Make no mistake, the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are only a training ground for how to undermine civil rights for us all. Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality. But eventually these same tools will be used against us.
> Everyone is ok targeting the immigrant populations
To echo another commentor, we're not. And even if we were, this is not how it should be done. Enforcing the laws is one thing, but we have to have due process. Without due process, we have no rights.
Due process for EVERY person in the legal territory regardless of who or what they are. Otherwise it's way to easy to say, "they're the other, and have no rights", and they are already using this line.
Which is absolutely unconstitutional. The constitution says the 4th amendment protects all people, not just citizens. It's been upheld many times by the supreme court. This administration is knowingly and willingly trampling the constitution. The midterm elections can't come soon enough. And in the meantime we all need to get in the streets. Anyone can manipulate social media. But you can't manipulate the narrative when there is an overwhelming number of brave people in the streets clearly and peacefully protesting.
And what happens when they deport you, "BuckRogers"?
Proving whether or not someone is supposed to be here requires due process. If they pick up the wrong person (because people have the same name, or look alike, or any reason) and deport them, then what? Are you going to accept that you or your family or friends get deported?
We shouldn't accept any false positives. And that's what due process is.
It's not that hard. I can prove I'm not here illegally in under 30 seconds. I have my passport digital ID and my state driver's license (Real ID) in my Apple Wallet. I also have my passport and Real ID in my house. I know my Social Security number by heart.
The last thing I worry about at night is my accidental deportation.
Due process is being abused as a process and term, to pretend we have to tie up the courts for years with some sort of nonsense debate between the government and lawyers about someone's legal status. It's just to stop American law and order from being enforced. People aren't putting up with this whole situation anymore and ultimately we're in control.
How would you know if you were supposed to be here or not without due process.
YOU would not even get a chance to prove your case when they deport you. And I use "you" here deliberately because everyone is at some point at the lowest rung of the ladder in a fascist regime.
Sorry, bad wording. I was using the "you all" in the same context as the parent's "collective we". Yes, there's tens of thousands out in the streets protesting, but also yes there's tens of millions who aren't.
I think it's millions, not tens of thousands protesting.
I hate that the online world is so polluted with America Bad that we cannot even have a good discussion. There is literally nothing American citizens could be doing right now that would meet with approval from outsiders.
Hello. I posted the above comments before I'd read asa400's amazing insight right at the top of this discussion, that post has given me the perspective I was clearly missing when I posted these. I was never coming from an "America Bad" position, but I was definitely failing to appreciate the nuances of protest in such a heavily armed country.
You are getting downvoted, but this is a fair point. The only other country with a higher estimate for illegal immigrant population is Russia. The next closest Western European country is France, with barely over half the rate of the US. [0]
In the poorer parts of the world, people absolutely detest illegal immigrants (or basically most working migrants as well) because they are taking jobs from the locals. They hate refugees because there's not enough resources to go around to use in feeding and housing them.
Welcoming people in because "no-one wants to do those jobs" is very much a luxury belief of the well off.
I think the number of people who welcome immigrants for this reason is actually quite small, and is mostly business owners. And to be fair, they are not entirely wrong -- all evidence we have suggests that many of the jobs are so hard that getting citizens to do them would require bumping the wage 3, 4, 5 times, and even then it is a tough sell.
What I think has happened culturally is that Americans see us as the shining beacon on the hill, where everyone wants to be, and so we feel sympathetic to those who will do whatever it takes to come here. There are lots of cultural references historically that reinforce this mythology. Call it American Exceptionalism or whatever, but the mythology is real.
Between our own loss in confidence and the onslaught of 'America Bad' inundating the online dialogue, this mythology is dying in a hurry. Makes me a little sad, honestly, because I am of the opinion that a nation benefits from a strong mythology. Sometimes that is served by religion, but in the US it has for a long time been 'Land of Opportunity' and associated beliefs. I dare anyone to go to the US Capitol tour and watch that 15 minute intro video about the founding of the country and not come away with a tear in their eye. It's quite moving, even if it is largely a fabrication.
It's always the land of opportunity for those who want to come in and displace the existing inhabitants. Fun when you're the one displacing until you are on the other side.
I meant "we" in the sense that our country has yet to put an end to it and there is still a majority of people either actively in support of ICE or remaining silent.
Many people have been pointing at Waco for years. Even Janet Reno later admitted regretting that episode, and yet you do not hear the left in the US saying at all that this was a problem - in fact it is stereotypical far right recruitment material.
