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But that isn’t what the right wants; a modern coalition of racists who want no immigrants, and opportunists who want a underclass of labor that can’t organize, vote or otherwise fight back currently is in power.
And that coalition is in power after successfully scapegoating immigrants to average Americans who have no idea what the Byzantine legal citizenship process looks like now when they repeat that they want “legal immigrants”.
The non-strawman argument is that giving someone citizenship of your country should not be automatic and quick. We want it to be difficult to get in, because otherwise, to borrow your word, “opportunists” find a relatively well-off, trusting society easy pickings to rob, cheat and steal from. And because we don’t want our country to turn into a place that looks like where some of these immigrants come from.
Notice how it isn’t Australians or Germans ending up having to be rounded up by ICE. It’s because they come from a country that believes in laws. And before you say “but that’s because you’re racist!!” I’d like to point out that the same thing applies to people from the Philippines or China who don’t look or speak like white Americans, but for the most part they come here legally.
I didn’t say that, I said that the current administration is an ally to racists and business owners who benefit from undocumented labor. This is just established fact at this point.
> Notice how it isn’t Australians or Germans ending up having to be rounded up by ICE.
Plenty of law abiding people who come here legally have been rounded up https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/south-korean-workers-de...
Which begs the question, why are white South African refuges welcomed by the admin while skilled work visa South Koreans are not?
But I think we agree more than we disagree- there should be a reasonable path towards citizenship that is rate limited. I think we might disagree on the rate limit and the reasonableness of the current path, but that’s an argument I would love to have over the current one we’re having over if the masked federal officers should be allowed to racially profile people and hold them at gunpoint without identifying themselves.
I sense that you're somewhat reasonable too. What pains me is that the leftist wing of Team Blue, which now controls its entire agenda, seems hell-bent on preventing those conversations, by shouting down any voices that insist on any limits. They never say "We demand open borders." But they fight anything that amounts to enforcement of any immigration law.
Anyone who shows up with no papers, no ID and simply says "I request asylum"? They demand that we wave that person through and give them a court date on nothing but a pinky-promise. (In the UK they also give them a free hotel room for years, not sure if we're doing that here yet!) If they just never show up for the court date, then they just become yet another undocumented immigrant, together with the visa-overstayers and people who made it past the border.
For that whole group, they don't want state or local police to ever assist in detaining them. They also overwhelmingly don't want a law enforcement agency tasked to enforce immigration to even exist, or to conduct investigations, or to go to places that undocumented people are known to work and ask people for proof they're here legally. So in practice, the border becomes imaginary once you grant these demands. Just claim you need asylum once, and stay in "blue states" and you're free to do stay forever. Even if you get arrested for committing crimes, Democrats will usually say the idea of deporting you is inhumane and racist.
All this does nothing but alienate the moderates like me (a Democrat who walked away less than 5 years ago), who conclude that Democrats are no longer serious. They say they want immigration reform, but in practice, no matter what laws are there, it seems they will always make excuses for anyone who abuses the trust placed in them, and oppose any outcome that includes the immigrant leaving.
So this brings me to answer a question: Why do I even care? If I'm not a racist, what's wrong with just letting tons of immigrants in? It's often trotted out that supposedly, undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than the general population. Even if that's true (studies seem to differ, and also I can't understand how we can be certain of the denominator in that per-capita rate), it's asking the wrong question. The people who are victimized by them rightly point out that if the undocumented immigrants were deported, we wouldn't have additional, more-criminal people in their place. We'd just have fewer crimes and fewer people. That would be a better outcome for people like Kate Steinle, who didn't deserve to die. (note: The insane undocumented immigrant who murdered her finally got deported (his seventh deportation!) in 2024[1], nine years after the murder. He said he was sorry, though.)
[1] https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-phoenix-removes-mexica...
In a case where "the purpose of a system is what it does", whoever changes the outcome changes the purpose of the system
You haven't provided any value to the conversation
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
It's not about the outcomes of something taken in isolation, it's about the actions taken in order to achieve it, and when those actions continually run counter to achieving the stated goal.
So the response article examples are missing half the context needed to make it's claim:
* The hospital only curing 2/3 of cancer patients being simply a failure to achieve it's true mission of 3/3 cures would rely on knowing it is taking action in earnest to actually cure all patients.
While we can assume that for an obvious hypothetical, if for instance a whistleblower leaked evidence showing that 1/3 patients were being intentionally withheld care, the hospital responded it was an accident, but then evidence came out proving they still did this, then POSIWID would apply.
In a real-world, non-hypothetical example:
ICE keeps deporting American citizens. Every time this gets reported on, they insist it's a mistake. They keep doing it.
