ICE has been given a quota.

By Leszek Chudzinski

“Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—because I was not an immigrant.”

***

ICE has been given a quota

to catch each day and deport

1,200 to 1,500 illegales

schools

churches

hospitals

houses

raided

people rounded up

in the streets

at work

at home

they’re processed

put in chains

shipped out

America

a nation of immigrants

by immigrants

for immigrants

has declared war

on immigrants

America

the home I love

has turned on itself

and its people

* 

 America

you’ve broken

the covenant

you’ve destroyed

your sacred foundation

your beacon of hope

has been auctioned off

to the highest bidder

with the stroke of a felon’s pen

you declared

open season    

on immigrants

            *

wake up America

turn away from

the path of self-destruction

fulfill your promise

and live your dream

Leszek Chudziński writes in both Polish and English. He has authored two books of poetry: Niedzielni Poeci (Sunday Poets, 2018) and Podlesie (2022). His writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Frog Pond, No Longer Strangers: Haiku Northwest Twenty-Fifth and Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Anthologies (2014 and 2024), Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill, 2019, Lastbench: North America special edition (2020), Examined Life: A Western Washington Poets Network Anthology (2024). Recently, Leszek has been working on a series of immigrant poems and on a collection of children poems, This Porcupine is Mine.

(Editorial note: see NYT link for more information on ICE quotas)