A lot of people who support the current US government do not want the laws to be enforced, they just want to see people who look brown or foreigners to be deported, regardless of if they are in the US legally or illegally.
The immigration laws are saying that we should stop illegal immigration, but respect the legal immigration. And because of that, it means that each case should be carefully treated to discover if the person is illegal or not.
But a majority of people supporting the crack-down on immigration are more than happy to see 10 innocents being deported if it means 1 illegal being deported, and they will wave around the illegal being deported to explain that before the crack-down, the law was not respected, forgetting that the current situation is breaking the law way more than the previous one (before: 1 illegal not deported, 1 error. after: 10 innocents being deported, 10 errors).
In other words: if you care about the law, you cannot "pick and choose" and say "the laws are not respected because 1 illegal is not deported" but also "10 innocents are being deported, this breaks the law, but this does not count".
Where are you getting the idea that 10 innocents are being deported for every 1 illegal? Or that the "majority" of people supporting the crackdown would support that?
The information I can find suggests only a handful of cases, maybe a dozen, out of 600,000 or so.
I'm saying that the majority of the people supporting the crackdown don't care about the fact that the crackdown may break the law. Which is demonstrated by the fact that these people totally don't care of what is the number of innocents deported. You can see these people saying "we should deport the illegals", but how often you can see them saying "but I also want to know the number of innocent deported, and if this number is too high, we should stop the deportation"?
I'm not saying what is happening right now is 10 vs 1, and I did not in my comment. These numbers were illustrative, to explain that if you want to "apply the law", you should care about how many illegals are not deported AND how many innocents are deported.
This is the demonstration that people supporting the crackdown don't do it because they want to see the laws being applied, they just want "the laws that benefit them" to be applied. So we should stop pretending these people are acting because of their love for justice or for the laws.
edit: another way of explaining what I want to say: if you care about "applying the law", then you know that the correct measure will be a balance between the false positive and false negative. The large majority of the discourse of people supporting the crackdown is denying that. They are saying that "every single illegal must be deported". This discourse is explicitly saying that not deporting 1 single illegal is still not fine, and does not mention anywhere the balance with false positive. It shows that they don't care about "applying the law".
(And about "an handful of cases", that would be extremely unrealistic. Maybe you are talking about the number of cases that are surfaced, which is only a small proportion of the real numbers of case, as it is for all false positive)
If there were any evidence of widespread deportations of people who shouldn't be then I think you'd see more people speaking up, but there's not. People don't have to caveat their support of every policy with hypotheticals.
I also don't think most people want illegal aliens to be deported for "justice". They (rightfully or wrongly) think they're taking their jobs, contributing to crime, facilitating drug trade, costing taxpayers money, etc.
> I am
also dealing with a number of emergencies, including a lockdown at the Minneapolis
courthouse because of protest activity, the defiance of several court orders by ICE, and
the illegal detention of many detainees by ICE (including, yesterday, a two-year
old).[1]
Federal district judges in mpls are releasing dozens of illegally detained individuals per day. You may not be hearing about it, but it is absolutely happening. Your not hearing about is part of the problem.
> I also don't think most people want illegal aliens to be deported for "justice". They (rightfully or wrongly) think they're taking their jobs, contributing to crime, facilitating drug trade, costing taxpayers money, etc.
That's my point and the reason of my first comment, which answered to a comment saying
> Immigration laws, like any other laws, need to be enforced, right?
I was reacting to that by saying that we should not pretend that the motivation here is "applying the law". It is not the case and it never was. (and also that "applying the law" does imply a balance between false positive and false negative, but that suddenly, trying to avoid the false negative is strangely not applying the law)
> If there were any evidence of widespread deportations of people who shouldn't be ...
Somehow, I doubt it. You are yourself saying "they think (rightfully or wrongly)". They are not interested in evidence, they don't really care to check if what they think has any evidence supporting it, it is just convenient for them.
If there are evidence of widespread false positive, they will just hold tight to the idea that "they were traitors anyway". It is more convenient for them. (and in fact, there currently is a lot of evidence of a high number of false positive, but they deny it exactly like that)
The proof of that is that there are already plenty of red flags everywhere showing that officials are incompetent. The officials say that there are plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, and yet, the only people they manage to shoot just appear to be non-illegal with no history of extremism. Then, when it happens, they starts fabricating excuses that turn out are total lies. And then ... it happens again. Even if you buy into the idea that there are indeed plenty of bad illegal dangerous persons, you have to admit that they are awful at fixing it.
