Mel, my worries about Trump’s deportation plans revolve around something a little different.

While 80% of Americans live in cities and suburbs, their voting power has enabled them to locate prisons in rural communities. Just as Australia was a penal colony where Britain sent their prisoners, urban Americans use rural America as their penal colony today.

Out of sight, out of mind is the politician’s game, but it’s not a game to the people who have to live beside these massive prisons. For example, our rural county had a population of less than a million people, and 19 prisons.

It’s not unusual for inmate populations to exceed free populations. Heck, if inmates could vote, they could have out-voted us – and elected our mayors, city councils, school boards, sheriffs and judges.

The impact of these gigantic prisons on rural culture is horrific. Severe distress is seen in every socio-economic indicator, including the shocking increases in domestic abuse, addiction, teen pregnancy, high school drop-outs, STDS, crime and violence, plus huge drug dealer operations (and all the gang activity that comes with it).

Forget inmates. When prisons are the largest employer in a small town, prison guards and prison personnel take over local government. Prison guards serve as “citizen-patrol” units on rural police forces. Yes, Mel, prison guards carry guns and police rural citizens, including our teenagers and children. Prison guards dole out punishment to students on rural school boards. Prison guards sit on town councils, where they allocate tax dollars for everything from streets to sewers, to police departments. I could go on, but I think I made my point.

Has no one seen a prison before? They are effing huge – the prison in my community consumed 1,650 acres. My word people, that’s enough acreage for 8,250 average sized suburban homes! When I left California four years ago, our prison had housed twice its occupation capacity for decades. Today, the inmate population is down to its legal capacity (2,983 inmates).

Now, Trump wants to round up 10-million undocumented immigrants and deport them. Excuse me, but there are not enough people left in rural America to round up another 10 million people – AND – OR - hold them while they wait for deportation.

How the Hell does Trump plan on doing this job? Where is Trump’s plan?

Most prisons are staffed at a 1:1 ratio of prison personnel to inmate. Does Trump plan on sending the army, national guard, navy, air force, Marines and Coast Guard to do this deportation job? Excuse me again, but there are only 2.1-million military personnel in the entire country. The police, sheriff and border patrol, combined, don’t have enough people to do the job either.

Right now, the unemployment rate is so low, there are not enough able-bodied people to do the job either.

Does Trump plan on rounding immigrants up and putting them straight onto trains, boats, planes and busses? If that’s Trump’s plan, we better prepare ourselves for a war with Mexico, cause they cannot handle ten million people flooding across their border. Maybe Trump plans on sending people north, into Canada as well? If so, we better plan on fighting wars on both our borders. Worse yet, Mexican drug cartels and Canadian drug operations would be happy to join forces to fight Americans. America would be so weak, China on one side and Russia on the other side of our oceans, could pick us off like sitting ducks.

Wait, maybe Trump plans to get cowboys to herd undocumented workers out of the county, like cattle. If so, Trump better ask cowboys how they feel about doing this job. Who the heck is going to take care of the cattle, while the cowboys are herding people?

The average prison cell is 6’ x 8’ (48 square feet). You can fit 51 inmates in the footprint of one average sized, suburban house. Trump better figure this out, cause he is talking about building the equivalent of 194,410 average sized suburban homes. Tents won’t work in places where temperatures drop well below freezing in the winter, or other places that hit 115 degree temperatures in the summer.

Americans better plan on paying a lot taxes to get the job done. Imagine going to work where your first two hours of pay every darn day, go to deporting people.