Kitchen Table Issues

This is the time of year when we see a lot of those holiday advice columns about how to interact with relatives with different political views. But that conversation becomes a whole lot more difficult when one family member’s political choices could result in another family member being kicked out of the country. As he often does, Eli Saslow gets to the heart of the American moment in the NYT (Gift Article): The Alienation of Jaime Cachua. His friends and family members in Rome, Ga., voted to support mass deportation. Now he’s scrambling to stay in the country. “‘I’m going to be straight with you,” [his father in law, Sky] told Jaime. ‘I voted for Trump. I believe in a lot of what he says.’ … ‘I figured as much,’ Jaime said. ‘You and just about everyone else around here.’ … ‘It’s about protecting our rights as a sovereign country,’ Sky said. ‘We need to shut down the infiltration on the border. It’s not about you.’ … It is about me.'”

+ Meanwhile, about all that American worker rhetoric: “Trump’s own businesses sought to hire more foreign guest workers this year than any other year on record, according to a CNN review of government labor data. Companies linked to some of Trump’s top political backers and administration picks also have been given the green light to use guest workers this year … Elon Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Trump, is the CEO of Tesla, which this year alone has requested and received US government permission to hire about 2,000 highly skilled foreign workers. Musk’s Neuralink startup as well as X Corp also received approval for such laborers.”