This is why it is clear the problem with ICE is not their mode of enforcement, which is far less egregious than the Waco situation, but the fact they are remotely effective.
From "a problem" to "rallying cry" is a pretty neat goalpost move.
Leftists have long warned that expansions of government power (in general) and police militarization (specifically) are most likely to be eventually used against leftists.
Modern leftists are definitionally promoting expansion of government power - it is a core consequence of their beliefs.
The late Murray Bookchin was the exception that proves the rule, and he was hardly popular or widely known, and made some astonishingly prescient interviews before he died about the direction it was all headed in.
Obvious examples: health care, education, social benefits provision, public transit, arms control. All involve expansions of the state bureaucracy and decision making power.
This is tangential to whether those things are good/bad in and of themselves.
The reason Bookchin was interesting, and why he was isolated even from Sanders, was he accurately saw any hierarchy as oppressive, whether class, capitalistic, cooperative, or even a temporarily well meaning state bureaucracy. It also says something that such a person didn’t manage to create a sustainable movement.
The classic right wing policy which confused everyone was “the negative income tax” that Milton Friedman was so keen on, yet it is UBI by another name. Aside from advantages compared to a minimum wage the important point is by being universal you remove the scope for bureaucratic decision making, so they went to enormous lengths to ensure it never happened.
> Obvious examples: health care, education, social benefits provision, public transit, arms control. All involve expansions of the state bureaucracy and decision making power.
So what you have established is that the left and right both want to expand government power, but the left wants to use it to improve the general welfare while the right wants to use it to crush their fellow citizens. Thank you for the clarification.
I generally lean left, and favor a large welfare state, reasonable regulation, etc. and I find your statement unfair.
People can reasonably disagree on these things.
In particular, the role of the federal government (vs the states) is important. Many of the benefit programs have no real need to be national, other than the ability of the federal government to borrow an unlimited amount of money. And many regulations are only federal because that was seen as easier and faster than gaining support in each state for them. Forcing a nation wide policy on an issue that could easily be dealt with by each state because you know you can't get the support is not very democratic.
That does not seem to be a differentiator, either. The right is definitely trying to use federal power to enforce their positions on the entire country when possible, e.g. abortion. It sure seems like "states rights" is more a slogan used when convenient, not a core ideological position.
Certainly not; I myself held a green card at one point.
But that's a bit like responding to "Auschwitz was bad!" with "so you oppose giving free food and housing to Jews?!" I object to how enforcement is being performed, and the collateral damage ICE is willing to inflict on citizens not in their legal purview.
Now let's do you. Do you think the President should have a relatively blank check to get away with being convicted of felonies? Do you have concerns about the Vice President's claim that ICE agents enjoy "absolute immunity"?
Your problem is you want things more than think about them.
The rot of the bureaucracy coming to convenient decisions extends from illegally allowing millions of people to take up residence in the country to convicting people of trumped up nonsense in an obvious attempt to keep them from office to subvert the democratic intent of the people.
This is why Trump and co are the clean up crew before returning to a happier place. It is not a nice job, and nice people wouldn’t be able to do it, but it is a necessary one to prevent things getting so much worse.
You: "Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption."
Also you: "convicting people of trumped up nonsense..."
Whoops. Someone sure seems… selective. (And we've gone full circle, to my original point.)
> Your problem is you want things more than think about them.
This is precisely the implementation problem inherent in "immediately deport tens of millions of people upon which American society has relied on for decades for cheap labor".
What came first, Trump or failing to enforce laws regarding mass illegal immigration? With a multi decade head start too.
You cannot expect institutions that selectively ignored laws for decades to think it is legal for anyone to stop them from doing so, despite not being able to pin anything concrete to anyone at all. In fact you expect the kind of “ha!” you are trying to pull here.
Trump would not be close to the presidency without the historic selective enforcement by people you happen to have aligned interests with who opened pandora’s box. It is only now you feel on the wrong side of it that you have a problem.
As it stands they are in power, for almost another three years. It seems odd that they could manage this were their position as illegal as you claim. Somewhat reminiscent of the British declaring the American Revolution illegal.
> What came first, Trump or failing to enforce laws regarding mass illegal immigration?
If you wanna play that game, the country started with selective enforcement on day one. The Fourth Amendment didn’t apply to a rather large portion of the population.
> Somewhat reminiscent of the British declaring the American Revolution illegal.
It was absolutely illegal. What is legal is not always moral (the Holocaust, after all, was legal in Hitler’s Germany); what is moral is not always legal.
