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Comment by jonathan-adly | Hacker News Reader

Ok - I run a charity that makes is easier for illegal migrants to find housing and avoid deportation. This is illegal - should VISA cut me off?

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I have absolutely zero doubt that there are many people in the USA who would agree that VISA should cut you off.

> ... makes is easier for illegal migrants to find housing and avoid deportation. This is illegal

Is that in fact illegal?

People answered you yes on all counts, and I agree. It's the law and if we want it to be different then we need to change it. Why complicate it anymore than that. Instead, this is us using extra legal and potentially illegal means to enact what we argue is change but is just propagating more chaos and unfairness all around.

>> charity that makes is easier for illegal migrants to find housing

How is that illegal? Illegal immigrants may be in the country illegally, but that doesn't mean that everything they do while in the country is also illegal. We don't have outlawry anymore. Such concepts don't work in the modern world.

You're aiding them in breaking the law.

So should they be allowed to buy food? Should hospitals treat them? If a police officer stops them from being attacked, is that police officer helping them too? Is it a crime to invite an illegal immigrant over for dinner? As I said, we have abandoned outlawry. The crime is the illegal crossing of the boarder and/or the failure to leave when obligated. Everything else, one's day-to-day existence, are not separate crimes. Those days ended centuries ago.

Only if you're actively smuggling them into the country.

It's the difference between selling a bag of rice to a killer for hire, and selling a gun to a killer for hire.

VISA can do what it wants but this is morally reprehensible. Not really a good example when you're doing something that's way worse than porn.

If a joke is so dumb you feel like you should set up a new greenbean account to post it, why not improve HN by not making the joke at all?

Yes...?

Ok - how about facilitating abortions in Texas? Selling imported insulin to diabetics?

Yes and yes

Is that imported insulin un-patented and FDA approved?

nobody gives a shit about the ethics it's about the law

Yes, plus you should be prosecuted for aiding and abetting. You make a mockery of the legal immigrants who have to painfully deal with the official system.

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