Jim & Deborah Poplar, owners of Shady Glade Bed & Detention

Jim & Deborah have run a concentration camp out of their large country home for over 30 years, but the government’s increasing preference for multi-million-dollar operations — that is, the ones who can afford to lobby — leaves them facing an uncertain future.

“Used to be, we’d have 10, 12 foreign fellers in here at a time, stacked 4 to a bed. Now, I’m lucky if we deprive even 6 folks a month of their liberty,” Jim told me as we strolled the charming New England grounds of the property. “How’s a man s’posed to make a living caging other men like beasts these days?”

Deborah, however, seemed resigned to their fate. “We’re hopin’ that we can get bought out, maybe lease the house to one of the big boys, and retire somewhere nice. It’s a shame, you know? Concentration camps’re in our blood, me & Jim both. My great-great-grandfather oversaw concentration camps in the 1860s, during the Indian Wars; my father helped design Manzanar — you know, from when detained all those Japanese people in the 1940s, even the ones who were American citizens? And Jim‘s grandfather was General J. Bell, who ran death camps in the Phillippines in the 1900s. I bet you didn’t even know we did that!”

Jim sighed & shook his head. “Concentration camps are as American as apple pie. Hell, we practically invented ‘em! But how are we supposed to compete with a company that can buy up WalMarts? It’s just not right.”