Current ICE/Homeland Security actions are unambiguously illegal.
The problem is that without an independent congress the US system is able to descend into authoritarianism. The court has (reasonably) decided that on many broad issues regarding presidential actions and abuse of authority only congress (via impeachment and removal) is able to constrain the president.
The current congressional majority has, for now, decided to allow the president to do almost anything he wants, regardless of the law and constitution.
Because that's plainly not what they are always doing. And the aggressive, racist unprofessional, downright dangerous way ICE are going about things is simply shocking.
That they neutered themselves doesn't make them any less neutered.
I'm skeptical about their ability to reclaim it, too. Lots of them remember being terrified and running away Jan 6, even if many now pretend not to... and SCOTUS has been on a tear wiping out long-standing legislation Congress was quite clear about like the Voting Rights Act.
To extend the analogy, Congress hasn't had their balls removed, they simply aren't humping other dogs right now.
I'm not an expert, but while many of SCOTUS' rulings have been against the plain letter of the law, few of the decisions ruled out Congressional power in those areas categorically. Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to. And of course, even with a Democratic Congress, getting past the veto may be impossible.
While a pan-US national awareness is widely seen as emerging during the civil war the rest of what you are saying is disingenuous. Prior to that it was a selection of colonies etc. which very much had borders because skirmishes over taxation rights was a thing.
There was significantly more inter ethnic strife in the US pre WW2 than most people seem to appreciate, much of it relating to if encountered (by whatever means) people should be settled/assimilated/rejected. There were riots/protests of this type in major cities at least between the civil war and the 1930s, and state policy reflected this, such as with the Chinese exclusion act which would hardly have been possible without a border.
No. One old man and a bunch of malicious zealots at his side are introducing a tremendous amount of instability into the country and the world at large; just like they did with his first term, only now less inhibited.
The problem is the old man and his enablers have zero respect for the law, whereas the other team does (they are not above reproach but in this regard they are distinctly different).
This makes the fight unfair, as without law all we have is unbridled violence as a tool and that is a path to ruin for all.
They are simply enforcing a law that people have had every opportunity to democratically change in the decades since it just stopped being enforced properly, and yet they failed to secure a democratic mandate to do so.
Complaining from that position is far from being on a moral high ground.
Along the same lines, anyone who thinks this is just about immigration should ask themselves what all these tens of thousands of ICE agents are going to do when all the immigrants are finally deported.
Are they just going to go home and go back to their old jobs? Or do you think the Administration is going to find something else for them to do.
Deportations aren’t all that high. The raids are theater.
Thinking that they’re going to deport all the immigrants isn’t realistic or supported by the numbers. Immigration control is a constant ongoing operation in every country. This administration is just making a big show out of it for political points.
My point still stands. The country will obviously not be permanently swarming with ICE agents violently grabbing immigrants off the street. There is going to be mission creep. If this isn't obvious then I don't know what to else I can say to convince you. Immigration is clearly just a pretext to establishing a national police force.
Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
>Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.
And when it doesn't, will you remember the wild accusations you made or off making others with no accountability?
Hitler's regime didn't start out making death camps for Jews. The initial plan was to deport them, with camps for holding and processing. That was unrealistic given the volume of people to process, which led to the detention and work camps converting to death camps.
Just saying, similar outcomes could occur here. It's happened before. Their goals being unrealistic doesn't mean they'll stop, and may be part of their justification for doing even worse things than they're already doing.
I don't think it is just political points. Illegal Mexican border crossings crashed on the run up to Trump taking presidency. Signaling you'll get captured and deported wherever you are, I'm sure if keeping a lot of people who would be illegal immigrants away.
47 million voters have been run through the citizenship database, and 10,000 were flagged for investigation. which is 0.02% even if all those turn out to be noncitizens. you're just repeating empty assertions without evidence
>the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota
If you think this is only immigration enforcement you haven't been paying attention. That was ostensibly what Trump campaigned on. That is not what is happening in Minnesota and other previously safe places. What is happening is a massive terror campaign against all US citizens who don't happen to be the right color. And increasing, against everyone.
I have a hunch most people recognize this, but many are ok with it. I have hope (But not confidence) people will see this in the upcoming US elections and more broadly. This is transparent authoritarian behavior.
Edit: Challenge: If you downvoted the parent post here (It's currently grey), I would love to hear why you think this doesn't match the pattern. Are you living in the US? I in general am struggling to understand my fellow US citizens, given the history of our nation.