It is not technically a "widespread false positive", but it is already something that a neutral reasonable person will be incapable to deny that there is a problem. And yet, right now, these people who, according to you will totally "start to speak up", don't hesitate to bury their head in the sand and insist that it is all normal.
It is totally unrealistic to pretend that suddenly, when there is widespread evidence of false positive, they will not continue to find excuse and pretend that these evidences are fake news and lies propagated by traitors.
> I was reacting to that by saying that we should not pretend that the motivation here is "applying the law". It is not the case and it never was. (and also that "applying the law" does imply a balance between false positive and false negative, but that suddenly, trying to avoid the false negative is strangely not applying the law)
What is the motivation here then? In your opinion?
And speaking of false positives, could you explain what you mean by that?
> I'm saying that the majority of the people supporting the crackdown don't care about the fact that the crackdown may break the law. Which is demonstrated by the fact that these people totally don't care of what is the number of innocents deported. You can see these people saying "we should deport the illegals", but how often you can see them saying "but I also want to know the number of innocent deported, and if this number is too high, we should stop the deportation"?
The people who oppose don't care about the fact that illegal immigrants are continually breaking US law by continuing to be in the US, and often explicitly argue that laws restricting immigration into the US are immoral. There's no reason grounded in an ethic of general respect for the law why formal law-violation associated with the crackdown is more important than formal law-violation associated with the illegal immigration.
Ok. First, the people who oppose don't justify everything with "apply the law". They in large majority are consistent and honest and explain that cracking down without respecting basic right is disproportionate and that you need to have a good balance. The large majority agree with the existence of law and agree that just ignoring illegals does not make any sense (they may propose better process to avoid that they end up being illegal in the first place, but also better process to treat illegals, in which case, they are literally proposing solution in which breaking the law is punished, just not by using violence and recklessness).
But again, this is a false dichotomy. You are pretending that the only way to stop breaking the law is by accepting an incompetent organisation (ICE) to act as bullies without having to answer for their actions (while I'm not sure if the people involved in the recent killing will be punished or not, plenty of unjustified violence happened without any consequences for the perpetrators). They are incompetent: they keep making stupid mistake, saying things that appear to be obviously wrong as soon as we see the footage, ...
If you really want "applying the law", why are you not contesting ICE for not being able to arrest illegals while not breaking the law themselves in situation where breaking the law is totally useless (and don't tell me it is not useless: cops and local authorities managed to do the same without creating the mess that ICE has created).
@cauch: let me ask you this: how do you weed out the illegals besides asking for proof or citizenship or proof of a passport visa that you are in the US legally?
Really, you're going to go with "papers, please" ?
ICE is on record of requesting ID from _children_. I don't know if you're a parent, but my kids didn't carry ID until they were nearly adults. That's okay, though, because they're white. I don't like bringing race into this, but we're not seeing ICE ask white people for their passports.
I don't have a problem weeding out dangerous criminals, but flagging someone who had a parking ticket a decade ago is wrong. Additionally, removing TPS from groups and then subsequently deporting them up is wrong. Arresting individuals and deporting them when they are going through the proper legal avenues to become citizens is wrong.
How soon until other "undesirables" are targeted?
Did you carry proof of citizenship as a child? Do you carry it today? I don't, as my license is not a "real id" yet. They could scoop me up as I walk into Home Depot and send me off to god knows where tomorrow.
> Did you carry proof of citizenship as a child? Do you carry it today? I don't, as my license is not a "real id" yet.
Where I'm from, I am legally required to have proof of ID with me all the time. So basically used to never leaving home without it.
No, going back to what you're saying: why is it wrong to deport somebody that came to the US illegally? Just because they were good citizens is it OK to be forgiven for crossing the border illegally? How does that make any sense?
And speaking about TPS, you know what the T stands for, right?
> Where I'm from, I am legally required to have proof of ID with me all the time. So basically used to never leaving home without it.
Yes, I too have proof of ID. It does not prove that I am a citizen. I can also tell you that children in the USA do not carry ID.
> No, going back to what you're saying: why is it wrong to deport somebody that came to the US illegally?
If they were brought here as young children, yes, it's wrong -- they're being punished for the actions of their parents.
> And speaking about TPS, you know what the T stands for, right?
