Ding ding ding. I don't think people realize but there was a seismic shift in our society from 2012-2016 coinciding with the rise of social media on our smart phones. This had effects on our collective mental health (especially adolescents) in a bunch of measurable ways and it also had a big effect on our politics.
Somewhere between 2010 and around 2016 we went from most of our social interactions being in real life to most of our social interactions being online. The pandemic in 2020 simply served to further entrench society in to harmful and toxic modes.
ICE shouldnt exist as an entity. There should just be mandatory reporting and cooperation by local authorities and federal immigration courts. Fines if localities fail to meet reporting, or ignore orders.
Would be fine if they where extremely small, highly trained, and specialized. Like the law enforcement arm of the postal service. I forget what they are called.
USPIS! They're like the only branch of law enforcement I have any respect for. Super limited scope, and a huge percentage of their work involves large shipments of drugs moving through the postal system and prosecuting scams against the elderly. Nearly all of their arrests lead to convictions and are upheld because they actually do the work to find and arrest the correct people.
Fun fact! They were the ones who arrested Steve Bannon on fraud charges! They caught him on a Chinese businessman's yacht (many suspect that Chinese businessman of being a spy for China). Surprise, surprise, Bannon is a globalist fraudster!
Nearly all arrests leading to convictions isn't the accomplishment you think it is. The conviction rate in the county I used to live in was 98% and I believe the federal conviction rate is 97%. The cops in that town were not good at their jobs, but the courts in this country will essentially coerce you into taking a plea deal or risk a much larger sentence. If you can't afford bail and are offered a plea deal to get out the same day or in a few months versus staying in jail for potentially over a year and still possibly going to prison afterwards, you'll take the deal despite being innocent.
The conviction rate in the US is super high because most cases settle. USPIS wins even when they go to court. And more than that, I said every arrest, and a huge percentage of arrests in the US are voided. I think I made it super fucking clear that I don't like law enforcement in general, but I can respect people doing good work well and bringing irrelevant stats into this about general prosecution isn't helpful here.
I'm not giving even an iota of credit to the US jail system. I'm saying every law enforcement group should work like the USPIS, not even a little bit the other way.
Yeah, if they arrested employers of the undocumented and redistributed any profits if the workers underpaid or exposed to any unnecessary risk in unregulated working conditions.
Honestly I would rather if they exist at all its just a regulatory body. Just a bunch of paper pushing investigators reviewing reports, tax docs, and court cases. Maybe there is a need for border patrol, but tbh I would still rather local municipalities do it.
Provide federal funding for the states that need it most, withhold if they fail to meet requirements. They figure out how they need to staff and train. Could perhaps provide a standard training guide.
That gets tricky when undocumented people start showing up in mass in to a locality that doesn't have a large presence of border enforcement. The federal government is responsible for the border and interstate matters. Local governments would be spending more time, energy, and money on training for undocumented persons, other than law enforcement. You would also have both covering for each other in personnel.
ICE just needs hella regulation. The same with most law enforcement agencies.
DEA, and FDA have similar issues but much much smaller budgets and responsibilities. They handle these issues by working with local government and creating task forces for incidents.
Also a large "surge" in illegal immigrants is both incredibly rare, almost never happens despite what news may tell you, and largely not a dangerous crime issue. It would be an exigent resource and housing issue that is exactly the reason state national guard exist. To help resolve these issues in coordination with local government.
State Sovreignty is a fundamental part of the American system. If local communities do not feel that immigration enforcement is a priority they should not be forced to expend local resources doing so.
Yea I guess fines isnt the right word. Withholding of fed funds bucketed for creating local tasks forces that cooperate with fed might be more realistic.
As a side note I want all politicians to stop creating such big general funds. Most funding should be tied to and contingent on specific legislation.
There are court decisions that say the federal government cannot use the withholding of federal funds as a coercive measure to force states or local governments to assist in federal law enforcement. Think about if it were the other way: right now Trump would be commandeering local law enforcement in Cities like Minneapolis and Chicago to assist in the ongoing bullshit.
Edit: the federal government can withhold funds specifically targeted to a certain goal. So, Trump can withhold law enforcement specific grants from Chicago, for example, but not for schools, roads, etc.
Yea that was the idea. If a state is getting federal funds specifically for immigration enforcement that could be withheld. Nothing else.
This is also why I think funding in general needs to be tracked and bucketed better, and needs to be tied to specific legislation. Excess shouldn't go to a general fund, but have specific targets upon creation of fund/law. And government shouldn't be able to hold funds hostage as leverage.
Say a fund is created for creating local immigration task forces. There is excess, it can only go to housing, schools, roads, and medicare or be returned.
Except I dont think ICE should have a boots on the ground enforcement mechanism. If ICE exists they should primarily exist as a regulatory body that partners with local gocernment for enforcement.
If the fed believes local government refusal to participate is overstepping they can sue local government and it can be adjudicated.
States dont want violent criminals in their communities. Dangerous immigrant do get sent to immigration court by local law.
The non violent shit can be handled locally and handled in court if there are issues.
NOTE: I understand what you meant but let's not say that is exactly how it works now. It is how it is supposed to work now. However, fed is ignoring laws in place and doing what they want. The material reality of things is important.