I expect masked ICE agents to be deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)
"A pair of armed and masked men in tactical gear stood guard at ballot drop boxes in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 21 as people began early voting for the 2022 midterm elections."
They might be "off-duty" but this is during Biden's admin. They're immensely more emboldened now and local LE will absolutely not enforce any laws restricting this.
And I'd fully expect some fuckery via executive orders closer to the election, and SCOTUS to use the emergency docket to let them "temporarily" be enforced.
It is being restricted. My red state has gone from allowing mail-in ballots that were allowed if they were postmarked by election day, to requiring them to be in by election day. When the postmaster general is a Trump appointee, and the mail has slowed down over the last few years, it makes me wonder if this is deliberate.
I would start with this, because it's a flat out lie
> Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality.
People have been complaining about the attack on immigrants for a good, long while. And the complaining has been getting louder, more frequent, and from more people with every day. When they kidnapped workers and suddenly the price of everything went up, there was a lot of "see?!? this is what we're talking about"
So no, "everyone" isn't ok with the targeting of immigrants.
They should have said "enough are ok" instead of "everyone is ok".
Unfortunately, there are still enough people who are fine with the Trump / Miller / Noem / Bovino approach to immigration enforcement, or they're not impacted personally enough to make them speak or act.
I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
> I hope the cartoon villain responses coming from the administration when they're challenged on any of this will get more people to stand up against it all.
I don't think we should expect people to stand up against all of this. Even if most of them don't like it, let's be honest, it's not a dealbreaker for them. Especially if the next election other party puts forward some deliberately hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
> hypocritical, racist, out-of-touch elitist like Kamala Harris.
Gee I wonder what side of the political spectrum you align to...
I like rule of law and due process. I like the Constitution and its balance of powers. I think that a good chunk of Americans also like these things. I believe the current administration is acting in extremely contrary ways to those things. So yes, I expect more Americans to stand up and speak out.
Many people like this. It's just that the choice, as far as I understand, is not between rule of law and authoritarian dictatorship.
> I like the Constitution and its balance of powers.
And here, frankly speaking, I'm unfamiliar with the American Constitution in these aspects. How does it work? Does it only protect citizens? Or residents too? Does it protect illegal aliens too? Does it protect everyone in the world? Or does it operate on territorial principles, and begin to protect any person who sets foot on American soil, but does not protect everyone else?
This is standard right wing hate-filled drivel, like that peppered throughout your comment history.
Your ilk really are hoping that Trump's authoritarian takeover of the US succeeds, through provocation, apathy or by whatever means, because you're driven only by the pursuit of power to turn your hate into violence against your perceived enemies.
Trump as demonstrated that the next president has full authority to disassemble and disband effectively any agency or federal organization that they like. So I wouldn't be so sure that ICE will exist after Trump, assuming we continue to have fair elections which is a big if I guess.
I certainly would consider voting for a candidate who expressed a desire to exercise this authority and presidential power to defund ICE, fire and federally blacklist all of it's former employees during that presidents term.
The folks there watering the course, cutting the lawn, moving the greens, and cleaning the facilities are most definitely not US citizens, most definitely are not English speakers, and I'd bet a lot of money are not valid green card holders or work visa holders. You think his courses in immigration hotbeds like New York or Southern California are any different? Fuck no they aren't.
You're backing a wanna-be tough guy who can't even practice what he preaches.
Because I've played at his course, and played at plenty of courses owned by his wealthy donors down here in SoFLA. They don't hire American, none of them do. The majority of landscapers and maintenance folks at his Doral course in particular are Salvadorean, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan.
It was 13 years before Trump was president. Before ICE existed other agencies handled immigration enforcement. Everyone in this thread is acting like illegal immigrants have never been deported before Trump was elected.
Yeah, my point is that 13 years (or frankly, 23) hardly counts as "a long time". That's less than 10% of the history of the United States! ICE is less old than The Matrix or the iPod or the complete decoding of the human genome.
If it is this tweet you are referring to, it's about _teaching_ hate, which is only a slight nuance and still a terrible point to make for a self-labeled "free speech absolutist"
> Teaching people to hate America fundamentally destroys patriotism and the desire to defend our country.
> Such teachings should be viewed as treason and those who do it imprisoned.
And a very difficult thing to define, and very clearly not the sort of thing that'd be enforced against, say, the current President no matter how clear the violation.
Palestine was the training ground, now it is being deployed back at home. Turns out it is a small world and you shouldn't have selective empathy.
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
