Justin Foster

Mayor Mamdani just made a video explaining your rights when ICE shows up. Great. Everyone should know their rights. But he left out something VERY important. What ICE is legally allowed to do. Let me explain what he didn't. 1. ARE YOU SAFE FROM ICE INSIDE A CHURCH, HOSPITAL, OR WORKPLACE? NO. ICE can generally enter places open to the public. A hospital waiting room? YES. A church service open to the public? YES. A store or restaurant? YES. They generally don't need a warrant to enter those public areas. Your home and private rooms are different. Those have stronger legal protections. ICE generally needs a judge's warrant, permission, or a valid emergency exception to enter. But simply walking into a church or hospital does NOT make you untouchable. A church is not an ICE-free zone. 2. CAN YOU JUST STAY SILENT AND WALK AWAY? Not necessarily. You have the right to remain silent. Absolutely. You can also ask, "Am I free to go?" If the officer says yes, you can leave. But if the officer says NO? You can't simply decide the law no longer applies to you. Federal law allows ICE to arrest people without a judicial warrant under certain conditions. Your right to remain silent is NOT a right to avoid lawful arrest. 3. IF THE NYPD REFUSES TO HELP ICE, DOES THAT STOP ICE? NO. New York City can generally refuse to help enforce federal civil immigration law. That's the city's choice. But ICE works for the FEDERAL government. Not the mayor. Not City Hall. Mamdani cannot cancel federal law. It's really that simple. 4. CAN YOU PROTEST AGAINST ICE? YES. Peaceful protests are protected by the Constitution. But physically blocking a lawful arrest? NO. The right to protest is not the right to break the law. Now, Mayor Mamdani. Here's my question. Why did you spend your video explaining what ICE cannot do, while barely mentioning what ICE CAN legally do? Immigrants have constitutional rights. Of course they do. Nobody is denying that. But having rights doesn't mean federal immigration law suddenly stops applying to you. And refusing to cooperate with ICE doesn't make ICE disappear. Here's the part that really bothers me. You're sitting comfortably in front of a camera, telling people how to deal with federal agents. But you're not the one who may face those agents. They are. You get the likes. You get the applause. You get to look like a hero. And if someone misunderstands your advice, THEY face the consequences. If you really care about these people, tell them everything. What their rights are. What ICE can legally do. And what could happen if they misunderstand the difference. Because giving people half the truth and calling it protection isn't leadership. It's political theater. And you're using other people's futures as your stage.

After dinner at an American friend's house, I sought to fulfill my duty as a guest. A black iron skillet lay by the sink, crusted with the dark grease of ribeyes. I reached for the sponge. I poured a generous stream of green dish soap. Bubbles of purification bloomed. From across the living room came a sound like a dying bison. "NOOOOOOOOOOO—!!!" My host tackled me into the drywall. The sponge flew. Soapy foam landed harmlessly upon the linoleum. He scrambled to the sink, panting, shielding the iron pan with his trembling forearms as if shielding an infant from artillery fire. "What were you doing?!" he gasped, eyes wild with terror. "I was performing ablutions! Removing the foul oil with chemical foam!" "That's not foul oil, you lunatic! That's my great-grandfather's 1938 Lodge skillet! You almost committed an execution!" He turned the faucet. Only warm water. He grabbed a handful of coarse kosher salt and a chainmail scrubber, rubbing the black metal with the desperate tenderness of an archaeologist dusting a mummy. "No soap! Never soap! Soap strips the seasoning!" "Seasoning?! You cook with the ghosts of past beasts?!" "It's polymerized fat! Eighty-six years of bacon, butter, and triumph baked into a non-stick shield! If Dawn touches this iron, four generations of my bloodline die in vain!" I stared at the black relic. Not a cooking vessel. An altar of ancestor worship forged from unwashed pig grease. "A cursed heirloom passed down through the dynasty..." I whispered in awe. He dried it with a towel. He placed it upon the burner, set the blue flame on high, and rubbed a single drop of oil across the surface until it smoked. He bowed his head before the rising vapors. "Forgive him, Grandfather. He knew not what he did." He wiped his sweaty brow and turned to me, dead serious. "I'll take a bullet for you, brother. But if you ever bring bubbles near this stove again, I will bury you under the patio." I bowed deeply to the warrior and his greasy idol. "Understood. The oil gods shall remain unpurified."

