After November's election, I dedicated significant resources—time and money—to learning about "undocumented" immigrants. Our foundation avoids advocacy in favor of action. We are now in our ninth month of researching the issue.
The result has been the formation of our foundation's newest pilot program: Northeast Ohio Immigrant Collaborative. We will soon enter our 2.0 test phase.
In today's performative politics, I'm supposed to be either for or against "illegal" immigrants. It's not nearly that simple. As my knowledge grew, I decided that what I'm "for" is empathy and due process while these human beings navigate the path to citizenship—like my Irish grandparents. Grandpa McCarthy's mother, Mary Ann Barr, made it to Boston and had to ask her brother what "INNA" meant when she searched the classifieds for a cleaning job. "Irish Need Not Apply," he told her.
I do not support the estimated 300,000 individuals who entered our country illegally and have felony convictions. My interest lies entirely with the other 12.7 million. Of those, 700,000 have misdemeanors, mostly traffic violations. The remaining 12 million "undocumented" immigrants have no criminal violations. They are easy to track because they received a personal identifying number when they entered the U.S. and were placed on the docket of applicants for citizenship.
Today, there are 11.2 million pending applications for citizenship. Most work full-time, pay taxes through ITINs, and check in with ICE at regular intervals while navigating the legal process toward visas and, hopefully, citizenship. Most escaped poverty and authoritarian governments and are building their families in freedom.
Now, let's get personal—which is the only point of this article.
A few weeks ago, playing golf with a very close friend, I was asked, "Why are you engaging with illegal immigrants?" I shared the statistics above, and he said, "Wow, I didn't know any of that."
The week before, a woman I've loved since childhood met a Jamaican friend of mine who has been working toward citizenship since 2017. He's now a catering manager at a large hotel, married to a U.S. citizen, with a 3-year-old and a baby on the way. Last week, they moved into their first house. When he left our table, she asked, "Is he legal?" I answered, "It depends on how you define it, but since he hasn't yet fully gained citizen status, probably not in the current vernacular." She simply stated, "He needs to be deported."
These two incidents with knowledgeable, thoughtful friends caused me to write this article.
If you are uninformed, you may believe that 11.2 million immigrants in process are criminals. In our first three months, we've worked with two young mothers whose non-offender husbands went for their regular mandatory ICE check-ins and never returned home. Another was pulled from a nearby nursery where he was working to feed his family. He was incarcerated for two weeks, then deported. None of the three had so much as a parking ticket; their crime was taking years trying to become U.S. citizens.
Here's a telling statistic: Only 8% of "undocumented" immigrants apprehended by ICE in 2025 so far have felony convictions.
The other 92% are the people I now proudly serve—the law-abiding workers who are paying taxes and raising families here while "in-process" to becoming U.S. citizens.
My actions don't constitute a political statement. I'm simply choosing the very American values of empathy and opportunity for any world citizen who wishes for a better life by coming to the U.S.—due process. My great grandma didn't need it since, despite discrimination, she became a citizen and married John J. McCarthy, an immigrant farmer in upstate New York, which has turned out well for me. 😊
I respect your position no matter which "side" you've chosen. I just ask that you learn more before making judgments about "illegal" immigrants, like I am.
Peace.
Tim McCarthy
Quote of the Month: David Brooks
“Over the past 30 years, people have tried to fill the hole in their soul by seeking to derive a sense of righteousness through their political identities. And when you do that, politics begins to permeate everything and turns into a holy war in which compromise begins to seem like betrayal.
Worse, people are unschooled in the virtues that are practical tools for leading a good life: honesty, fidelity, compassion, other-centeredness. People are rendered anxious and fragile. As Nietzsche himself observed, those who know why they live can endure anyhow. But if you don’t know why you’re living, then you fall apart when the setbacks come.”
---David Brooks
Song of the Month: “Alone”, by Trampled by Turtles
Editor’s Note: The opening lyrics are precisely what my father said many, many, many times to my siblings and me. It’s haunting to hear his admonition again and the song is so repetitive as to beg contemplation. But as I’ve grown, the message was ever clear: we each create our own destiny.
Favorite lyric:
“You come into this world, alone
And you go out of this world…alone”
Book of The Month: “Bad Days in History”, by Michael Farquhar
Editor’s Note: You’ll need a strong stomach if you choose to read this since many of the bad days described are matters of barbarism, particularly those from earlier centuries. But for me, it was still a great book since I picked it up from time to time just for something different. The most I could read was one month. Farquhar’s funny/punny headlines add to interesting, if sordid, historical facts.
Excerpt:
“August 7th – Nixon Driven to his Knees: Pick a day, any day, and it’s likely to be a bad one for Richard Nixon.”
(Then it goes on for a couple pages naming some of the worst stuff that led to his resignation from the presidency on this day in history, each one more preposterous than the other.)
Truly Funny: Sales Coach
Long ago, I was working with a sales coach who taught me two considerations, so true that the observations made me laugh. I’ve followed his two suggestions faithfully since then. He said,
- “Many salespeople are all form and no substance, which of course is not good. But if you are all substance and no form…nobody will ever know your substance.
- If you spend an hour with a prospect or client and they talk for 55 minutes of that hour…they think you are a genius.”
