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points by aniviacat 1 day ago | 0 comments

> The idea that illegal immigrants need to be deported (and not have a path to legal residency) comes from a view that those jobs should go to American citizens (which will bring economic pain that is intolerable) or from a view that browns don't belong in the USA.

Doesn't the qualification of them being illegal immigrants imply that they aren't going through the legal processes immigrants should go through to get work and residency?

If illegal immigrants gain the same rights as legal immigrants, why even bother following the rules?

[–] skulk 1 day ago

As others have pointed out in the thread, those who slurp up the surplus value of the labor of these undocumented workers would hate to lose this leverage of "Oh you want the same rights American workers get? Don't want me making a phone call to my buddy over at the police department!"

The purpose of a system is what it does.

[–] Morizero 1 day ago

Yeah if they actually wanted to solve this "problem", they would go after the business owners who incentive them coming here via pay.

[–] RajT88 1 day ago

That happens occasionally. But it mostly doesn't happen. Mostly, the people who end up with criminal charges are the illegal immigrants. If you dig into the numbers it tells the story of a vanishingly small number of companies (like hundreds per year out of millions) getting scrutiny. The industries which get the scrutiny are the ones where people could end up dead or injured (construction, meat packing, etc.). (According to Gemini - grain of salt)

[–] FireBeyond 1 day ago

A few years ago there was a huge set of raids at Tyson facilities - 900+ undocumented immigrants working there.

Awkwardly, it was made known to the media that Tyson knew all about it, to the point where they had provided those workers written instructions and tips on how to stay under the radar with respect to taxes, financials, immigration, etc.

When a journalist asked about this at the press conference where DHS was crowing over the success of the raid? "That's not something that is being investigated as part of this operation." Well, what about separately? "We are not investigating the company."

A lot of the theory was that like some other food production firms (Hormel dealing with people getting sick from y'know, inhaling aerosolized pig brain), that it was very much a "won't someone rid us of these meddlesome immigrants" (the ones advocating about child labor, wage theft, OSHA violations). Come round these ones up, you get a press conference and we solve a labor issue.

[–] gadders 1 day ago

Oh yes. I mean ICE could raid some of those big meat packing factories tomorrow, but obviously that would cut down on donations.

[–] jimbokun 1 day ago

Sorry is this an argument for or against stronger immigration enforcement?

[–] dpkirchner 1 day ago

It's an argument in favor of stronger immigration enforcement against employers.

Reducing illegal immigration is extremely simple and inexpensive -- toss a few Big Ag CEOs in something like "alligator Alcatraz". There's no step 2.

[–] cmorgan31 1 day ago

You have to prove you are actually verifying these things and our government has done a pretty bad job at it. We have at this point hundreds of incidents of legal residents and citizens caught in this fascist net.

[–] linuxftw 1 day ago

The issue is that past administrations of given them quasi-legal status. You hop the border, claim 'asylum', then you get a court date years away.

So the first step is revoking the fraudulent claims, and processing the cases so they can be deported legally.

[–] 5upplied_demand 1 day ago

Couldn't you just better fund the court system so the court date isn't years away? Or improve the citizenship process? Maybe some of that $100 billion we gave to ICE could have gone to the courts for faster processing of these specific cases. That would seem like the more civilized way to do it.

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.

[–] linuxftw 1 day ago

Well, as it happens these immigration court judges were appointed by previous administrations, and they were intentionally slow walking every case. The Trump admin fired a bunch of those judges earlier this year, was sued, won, and now the cases are actually getting processed.

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.

[–] 5upplied_demand 1 day ago

> The ones left are actively breaking the law and are more or less fugitives.

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.

[–] xp84 1 day ago

> Overstaying a visa is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. If you want to hunt them as fugitives, change the law.

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.

[–] parasyte 1 day ago

you're not a moderate, you put words in others mouths to justify your own extremist beliefs. own it.

[–] 5upplied_demand 18 hours ago

I never said any of those things. I simply pointed out the legality of things today. If you think it should be changed, you should state that and own it.

Instead, you completely ignored the "both sides" portion of my comment to build a strawman to rant against.

[–] JuniperMesos 22 hours ago

> 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.

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.

[–] scarecrowbob 1 day ago

Or, given the fact that normal folks come here and live normal lives contributing to their communities, the US could just make easier paths to citizenship.

[–] xp84 1 day ago

We already have paths to citizenship, people just need to wait their turn. People with skills we need can already get in under programs that exist for that purpose.

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.

[–] scarecrowbob 1 day ago

Folks have been crossing that border since before there was a border. The border is the created problem, not folks moving around.

[–] FireBeyond 1 day ago

Hah, what? I have skills we need. I came here legally.

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.

[–] linuxftw 1 day ago

We don't need your skills, your country does.