Hacker News Reader

Comment by daveguy | Hacker News Reader

Weird how the most prominent example of terrorism on American soil from foreign agents was perpetrated with completely legal non-land-border penetration. Seems like we have locals lot more dangerous than anyone coming through the land border with Mexico to work or seek asylum in the US. Actual foreign terrorists just aren't as ignorant as you want them to be.

View on HN

In 2023, more than 160 people on the terror watch list have been caught illegally crossing US borders:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/number-pe...

Given that there are 600,000 who were observed entering but got away in 2023 alone, and more were likely crossing unobserved, there's very good odds that they are already here.

And yet we still only have the handful of incidents from foreigners, most of which come over legally anyway. Right wingers have been fearmingering about foreigners for decades. Are they just using illegal entry now when they didn't before and waiting a really long time? You do know domestic terrorism is just as common as foreign terrorism in the US, right?

Sure, but how many of them are “I can trace my lineage to the mayflower” domestic terrorists and how many are citizens of immigrant/non-citizen parents?

Mayflower? wtf does that have to do with anything? Ohhhhh! That's code for "but are they white", isn't it?

Pathetic.

Okay so your solution is: open borders and heavier government surveillance to balance it? Fantastic.

I think you missed the point.

So what? Sorry but this is not even a bad argument, it's just not an argument at all. Most shootings are not in schools, so school shootings aren't a problem? Most drug addictions come from prescribed drugs, so heroin and fentanyl being sold on the street is fine?

So… close the borders. Completely.

Exactly, this "open borders" nonsense is a right-wing talking point, like "fiscal responsibility." It sounds great in TV interviews and speeches, but they mysteriously only trot out when there's a democrat in the Oval Office.

is that why the republican mayor of NYC is loudly sounding the alarm on this? my mistake, he is a democrat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com