So the first step is revoking the fraudulent claims, and processing the cases so they can be deported legally.
Instead, we spent the money setting up a heavily armored police organization to forcibly find, process, and detain people who "might" have broken a law. Putting everyone in a detention center doesn't really seem like a great way to speed up the processing time. In the meantime multiple actual US citizens have been killed, detained, and intimidated. Makes you wonder what the actual goal was in the first place.
The people that ICE are rounding up today already have an active removal order, and they are actively fleeing law enforcement (for the most part).
People have also been offered incentives to self-deport. The ones left are actively breaking the law and are more or less fugitives.
Personally, I would prefer to not have federal police forces and we could use state police to deport people, but both sides of the aisle are making a lot of cash building up the police state.
Overstaying a visa is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. If you want to hunt them as fugitives, change the law.
> we could use state police to deport people
So much for states rights.
> both sides of the aisle are making a lot of cash building up the police state.
In what ways? I don't see a lot of police unions supporting left-leaning or Democratic candidates. Democrats have voted against things like the Patriot Act in much larger numbers than Republicans. Democrats have introduced bills like "Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2026" which have basically no Republican support. The biggest private advocates for an increased police state (Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Palmer Luckey, etc.) are huge Republican supporters and donors.
It sounds like you’re saying we should all just accept that our visas mean nothing, and that in practice literally anyone should be able to just show up, claim asylum, never show up to court for their hearing, and what we should do is absolutely nothing. In “blue” states they are strongly encouraged to sign up for driver’s licenses and welfare programs, and state agencies are forbidden from even asking their legal status. State and local police in those states are often banned from spilling the beans even when they commit crimes.
So, overstaying legal status can’t be addressed by states because Dems think it’s too mean to send them home, and it can’t be actively done by federal agencies because to do so, they have to come into states and investigate people to determine if they’re legally here or not and we don’t like the possibility that they might ever get it wrong.
This is why Democrats lost all respect from moderates like me who used to proudly be part of that party a decade ago. They’re not serious anymore. They appear to want a system that pretends to work but which everyone ignores because everyone knows it’s never enforced. Like driving 70 on the freeway in a 65 zone - everyone does it.
This is not how we should run immigration.
"It sounds like you’re saying we should all just accept
that our visas mean nothing, and that in practice literally
anyone should be able to just show up, claim asylum, never
show up to court for their hearing, and what we should do
is absolutely nothing."
I specifically discussed Democrats and "blue states", and none of what I said isn't found in their official platforms.
They just don't admit that all their policy demands add up to such an insane result (that borders don't really matter). That conclusion is mine, but it comes from simple 1+1=2 style logic.
Instead, you completely ignored the "both sides" portion of my comment to build a strawman to rant against.
I have no dispute of the 'both sides' thing. The parties are both out to score political points and rarely to fix anything. I just happen to be a little less disgusted by the one whose primary stated demands make sense.
A lot of states make it illegal for state police to participate in immigration enforcement. And there's a reasonable argument that immigration enforcement is properly the job of the federal government rather than the states; which then requires a federal police force to do that job.
We don’t want the full population of every failed or economically-languishing state (including ALL kinds of people, including the worst elements that exist in every society) to show up overnight and move in, which is what has happened in many western countries including the US with asylum claim abuse.
It’s rapidly turned high-trust societies into low-trust societies because that’s how those who come here from low-trust societies operate by default. People who have been here and know what a proper society looks like don’t like this.
It would have been easier, quicker, and cheaper for me to come here on a visa waiver, marry a USC against the terms of that waiver, and ask for forgiveness (i.e. "adjust status") than it was to do so the "proper way".
Much of your comment just sounds xenophobic.
Personally, I'd be fine with an easy, renewable work visa for anyone who speaks and understands perfect English, has a verifiable college degree, and has a signed job offer.
I do believe that culture exists and matters, and despite being a young country, it doesn't make us racist to say that we'd like to keep it. Immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Spanish-speaking countries (among others) have for generations done this, have assimilated (learning English, adopting acceptable cultural norms, etc) while still adding their unique cultural contributions. I expect no more from 21st-century migrants. And many do just that.
My only intention is to discourage the ones who aren't interested in ever being American from immigrating. In turn, I shouldn't move to Japan or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Kenya and live the most conspicuously-American lifestyle possible and then expect everyone to thank me for bringing so much diversity (and call them racist xenophobes if they don't).