools who will get the blame – or praise – for whatever happens with regards to public education in Chicago) is willing to admit there are potential problems with the degree to which the board is “open” about doing “the people’s business.”

“My own view is that we need to be totally transparent. My bias is that the public has a right to be engaged, and I expect to follow that bias,” Vitale told WBEZ.

PERSONALLY, MY RECOLLECTIONS of dealing with Chicago Public Schools officials is of having an administration and bureaucratic structure to support it that is so large it makes the getting of information about schools activity overly-complex.

Too many people don’t know what their colleagues are doing, and often only know such a small piece of information that they don’t fully appreciate how it fits into the “big” picture.

All that means is that I believe the problem in getting a clear understanding of what is happening is because of the “ignorance” of the public officials, not any “corrupt” or “lying” nature. And when I say “ignorance,” I don’t necessarily mean they’re stupid. Just uninformed.

It is why I often joke that the act of being a news reporter covering a story is similar to putting together a jigsaw puzzle – only someone snatched away the box cover so you don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to look like when you’re done and someone may have snatched a few pieces of the puzzle when you weren’t looking.

IF THEY’RE REALLY in a nasty mood, they may slip in a couple of pieces from a different puzzle, just to confuse you.

Not that I expect the whole world to cater to my work needs (the few people who are willing to make an effort are usually the ones who are just helpful to all people in general). But when some people want to rant about the general incompetence of newsgathering organizations, perhaps it ought to be kept in mind that this is one of the factors at stake that can result in news stories with gaping holes of information or trivial tidbits or pompous rhetoric emanating from the mouths of public officials who are trying to pass themselves off as informed public servants.

And this attitude is not restricted to the Chicago Public Schools, or that one suburban school district I covered earlier this week, or any one government panel. It happens all too often at all levels of government.

So I’m curious to see how literally Vitale’s words are taken to be transparent.

BECAUSE THERE’S ALWAYS the chance that “transparency” might not tell us anything significant about the way our public officials in the school system are handling things.

It might actually just inform us about how little they truly understand what they are doing with the dollars they derive from our local property taxes.

While that kind of information is helpful for us to know on a certain level (so that perhaps we might take seriously the idea of finding better-qualified people come the next election cycle, rather than just accepting the same old people in those posts), it doesn’t help improve the level of public service.

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