I heard the newly chosen Leader of the Free World mention the number 17,000,000. In 2021, right at the end of Donald’s first term, the Pew Research Center estimated the number of undocumented migrants in the US at about 10.5 million. That number would be equal to 3% of the US population and also meant that approximately 22% of the foreign-born population would live ‘illegally’ in the Promised Land.

My mother-in-law claims that every ‘illegal’ gets a credit card from the Biden administration as soon as they cross the Arizona border. I guess that, in addition to freed prisoners from Venezuela and the patients from their asylums, this would also enthuse people that can’t get a credit card back home. Not fair: I had to get a credit card myself before I decided to apply for citizenship. But… all kidding aside!

With 17 million guests on the shortlist for deportation, the financial industry will start bemoaning the fact that it will lose 17 million customers with credit cards. Let’s assume the average credit card user going through 60 dollars a week, that would mean the industry would lose a billion dollars a year. But there’s more to Plan Regreso!

There are about 2.25 million residents in Gaza. 80% of the population is internally displaced and we can see chaos on TV every day. The incoming administration wants to repatriate at least five times that number of people. A Herculean task. Kudos to Border Czar Tom Homan if he can pull this off. If I were the President, I’d want the move to be made within the first year of my Presidency. I take it we’ve already considered how many busses we’d need or how many planes to repatriate, say 10 million Latinos. 350,000 busloads? 75,000 plane rides? Or are we going Gaza on this one? And scare the undocumented back across the border?

I met an alien in Nashville who dissected chickens at Tyson Foods for three dollars an hour. He used to be one of the lawyers to President Mubarak of Egypt. His wife was a doctor back home, but despite a lack of empathic medical specialists in Tennessee she was not allowed to practice. Thus, her husband struggled at Tyson’s to facilitate her study to become a pharmacist. I guess most of the processed chickens are exported to China, but I can’t find evidence online.

Sending all the unwanted home will create some ten million agricultural, janitorial and slaughterhouse jobs. Some ten million of Trump’s fans will finally get their jobs back. They may insist on slightly better pay than the deplorables from south of the border, so expect the price of chickens and tomatoes to go up. We can deal with a little inflation to get rid of a major sore, can’t we? We may have to wait a little longer for more expensive roofers, too. And, yes, there may be a shortage of hands when we get old and tired and have to rely on hired hands to get us in bed, do our shopping and ferry us to a doctor.

We only had two policies to pick on November 5. Or maybe there was no policies to pick from at all? I would have liked to see a proposal to process all paperwork from potential immigrants, either at our embassies or at the southern border, within a 60-day deadline. I also would have liked to see suggestions for a foreign policy that would make life in Central and South America less stressful and would help countries in the region to deal with political and climate issues that cost local jobs, cause local hardship and propel emigration.

But then again, do we really want to get rid of the problem? If we do, we’ll have millions of citizens with less to complain. And if there’s nothing to complain, why vote in the next election? Or is getting rid of the problem so expensive that we’ll feel the pain in our wallet? In which case we’ll run to the polls again for selfish reasons and entangle ourselves again in a web of contradicting measures and overblown lies. How can we live in peace if we get rid of all our problems?