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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. I think it's reasonable (although perhaps naive) for people to have a sunny view of law enforcement. Especially when, like me, they're white men from middle-class backgrounds; I've never had a bad experience with law enforcement, despite having done some stupendously dumb-ass things.

But even though I'm predisposed to view cops favorably, the stuff with ICE is shocking to me. America has a big chunk of history [1] where ethnic cleansing was common and ignored or even supported by police [2]. It's hard for me not to see ICE's aggressive dehumanization of non-white migrants as a resurgence of that. So I'm not surprised that even at Palantir people are objecting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir_of_American_race_relatio...

[2] See, e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...

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Over 50% of Border Patrol officers are Hispanic; 20% of all ICE employees are Hispanic, with much higher percentage (e.g. 40%) in subsets such as field agents in Southern California.

Since it's perfectly well established at this point that one can be part of a given identity class while still supporting or actively enforcing behavior that's discriminatory towards the same identity class (not to mention inhumane in other ways), this is pretty much a red herring.

Enforcing the rules that people have to obey to get and stay in the country. That isn't ethnic cleansing.

Plenty of people who are not white people come to the country legally every year.

ICE and CBP are targeting legal residents and even U.S. citizens, and attempting to deport them, if they are Hispanic. See for example:

https://www.gq.com/story/border-patrol-incarcerated-citizen

ICE and CBP have repeatedly violated U.S. law in their treatment of children, including violating the Flores Settlement (which carries the force of U.S. law), violating Constitutional due process and equal protection rights (ruled in Ms. L case), and violated the civil rights guaranteed under U.S. and international law, for example by refusing to provide hygiene materials and medicine.

If you are unable to see how recent rhetoric around immigrants fits historical patterns, I'm not sure how I can help you. Also, you talk about "the rules" as if they had nothing to do with America's history of racism, but historically it's pretty clear they do.

It is true that plenty of non-white people come legally to the US. But that doesn't mean that there aren't problems with how those people are treated, or that there isn't bias against those people involved.

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