Of course. Let's look at Somalia, who recently had their temporary protected status designation revoked. Their home country is currently involved in a civil war, and the US government simultaneously lists Somalia as "Level 4: Do Not Travel". There's a good chance that we're sending these people to their deaths. You are okay with this?
> You also didn't answer my question about us likely sending Somalis off to their deaths.
I did not answer it because it is a "might", not a certain thing. Also, take into account the fact that they knew it was a temporary thing when they came to the US. Now, knowing one possible outcome, they could emigrate to a third country that is willing to receive them.
You don't see the disparity over the state department saying "Do not go to Somalia, it is unsafe", yet also saying "The need for TPS has passed, it is safe to return to Somalia" ?
The State Department issues warnings for US citizens. It does not care if othet nationalities go there.
And speaking of it is safe to
return there, I am not familiar with what happens when the TPS status is removed, but I think it only means they’re no longer welcome in the US, not necessarily being deported to Somalia the next day. So I don’t see any contradiction.
Their TPS status was abruptly revoked and they were given two months to find another country to reside in or they will be deported to Somalia. Two months! Do you think that you could find another country to reside in and handle all of the legal arrangements within that short of a time frame?
I sincerely hope that you never find yourself in such a situation.
What I don't understand is that ICE are clearly incompetent: they shoot the wrong guys, they keep claiming they arrested bad guys and it turns out they totally misunderstood and the persons in question are not who they thought they were. Even with Pretti, ICE declared they were there to arrest a known illegal with a "significant criminal history", but turns out the Minnesota officials have said it was not the case.
This is an usual strange situation: some people want to see "less illegal immigrants", and yet, they are ok with paying big money to pay incompetent people do an half-assed job.
Other civilized countries routinely ask for proof of citizenship or legal residency when people interact with their bureaucracies and deport people who are discovered by law enforcement to not be legally resident. This happens all the time in every civilized country and in many countries we don't consider civilized.
I've lived in several civilized in Europe, and they don't do raid like it is happening in Minnesota.
What is happening in Minnesota makes the front pages in Europe, and a lot of people are saying that according to them, it will never be possible here (I'm not sure I agree with them, but it shows that the idea that the ICE methods are "the usual way to deal efficiently with immigration" is totally crazy).
I guarantee you, in Europe, illegals are arrested and deported regularly, and yet, the large majority of people don't even notice. There is no masked troops doing raids. And some people push for more care in managing illegal migrants expulsion, they do demonstration, they organise events and sometimes even are present and makes small obstruction during interventions. Yet none of them are being killed.
There is a huge disconnect with reality in US right now, with a part of the population so uneducated with the "usual" migration regulation and so fed with fear that they are painting the situation as if having unhinged ICE acting outside of due process is the only alternative to "open border and lawlessness". What a joke.
They are not. They want illegal migrants to be processed and deported if they are illegal. What they are complaining about is the fact that current, people are "marked" as illegal (or fail to be regularised) for arbitrary reasons and the process is not fair. Imagine if you were doing everything correctly as much as you can and still being treated as a thief? It does not give you a fair chance. You can be marked as illegal just because of quotas or because you had bad luck and the officials did not read your file, or because you did not do something that no one told you you should do despite the fact that you ask, or because you followed the proper process and ask what you should do and the person you asked decided to arrested you, ...
All of this happens in western countries (maybe not all in US). Immigration processes are just really badly designed. Look it up, it is crazy: from some countries, the only way to be considered as "legal" require you to be "illegal" during to the time of the admin process. Even if you pretend that it just means they are just not accepted, it does not make any sense: in this case, why the process does not say "no, sorry, from this country, no one can be legal". But the process is "you want to be legal, good, come to my country and walk this way. Oh, by the way, now that you are here, you are technically illegal, let me arrest you".
The reason is that the victim of the bad design cannot complain because people say "they are illegal anyway, so their voice does not count". For this reason, some citizen noticed that the system is just stupid, and just ask that for each illegal person, we give them a chance to demonstrate if they are really not fit to be regularized. But right now, the whole system is just a waste of money, and some idiots are trying to defend it just because they are too lazy to consider fairness and justice.
edit: if you want more concrete information on why the immigration system is unfair, badly design and waste your money, you can watch John Oliver on youtube about "legal immigration"
My point is that all the people being hunted and deported by ICE are the people that crossed the border illegally. And my question was related to that: why is it unfair to deport all the people that basically broke the law as the first thing they did when they stepped onto US soil?