Insisting that adverse behavior is an accident/mistake/incidental, but then continuing to do the bad thing yourself, is the purpose of the axiom.
"Insisting that adverse behavior is an accident/mistake/incidental, but then continuing to do the bad thing yourself, is the purpose of the axiom."
So, in your (faulty) interpretation, the axiom applies perfectly to the fact that cars kill pedestrians
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comment...
And it also fails to address that if a system is continually failing to achieve an acceptable outcome, even if the people operating it are attempting earnestly to do something correct, the people who can and would make the call to discontinue a program that fails to meet their expectations continually (especially when they are doing so to other programs that fail to meet their expectations) are clearly showing that they either have divergent standards, or have a different set of expectations than the operator believes.
At some level, this is because the optics still matter. Most of us don't want to see brown families rounded up and tossed over the nearest southern border.
"The department actions in this case are unquestionably in violation of this court's order."
"The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process"
Homeland Security's interpretation of immigration law would: "deny access to that protection to a substantial swath of noncitizens who are sent to third countries with no notice of their destination"
Anti immigrant crusaders have wrought lawlessness upon this country far worse than lawbreaking done by any immigrant illegal or otherwise.
The fact is, the huge majority of undocumented folks came into the country legally. Most overstayed their visas, had the laws changed out from under them, lost their employment, etc. In other words, they’re virtually all tax-paying, productive members of society who want to be here. It’s a win-win for them to remain.
This obsession with “the law!” only ever really seems related to immigration law. Wonder why…
This is why advocates have always tried to reframe things from "illegal" to "undocumented"
It's actually not a crime to overstay a visa or to be here without one. It's nothing.
The act of crossing the border "illegally" is a misdemeanor (the first time) on the level of something like a speeding ticket - but its still not illegal to be here even if you crossed "illegally"
If you want more people to immigrate you should make the legal pathways more accessible, not tolerate the illegal ones.
How do you do this in a way that preserves the leverage that business owners have over undocumented workers? Those people form a pretty strong coalition with the people who think all immigration is bad for ... other reasons, so this is pretty much a non-starter politically.
Sounds like the Democratic party really wants to exploit those undocumented workers in US
The 8th amendment to the US constitution: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
That is, quite explicitly, the constitution saying that there are limits to what we will do to punish someone.
Fuck off with your unserious nonsense.
I can understand your frustration. It is quite understandable when you are losing an argument.
You are losing the argument because all your responses are about "punishment". I am talking about "stopping an illegal state of affairs from going on". Even my comment that you quote, is about that. You are making the argument about "punishment", because that is something you can outrage on. It would quite pathetic display you are putting, if it was not so amusing for me.
You might even call it a hobby!
The 8th amendment also applies to what we do to stop what you refer to as an illegal state of affairs.
Using the "someone in your house" example you've used a few times, would you be OK with the Air Force dropping a bunker buster bomb on your house, killing the home invader(s), and you, and your family/pets/etc, and destroying your stuff, and the same for several neighboring homes?
Or do you think that might be an excessive enforcement mechanism?
Thanks for confirming it.
>I enjoy telling unserious people like you to fuck off :D
Yes, same here, but I use reason, not bad words. And thus I have sent of dozens of "Fuck off"s to you in the time we were talking...And I don't know what you mean by "unserious people". I just like picking apart shallow reasoning..
>would you be OK with the Air Force dropping a bunker buster bomb on your house, killing the home invader(s), and you, and your family/pets/etc, and destroying your stuff, and the same for several neighboring homes?..
No, but no one is doing that as far as I can see. And only the bare minimum is done to correct illegal status, namely sending those people to their native places. If you have a lesser action to correct it, do share.
Then say someone is cruel for not allowing more illegal migrants to stay in US (to be exploited I guess???)
IF better immigration laws are not possible because people want to exploit illegal migrants THEN why would it be considered cruel for someone to oppose illegal migration?
P.S. When has anyone ever responded to the the sanctimonious phrase "be better" by actually "being better". You don't want them to "be better", you just want to try and shame them into adopting your ideological views.
How does, e.g., deporting a person who was illegally brought to this country at the age of 2, back to their “home” help their home country? What about the Haitian who came here legally under TPS, then, after Trump ended TPS, is now “illegal”? The Dept of State’s own website currently says of Haiti: “Do not travel to Haiti due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, and limited health care.” How is deporting people back there helpful?
If it is not a crime, then what is it?
Without a current visa of some kind though, you are deportable, mostly at the whims and mercy of the government. But you wouldn't be committing a crime and deportation is not a criminal punishment.
When you do crimes, you get criminally punished (hypothetically) citizen or not (jail, fines, etc).
