May Your Holidays Be Filled with Delicious Food and Good Company!

We held our holiday party once again at the Institute of Culinary Education in downtown Manhattan. At this annual event, we cook our own meal—okay, the chefs help out a little bit and a few glasses of delicious brut rosé don't hurt either. On the menu this year was hand-cut beet pappardelle with goat cheese and toasted walnuts, a maple chipotle-glazed duck breast, and for dessert a pumpkin and dulce de leche tart. While some food stations worked harder than others—pasta station and duck grilling station clearly outworked the "chopping the cauliflower" station—everyone had a great time (especially dessert station) and we maybe even learned something. Great work, everyone!

BuzzFeed: “Senators Propose Bipartisan Bill To Protect ‘DREAMers’”

A bipartisan bill to protect “DREAMers”—who were granted temporary protection against deportation under President Obama’s executive actions—was introduced this past Friday by Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin. The bill, called the BRIDGE Act, would effectively extend DACA protections for more than 740,000 young immigrants who have already taken advantage of the program by providing “provisional protected presence” for three years if applicants register with the government, pay the required processing fee, and pass a criminal background check. The senators introduced the bill in response to President-Elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to end the DACA program, although after the election he has made conflicting comments about what actions, if any, he will take. 

In a post-election interview with Time, President-Elect Trump said regarding DREAMers: “We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud…They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.” In statements on Twitter, Senator Graham calls the original DACA order enacted by President Obama “unconstitutional” and says that President-Elect Trump would be right to repeal it but that nevertheless Senator Graham says he does not "believe that we should pull the rug out and push these young men and women—who came out of the shadows and registered with the federal government—back into the darkness…These young people have much to offer the country and we stand to benefit from the many contributions they will make to America.” 

While the bill will need to be re-introduced next year to the new Congress, Senator Durbin tells reporters they didn’t want to wait. “There’s so much interest in this issue and so much anxiety over this situation,” he says. “We want to move to make this public. I can’t go anywhere without someone raising this issue.” Durbin says that they’re encouraged by Trump’s recent favorable comments on DACA and says that both Republican and Democratic legislators will support the BRIDGE Act. “Generally speaking most Republicans, even though they are reluctant to come to the floor and make a speech, feel it’s only fair…even if they have strong feelings against other parts of comprehensive immigration,” he tells BuzzFeed. “This is a very difficult group—once you meet them—to oppose.”

“Here’s what you’ve got to ask Republicans and Democrats: What do you do with these kids?” Senator Graham tells reporters. “Now, I’m not going to be part of a Republican Party that will take 700,000-plus young people who’ve done nothing on their own—they came here as small kids, they lived their life in America, they have no place else to go—and just ruin their lives.”

Many US mayors have also voiced support for DREAMers. In a letter signed by Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, and mayors of other cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Houston, Trump was warned of the economic harm that would come from canceling DACA. “This program helps foster economic growth and enhances public safety and national security," the letter states, and claims that as much as $9.9 billion in tax revenue would be lost over four years and $433.4 billion in US gross domestic product would be wiped out over ten years if he cancels the DACA program.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) also praises the BRIDGE Act legislation, even though AILA notes it does not provide a solution for many undocumented families and other individuals who have lived and worked in the US for many years. “Keeping DACA going is not only the right thing to do, it is smart business,” AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson states. “The BRIDGE Act would offer protection to DREAMers for three years, during which time we hope that Congress will move forward on what is really necessary: smart, effective, and humane immigration reform.”

It's the Holidays Can You Tell?

I was out in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn—famous for their neighborhood holiday lights display—looking for some ideas for holiday decorations at our office. Too much?

The Guardian: “Qatar wins approval to turn US embassy in London into hotel”

US Embassy London. Photo by CGP Grey.

The US Embassy in London will be turned into a luxury hotel after the Qatari royal family’s property company has won approval from Westminster council. In 2009, the US State Department agreed to sell this historic building—topped by a gilded bald eagle with a wingspan of more than 36 feet and designed by the Finnish-American modernist Eero Saarinen—to Qatari Diar to fund the construction of the new US Embassy in Nine Elms south of the Thames. The current Embassy (soon-to-be-hotel) is located in pricey Grosvenor Square, which has housed the US Embassy since 1938, where during World War II the square was known as Little America as General Eisenhower’s headquarters and other US operations were based there. The nine floors (three underground) of the building—valued at £500m—will include up to 137 hotel rooms, shops, restaurants, and bars.

The Embassy’s move to the new location from Grosvenor Square is a relief to many neighbors and local residents who have protested against the current Embassy’s location because of safety and security concerns. The site historically has been a place for demonstrations and protests over the years, including famously in March 1968, when 10,000 demonstrators protested the Vietnam war, leading to 200 arrests and fifty people treated in the hospital, and, recently, protests against the election of Donald Trump.

The new Embassy, however, opening near Battersea power station in South London is facing construction delays. Originally scheduled to finish in late 2016 during President Obama’s term, the Embassy will not open until after Trump is inaugurated in January. Heightened security checks on workers and materials have delayed the eleven-story cube-shaped building, an anonymous source tells Bloomberg. A spokeswoman for the US Embassy tells Bloomberg via email that these are standard construction delays, and that the project budget includes such a contingency. The Embassy is now scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2017.

In other State Department news, a counterfeit US Embassy was shut down in Ghana after having operated for ten years. The Embassy, with an American flag and photograph of President Obama, was operated by figures in Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings as well as a local attorney. It allegedly issued visas, some of them were genuine, as well as false identification documents for a cost of $6,000. Embassy officials, together with Ghanaian police, seized 150 passports from ten countries, including legitimate and counterfeit visas from the US, the Schengen zone, India, and South Africa. A State Department official says that nobody was able to travel to the US on the fake visas.

Enchanted Forest

Lord & Taylor's 79th holiday windows display is titled "Enchanted Forest," and that it is. The five windows take onlookers through a whimsical and magical journey amid the crush of foot traffic on Fifth Avenue. (Yes, it is magical.) The windows portray scenes from a winter wonderland and include thirty-four hand-sculpted animals and over 350-square-feet of LED walls. My favorite window features a lovely mama owl and her baby owls, and the other equally creative windows include playful squirrels, an adorable polar bear and mice, foxes and mischievous raccoons, and some cute snowshoeing ducks. Liz Rodbell, Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay Co. president, tells WWD: “One of the things I love about [these windows] is that they’re warm for everyone. Every time I look at them, I smile more. We need happiness. We’re ready for some happiness.”