You say that illegals are people who broke the laws, but that's a big simplification.
For example, the law says that people who have close family living in US and being US citizen are allowed to apply to become US citizen themselves. To do so, they need to come to the US to apply and be present to answer the questions when their file is progressing. But this process is slow and can take years before they even start reviewing the case due to delays. So, for these people, 1) in few year, the administration will say "oh, yes, we concluded that you perfectly have the right to be here", 2) the administration requires them to stay close, so, to live in the city they are applying. And right now, they are now illegals.
In other terms, the only way for them to not be illegal is to be illegal for a while. And once they have been illegal for a while, they may became legal, which is a way for the administration to say "well, turns out that you had the right to be here all along".
On top of that, some people who tried their best to follow all the process still become illegals just because the administration was too slow or did not inform them of the correct procedure (or inform them of the incorrect procedure). It is simply unfair of you they say "these illegals are bad people not following the rules" when in fact they really want to follow the rules but somehow the rules break and someone says "oh, too bad, you did absolutely nothing wrong, but now people can point the finger at you and treat you as if you are a bad person".
Sure, this is not the case for all the illegals. But this is also a huge incentive for illegals to not even bother to try to become legals: why jumps to all the hoops and spend energy if anyway even when you should be granted the nationality, you are still considered as illegal and take the same risks. The system is broken and people don't see the point of following an unfair process.
People cannot live without money. A huge swath of illegal immigrants work for money. Wouldn't it make sense to target the individuals who are _hiring_ them rather than the actual laborers themselves? This logic seems to work perfectly fine when cracking down on drug use, but seems completely ignored when it comes to immigration. (Yes, I'm aware ICE cracks down on some employers, but it's obvious this isn't their primary strategy.)
Seriously, think about it. If _you_ were tasked with cracking down on the immigration situation, what would you do in good faith? Send masked goons to check every single individual's papers and rough up people who can't show them? Or just send men in suits to every labor operation and ask for their I-9s, at 100x less cost? It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that people even assume a shred of good faith from the current administration here. This is terrorism, not law enforcement.
Have you actually read immigration laws? They are not as Manichean or prescriptive as many commenters make them out to be. Enforcement-first proponents often seem unaware of or indifferent to the difference between civil and riminal violations and the lack of mandatory remedies. I've also noticed a distinct tendency to hyperbolize and outsize lie about past policy choices in order to justify their position.
There’s a lot more nuance than might be obvious at first thought. For example, many of the people being violently deported now came here legally, followed the rules, and are now being targeted because their protected status or asylum cases were cancelled under highly suspicious circumstances, with a lot of the rush being to get them out of the country before the shady revocations are reviewed.
We also have a lot of inconsistent enforcement because some employers love having workers who can be mistreated under the threat of calling ICE. If we really wanted to lower immigration, we’d require companies to verify status for everyone they hire. You can see how this works in Texas where they’ve had a ton of bills requiring that get killed by Republican leadership on behalf of major donors:
No, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be ruthlessly enforced with dangerous and deadly action or even enforced at all when the majority of the public doesn't support them. Do you believe the feds should go into marijuana legal states and start arresting everybody for breaking the law? Marijuana is illegal after all.
Like that law that says it's illegal to HIRE workers that cannot show work authorization? IIRC that carries pretty steep penalties. And if enforced, will have a huge chilling effect on the whole illegal immigration thing. But, as sibling commenters have pointed out, it's not about enforcing laws but punishing outgroups. This is only not obvious to the willfully ignorant.
This has nothing to do with immigration law. If it did, there would be no offer on the table to withdraw the ICE troops in exchange for the MN voter database.
That has an easy and uncomfortable answer: to check that all registered voters are actually citizens. And this is why Democrat run states refuse to share that database, because it might show they have non-citizens voting. I guess the same could be said about Republican run states, but those seem like they have a lower rate of illegal immigrants.
Requiring voters have identification is very controversial in the US. The Democratic party generally opposes it. Even in states requiring ID, there are almost always options to bypass it (by signing an affadavit, for example), and in almost no case does an ID prove citizenship - the US doesn't actually have a "US citizen database" anywhere, and people can be legal citizens with a right to vote with no ID.
Yes, with humanity and with respect for due process. And laws should not be applied selectively against people you don't like while turning a blind eye to violations by people on 'your side'.