Whether the government can, should or must carry out a deportation are all truly separate considerations, often with distinct, case-by-case answers.
And with all this in mind, pause for a moment and sit with the fact that thousands of people who have committed no crime at all are getting grabbed off the street and incarcerated indefinitely by ICE and subjected to ghastly conditions
That is it, you said it.
>And with all this in mind, pause for a moment and sit with the fact that thousands of people who have committed no crime at all are getting grabbed off the street
Would you expect a cop who is detaining you because you were speeding, to let you go without checking your license because of some personal emergency. Why do you expect something different here?
Said what? That deportation isn't a criminal punishment? Oh no, you got me! Checkmate I guess.
I'll answer as if this is a good faith rejoinder, even though we both know it isn't.
Deportation is drastic. Very drastic. It's also very expensive and often very disruptive to many people's lives, including American citizens. Think households with an undocumented spouse, for example.
It's generally a bad thing to do without very good, justifiable reasons. Not the least of which how expensive it is for the state.
> Would you expect a cop who is detaining you because you were speeding, to let you go without checking your license because of some personal emergency. Why do you expect something different here?
I wouldn't expect police to imprison people indefinitely (and at great cost to the state) for minor traffic violations, no. That would be insane.
What about pulling a gun on you, if the cop suspects you are hiding something and not complying with instructions to search you. This put your life in mortal danger, much worse than imprisoning you.
I think frankly people are not thinking this through.
When you have to reach for such increasingly strained and indirect metaphors to talk about an issue instead of dealing with the issue directly on it's own terms, it's a tell you don't actually know much about it all
I can see in your other replies you've really latched onto this "it's not a punishment" line, that you literally just "learned" a couple of replies ago from me (as if it's some magical auto-win button). You're making it up as you go along
And you've even gotten that wrong. I said deportation isn't a criminal punishment. To put it another way, deportation doesn't imply some wrongdoing or a guilty verdict from a judge or jury
But it can be just as consequential as a criminal punishment though, so it's not something to be done lightly without very good reasons. It's drastic, life-altering, sometimes life-destroying, grave and serious thing
To bring it back to some real facts here: There are estimated to be over a million households in the US where an undocumented person is married to a citizen. Many of them have children who are US citizens. Deporting the spouse/parent utterly destroys families, there's no morally justifiable reason to go after these people, except in rare, exceptional cases.
This is not correct. I only saw your comment after I made the ones you are referring to. I think this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50281449. There is probably no proof that I can give. You ll have to take my word for it.
>But it can be just as consequential as a criminal punishment though..
It. doesn't. matter. If you take a loan from a bank, and bank forecloses your house for non-payment, you and your family is going to be home less. It is very consequential, sure. But that what "law enforcement" mean. And without it, there will be chaos.
You are not being realistic. Because you don't see the slippery slope on which your argument stands.
You can't speak coherently about the actual facts and realities of immigrants or the immigration system, despite the vast ocean of facts and stories you can use to educate yourself
But hey... imagine a cop, the pope and a bear walk into a bar ... therefore deport, or something. Think about it!
Why is it completely disconnected?
>actually discuss it directly
So you want to discuss it independently of laws and law enforcement? Just the humanitarian side without any other considerations? Is that it?
As they have now seen, at least as far as Samuel Sey goes, deportation isn’t simply a matter of following the rule of law. It’s a policy choice rooted both in legal mandates and in acts of presidential discretion. And this president is using his discretion in a way that harms Americans and American national interests.
American immigration law is a mess. The system is overly complicated and often internally contradictory. But one thing is clear — the rule of law does not require mass deportation. It does not mandate that a man like Sey has to leave the country.
And it certainly doesn’t require his detention, away from his family, while the system adjudicates his case.
First, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 2023 case, United States v. Texas, the president has considerable “enforcement discretion over arrests and prosecutions” and that discretion “extends to the immigration context.” This means the president “retains discretion over whether to remove a noncitizen from the United States.”
This isn’t a new principle. More than a decade earlier, in a 2012 case, Arizona v. United States, the court held, “Federal officials, as an initial matter, must decide whether it makes sense to pursue removal at all."
^ This is how.
But Trumps popularity has plummeted to it's lowest point ever and immigration is a big reason.
It has gone from one of his strongest issues to a major liability, as people are confronted with what mass deportation actually is.
If you're not rich enough to lawyer up, spend five figures fighting through the kangaroo administrative process and then another five sticking it to them in real court a civil infraction is actually worse in a lot of ways because those pesky 4th through 8th amendments don't really protect you all that much. There's a lot of judicial precedent from the past 100yr that basically waters down your rights when a bureaucrat is after you rather than the cops.
