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Comment by andrewla | Hacker News Reader

The crux of my point is that things are not as bad as the OP is pretending they are. To a literally insane degree.

Any process has some level of mistakes; ICE is operating at a level of mistakes that is remarkably _LOW_ given the complexity of the issues it is facing.

The level is LOW, not high.

If institutional malice is to blame, then why did we only get a bad outcome a dozen times out of the ~11,000 times that they've encountered the situation (minors detained with illegal immigrant parents)?

If ICE agents are all SS officers determined to deport anyone with an accent or the wrong color skin, including citizens, why has this only happened ONE TIME! ONE TIME! ONE TIME! Out of the literally nearly a million deportations. ONE SINGLE TIME.

What are we even talking about here?

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> Any process has some level of mistakes; ICE is operating at a level of mistakes that is remarkably _LOW_ given the complexity of the issues it is facing.

Nobody (except maybe ICE leadership) knows how many mistakes they've made since 2024, because Republicans have removed every bit of oversight they could. You cannot reasonably assume to know about all their mistakes, since the administration has been repeatedly caught covering their tracks.

You also cannot reasonably assume that every mistake is being publicized, because a) we're talking about people who are less likely to have contacts in the US willing to go to the media, and b) the administration has demonstrated their open disregard for the law, so anyone going against them has to fear being treated like Garcia and co.

The main place where ICE has removed oversight has been when they have detained people; they don't document clearly whether the detention was for immigration or suspected immigration offenses or more general obstruction offenses. After the fact, they split these claims, saying that all detentions not resulting in immigration enforcement were just "obstruction" all along. So we have no idea how often they are detaining people because they think that they are illegal, but, on finding out that they are legally present or citizens, claim that it was obstruction all along.

I think we're in agreement here that the administration has pushed to limit accountability and auditing, and ICE and ERO and DHS and Border Control have all been using this to make themselves look like they are much more well-intentioned than they likely are. Where we differ is that you think they are successful at this, that they are portrayed as competent and earnest despite the reality. Whereas I see that they have been vilified to an almost insane degree in almost every media outlet that I have exposure to.

But the thing that they can't lie about, that they can't cover up, is deportations, because these are big news and everyone knows it, and false and improper deportations are a huge deal and have been every time they have surfaced. That you think there are more cases that have not been chased down by lawyers hungering for a lawsuit and NGOs champing at the bit to try to bring these people forward is disconnected from reality to a degree that I can't comprehend.

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