What Happened to Jack: A Cautionary Tale

I ought to warn you that I am extraordinarily pissed off this morning, and prone to draw a little blood in the service of a friend of mind who has been cruelly wronged by a country he wanted to adopt.

Jack -- that's not his name, of course, nor it is an imaginative nom de plume, but I'm too angry to be clever -- was born in Ireland to working-class parents. Everything was tough in "Stab City," as he called his home town, including the weather, which he once likened to Mordor's. Against all odds, while in his early 20s he emigrated to Japan, taught himself the language, and made a considerable fortune in the aeronautics industry before his thirtieth birthday. A few years ago he pulled up stakes and came to America, looking to parlay that fortune into a large slice of American Dream.

Jack, you see, had a conscience. When he began to believe that his chosen industry was growing increasingly militarized, increasingly shaped for the purposes of a future war with China, he left it, despite the promise of an even larger fortune if he remained. When I asked him whether it was easy to do this, given the staggering sums of money to be found in weapons manufacture, he replied, "A week before WW2 broke out, Britain was still selling Nazi Germany everything it needed to make war, even though the bloody Brits knew perfectly well all that gasoline, scrap metal and what-not would be used to kill British soldiers. Who wants to be a party to that?"

(Like I said, conscience. Or perhaps I should say morals, which are not to be confused with ethics. Ethically those British businessmen had every right to sell Hitler war-making material; morally they were fucked, and, one fervently hopes, later killed by German bombs during the Blitz.)

Jack came to America on a visa, and after many months of nosing around perspective business opportunities, bought into a large, successful gym franchise looking to expand further into Southern California. He leased a 23,000 square-foot gym, equipped it with all the latest and best in exercise equipment, and hired a large and competent staff to run the place. He extended discounts to law enforcement officers and active-duty military personnel, cross-promoted with other local businesses, and made many friends, including your humble correspondent. In short, he did everything an immigrant to the United States is supposed to do and then some -- entered legally, paid taxes to the Federal, state and local governments, pumped money into his adoptive community and created jobs for home-grown Americans.

Time passed, and Jack, living here in SoCal, went to renew his driver's license. When he arrived at the DMV he was told that though his paperwork looked to be in order, it was the wrong paperwork; one of the nine Federal agencies which oversees the regulations involving business visas had screwed up, and the short of it was: no license.

As a resident of California, I can tell those of you who are not familiar with the place that it is almost impossible to exist here without a car, especially if you live in outermost Los Angeles County, where there is no public transportation to speak of, and even ride-sharing services like Uber fail to operate in a consistent or reliable way. California was built for cars, many neighborhoods do not even have sidewalks, and the trains they are always threatening or promising to build remain blueprints on somebody's desk. I am a man who would rather walk five miles than drive one, I probably average about six to seven miles on foot every day, and even I can't function without my automobile. Jack, with much more at stake than I have, had to have that license; so he waded into the sea of red tape that is the immigration bureaucracy, hoping that when he emerged, the D.L. he needed would be gripped firmly between his teeth.

No such logic. After 9/11, the Federal government embarked on its largest power-grab since the Civil War, and the inevitable result of all this expansion in the name of security was that many of its newly-bloated agencies found their jurisdictions overlapping. Different agencies would claim power over the same situation, creating duplicate paperwork and general confusion as to who was really in charge. Inevitably, human egos became involved, turning a knotty administrative problem into an opaque tangle of jealousy and confusion. In this tangle Jack's simple desire for a fucking driver's license became hopelessly lost. Not even his high-powered attorney was high-powered enough to cut the tape. The best solution he could come up with was to suggest that Jack obtain a green card, as the acquisition of the card would automatically solve the license problem. It seemed like a reasonable enough idea: after all, Jack had sunk a fortune into America, he might as well stick around for the long(er) haul. But concealed within the suggestion was a trap of sorts, and possibly the motive for all the needless difficulty in the first place.

Jack had made a legal -- and, I emphasize, morally unimpeachable -- fortune while living and working in Japan. He had obtained Japanese citizenship during that time, and the bulk of his fortune remained in a Japanese bank. In other words, the money he'd earned had already been taxed quite thoroughly by the government of Japan. Were he to obtain a green card, the entirety of his assets everywhere in the world would also become subject to retroactive taxation by the U.S. Government, even though none of those assets had been earned here. He would, in essence and in fact, be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a 2.5 x 3.5 inch square of laminated plastic.

Jack did not think this was fair. The U.S. government had done nothing to assist him in creating his initial fortune, and he was not a U.S. citizen. He did not see a reason why he should share the money he'd earned in a foreign country with the IRS, especially he was already paying American business taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc., etc., to a hefty six-figure tune., not to mention employing American citizens.

I want to emphasize that Jack had no objection to rendering unto the American Caesar what was actually Caesar's in terms of tax revenue; but this struck him as simple blackmail, a money grab on top of a power grab. Cut us an unearned slice of your fortune, mate, and we'll give you a driver's license. Refuse, and you take the fucking bus for the rest of your stay. Assuming you can find one.

Jack fought the good fight with the U.S. bureaucracy for many months, but as a foreigner on a business visa he feared driving on an expired license, and trying to manage his business and personal life when dependent on rides from others -- as if he were a tween begging transport to the mall from his older brother and not a successful businessman who'd made millions and employed a large staff of Americans at living wages -- was a miserable experience. Still, he might have gutted it out if not for the final straw, which came in the remark uttered by someone at the DMV in one of his many fun-filled conversations with that agency:

"You know what your trouble is? You came here legally. If you were an an illegal immigrant we'd be obligated to give you a license."

Consider this for a moment. I mean, really consider it. Under California law, an illegal alien, who is by his very presence in this country committing a felony under Federal law, has more right to a driver's license than a legal alien who is employing numerous Californians and paying huge sums in taxes to the state.

This is not a scene in a story by Kafka; this is not an except from "Catch-22" or even of "M*A*S*H." This is actually happening.

Do not misunderstand me. My name is not Ebenezer Scrooge. I am perfectly well aware that people cross the border illegally in search of a better life for themselves and their families, and if I were dirt-ass poor and living in Mexico, and I thought I could live a more human life in America, I'd probably cross the border, too. The issue of illegal immigration is a complex one, rooted partially in the legacy of the Mexican - American War, which was morally dubious and possibly criminal, and partially in the wicked policies of the modern-day Mexican government, which escapes the responsibility of its own racism and corruption by encouraging its poorest and darkest-skinned people to leave Mexico, and thus relieves itself of social pressure that might otherwise lead to a revolution I think is long overdue.

At the same time, however, I refuse to accept the absurdity of our government telling someone who has obeyed its laws that he would be better off if he were violating them.

Jack gave up and returned to Japan, and before long will be selling the gym. He is still understandably bitter over his experiences here and judging from what he wrote in his last e-mail I'm not sure he will ever return. If he does, it will be only for vacation purposes and I'm damned sure he won't be buying any more businesses, employing any more people or paying any more taxes.

Oh, Jack. If only you'd come here illegally!