Consider this scenario. A friend of yours walks up to you and says "man, I got a ticket yesterday." You will have a general idea of the level of enforcement involved, how that's looked at by the government and others, etc. You probably do not see your friend as a criminal.
Now, suppose the same friend walked up and says "man, I got arrested yesterday, I just got bailed out." You will have different ideas of the enforcement model and perceptions of that. There is now a greater probability that you see your friend as a criminal.
Do you have an example that is not isolated incidents?
And your response is....weird? It is as if there is nothing at the bottom of these (your) arguments. You poke a finger and it comes out of the other end..
It’s a sleight of hand, they say “the worst of the worst” and what they mean is “all immigrants (not just the illegal ones) are the worst of the worst”
This is why they’re going to lose their majorities next week.
It is not their home if they were occupying it illegally! What are you people smoking!?
If you find someone else living in your house when you came back after a long vacation, would you let them stay "for a while" out of compassion?
Yea, thought so.
Give a straight answer ffs!
There are two axes here: whether something is a punishment, whether it's deserved. You've moved from arguing it's not a punishment to arguing it's deserved. So you need to give a straight answer.
Anyway, your posts have too many exclamation points and curses, so I don't want to engage anymore. Have a nice day.
>There are two axes here: whether something is a punishment, whether it's deserved.
There is no punishment in the picture at all. YOU want it to be in the picture because that is something you can outrage on.
>Anyway, your posts have too many exclamation points and curses, so I don't want to engage anymore. Have a nice day.
Sure. Stop responding. Have a very nice day.
The question is if you would want them removed from your house/premises. Not if you want to punish them.
Somewhere between half and a solid majority of undocumented immigrants came through ports of entry and have overstayed their visas. Again, this is not a crime
Or perhaps there is a semantic game, but it's coming from the other direction - from those who would demagogue immigrants in order to portray them all as scary, evil criminals
Most of these immigrants aren't islands unto themselves, they are here b/c they have ties here, or have even spent their lives here, and you're ripping them away from their families. Many of the dreamers they're trying to deport right now haven't lived in their "home" country since they were toddlers
That sort of thing leads sensible people to ask themselves, "what good is actually being done here?"
This is why immigration went from a winning issue to a losing issue with Republicans in the span of 2 years.
Millions (if not most) of the immigrants who have arrived here in recent years entered through ports of entry or presented themselves to Border Patrol to initiate the immigration process, and have pending immigration cases or asylum claims working their way through the courts. All perfectly legal. Guess what bucket they fall into?
And what exactly are we trying to deter in those cases? Nothing that should be deterred in the first place.
Want to deter illegal border crossings? Sounds good, but we're already pretty good at it. Apprehension rates have been pretty consistent over the years (before and after Trump)
What problem are we actually solving with more "deterrence"?
Reducing the backlog in immigration courts? Fair enough. I agree that's a problem worth solving. But the solution is straightforward: increase the system's capacity to process cases in a timely manner by hiring more immigration judges and implementing a few easy legal reforms.
Instead, we're building a nationwide network of detention facilities, pouring a military-grade budget into an immigration enforcement agency with serious accountability problems, and incentivizing aggressive enforcement through high quotas and broad discretion. The predictable result is the kind of situation we're seeing now, where ICE detains people as they show up for their damn naturalization ceremonies and is quickly turning itself into a domestic military/spying agency.
It's deterring immigration, period.
Net migration has turned negative for the first time in decades. The total US population declined for the 1st time in history in 2025. If that's not turned around, and fast, we're cooked.
Our current administration ran on a platform of paying criminals who were convicted of breaking laws.
The social contract is: the President isn’t above the law. Right now and as long as he’s President, that contract is breached. So do immigration laws matter? I don’t know, because the plain text of the Constitution says those who swear an oath to the Constitution and foment insurrection against the US shall be barred from office. And yet, an insurrectionist is the executive right now, enforcing laws against people he doesn’t like and waiving laws that make him rich. So then why should immigration laws matter at this time? And under what authority?
Or maybe you mean only federal laws, like laws around human trafficking?
Or is there something specific about immigration law that requires it be voided when the president is a lawbreaker?
What I'm saying is this executive has violated the insurrection clause (14th amendment), the 12th amendment, the foreign emoluments clause, the domestic emoluments clause, the take care clause, the first amendment, fourth amendment, fifth amendment, habeas corpus, appropriations clause, taxing power, war powers... he's been on an actual crime spree since 2016 violating campaign laws, extorting foreign countries for bribes, extorting governors for votes, fomenting insurrection, stealing and attempting to sell state secrets, violating the Constitution from beginning to end -- all that doesn't matter.
So then why does immigration law matter? And how does that guy have the moral authority to say anything about anyone violating any laws?