The obituary was small. Three lines. A retired Marine, seventy-eight, no surviving family. The service would be Thursday at 11 a.m. at a small cemetery in Alabama. The funeral director had ordered eight chairs. He was not sure who would fill them. He posted the obituary on Facebook on Monday, because that is what the funeral home does for men with no family. It is not a request. It is a courtesy. It is meant for the neighbor who might not have known. By Tuesday morning the post had been shared forty thousand times. By Wednesday morning the funeral director had received seventy calls from strangers asking if they could come. By Thursday at 10 a.m., there were two thousand three hundred cars parked along the shoulder of a county road in Alabama, and men in old uniforms that no longer fit were walking, in silence, toward the cemetery. They came from every state. A man in a wheelchair had driven eleven hours from Ohio in a Ford Ranger with hand controls. A woman had flown in from Alaska. Four men from a VFW in Idaho had chartered a small plane. A biker club, sixty deep, escorted the hearse the last three miles because they had decided, in a parking lot the night before, that they would. The eulogy was given by a man who had never met him. He wept twice. The rifle salute was performed by seven Marines, each from a different decade of service. The oldest was ninety-one. At the end, twelve hundred people stood, and none of them left until every last one had placed a hand on the coffin. None of them knew him. All of them knew him. He had, in some way none of them could name, served with each of them. His name is now on a small plaque at the entrance to the cemetery, paid for by donations from people who arrived without knowing they would donate. The plaque says only his name, his rank, and one line. He was not alone. He was never alone. Twelve hundred strangers made sure of it.

In America they invited me to the State Fair. I have carried a portable shrine on my shoulders for eight hours in July. I understood the fair to be a similar affair, only with corn. I understood nothing. The whole county smelled like oil. A holy oil. The oil of an entire nation deciding, on the same day, to fry. At the gate a woman handed me a map. Forty-two food vendors were marked on it. I asked her which one was the most important. She said, "Honey, they're all important." That answer haunts me still. The first sign said FRIED OREO. I stopped. An Oreo is a completed object. It has been baked. It has been assembled. It has been sealed in a package. Someone in this country looked at that finished thing and decided it was not yet fried enough. I bought one. It was, I am sorry to say, perfect. I turned the corner. FRIED TWINKIE. FRIED SNICKERS. FRIED PICKLE. FRIED BUTTER. I stopped longer this time. Butter is fat. They were frying fat in fat. In my country we have Zen koans that take a monk a lifetime to answer. This was a Zen koan a nation had answered in a parking lot. A very large, very kind man saw me staring. He said, "First time?" I nodded. He said, "You gotta get it on a stick." I said, "What?" He said, "Everything's better on a stick, brother." I bought the butter on a stick. He watched me eat it. He was proud of me the way a father is proud of a son leaving home for the first time. I asked him, carefully: "Sir. Is there anything at the fair that is not fried?" He thought about it. He genuinely thought about it. He looked at the sky. He looked at the ground. He looked at his own hands, as if the answer might be written there. After a long moment, he said, "The air, I guess." Then he added, "But they're working on it." I laughed from the belly, which I had not done in public in forty years. He laughed too. We were two men laughing about the possibility of frying air. He clapped me on the shoulder as if we had gone to war together. Then I saw the turkey leg. It was the size of my forearm. A child was carrying one. The child was smaller than the leg. In my country this would be a weapon. Here it was a snack. Then I saw the sign that said FRIED COCA-COLA. I stood in front of it for a very long time. Coca-Cola is a liquid. Liquid, by definition, cannot be fried. To fry a thing you must be able to hold it in your hand. And yet the sign was there. People were buying it. The vendor was cheerful, the way a man is cheerful when he has made something out of an impossibility. I bought one. I did not ask how. I did not want to know how. Some things are better as miracles. While I was eating it, a girl of perhaps six ran past me. She had powdered sugar on her nose and a stick of something battered in one hand and chocolate, I think, in the other. She was laughing so hard she was nearly falling. Her mother caught her elbow, wiped the sugar off her face with a thumb, and said, "Slow down, baby. The fair ain't going nowhere." The girl said, "I know, Mama. But I am." And she ran on. I stood in the middle of that fairground holding a fried liquid, and I understood something I had not understood before. In my country, food is a discipline. It is arranged. It is quiet. A grain of rice is not wasted. Here, food is a shout. It is a joke. It is too much. Half of it is on your face. And you are running, because the fair is not going anywhere, but you are. I have eaten in restaurants with three stars. I ate slowly. I ate carefully. I remember nothing. I will remember that little girl until I die. They fried the joy, America. They put it on a stick. I ate it with my hands. I did not bow. I think, for once, that was correct.