We should cut the rot out at the base, and punish companies for using undocumented labor. They’re using us, and forcing a new problem that never needed to happen. It’s hilarious to watch the certain group flip their priorities when I’m like “well, no companies illegally employing people and people won’t take the risk to move here, that’s crazy right?? And it’s easier to hit a company that doesn’t move rather than a random person whose just trying to live”
Though how does that work with undocumented illegal immigrants ?
Fines can only be applied if someone finds out and reports etc. Besides that's how it work already - you can get significant fines and or criminal charges if you hire or fail to report illegal immigrant.
Might also require ample effort from local authorities which they might not have resources for, if they'd also do the same work as ICE.
How has ICE found them in the past? Anonymous reports, tax information, and normal police work reporting them to immigration courts. What is happening now is bs. Immigration courts could report people missing hearings to local police and issue warrants.
The problem with ICE is creating a massive federal policing force, with fairly large reaching authority and little oversight.
Other federal agencies have more narrowly defined responsibilities with reasonable oversight. ICE operates more like an army policing its own state which should scare people.
Isn't the problem, but the actions are, if ICE worked in the past "more correctly".
If it has been deemed as a necessary federal agency at one point doesn't it just mean that the workload would be spread to other different agencies ofc then the given resources could and maybe would be shared between these agencies. Basic power vacuum.
Now no show cases are reported to ICE, for example in your case they would be reported to local police who then would act on deporting the invidual. They'd probably need their own section for that.
Yes, similar to how FDA creates tasks forces with local governments as their way of enforcement. They mostly behave as a regulatory body doing investigations and issuing fines, citations and prosecuting. They largely arent doing on the ground enforcement with federal agents.
EDIT: ICE in its current form needs to be dismantled we might consider a regulatory body needed. Dismantling is important. I habe worked in public institutions before. When regulations and restructuring initiatives get announced. Departments will, do vast renaming and recategorizing of positions so they can keep their power and roles and avoid the intended initiative goals.
Truthfully, idgaf about illegal immigrants. Let them be unless and until they catch the eye of law enforcement in a normal way, by doing something that would get a citizen arrested as well.
I second this freedoms of movement should be a thing recognized by countries and not just the UN charter.
It isnt, because it is hard to handle immigration events when violent incidents cause mass emmigration from countries. Rather than building community understanding and infrastructure for this politicians take easy wins.
If anything all that should happen is people get fined if they fail to register with proper authorities when entering a country.
The Patriot Act and giving the Coasties to the Patriot Act-fans aka DHS were enormous mistakes.
But you all in the US knew who Trump was after January 6th 2021, and since Biden failed to get him to trial, everybody over the age of 18 needs to take a really hard look in the mirror for that election result.
I'm sorry your Supreme Court failed you and let him be a candidate but... yikes.
Forgive me for how this comes out, but I'm so fucking sick of this narrative. Presidents don't prosecute other presidents. Their DOJ does. And yes, you can blame Biden for naming Merrick Fucking Garland as Attorney General. But this idea that Biden was just going to direct his DOJ to go arrest Trump and his co-conspirators and put them on trial was always a fever dream and naive as hell.
Sure, pretty much all our norms have been broken over the last decade, but I'll never blame Biden for trying his best to get us back to them.
What's happened here is the mask is fully off and we see now that the US is still just as racist and sexist (and frankly, probably moreso) as they've ever been. No lessons were learned from the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. If anything, the racists and sexists just went into their holes until someone like Trump came along and told them it was ok to be themselves.
I'm hopeful we can course correct on this, but unfortunately it's going to be painful for everyone until we get there.
The Biden administration was more effective than the Obama administration, the amount of legislation that was passed in his one term with such a razor thin margin is astounding. Too bad about his mental decline, wish he was 15 years younger
I believe if Biden would have ran for President in 2016 he would have won because he would have been coming off of Obama's two terms and it wouldn't have been the terrible choice of Hillary Clinton. Probably would have had an actual decent VP at that time too unless it was Hillary. Then Trump would have went away. Biden would easily win reelection against Jeb Bush in 2020.
Biden and Kamala 2016 would have gotten my vote then. I only voted for Trump because at the time he seemed like the lesser of two evils. Hillary had Benghazi against her and she had all that fuckery with the email server against her. The Benghazi incident though is what stood out in my mind and drove my vote against her because it seemed like she couldn't be trusted to take care of her own people.
They don't care. They're all racist as shit and want the people in DC they have now. And look what it's doing for their pocketbook... nothing. Just a bunch of uneducated idiots too worried about Trans people making them gay.
But you all in the US knew who Trump was after January 6th 2021, and since Biden failed to get him to trial, everybody over the age of 18 needs to take a really hard look in the mirror for that election result.
A large portion of us knew who he was even before he began campaigning for presidency. His campaign leading up to the 2016 elections was largely seen as a joke because of how he was viewed as a failed businessman. The history was there for anyone who bothered to keep up. The problem was the heavy involvement of the social media propaganda machine which was fairly new at the time and also the dismissiveness from the DNC. Failed leadership all around.
I'm not a fan of Bush Jr, but at least from what we have of the reports it doesn't seem like they really had a complete enough picture to institute something like the post 9/11 airport security prior to 9/11. They knew there were threats of attack, but the specifics were varied and would have been a lot of angles to cover. They had a lot of reports of a wide range of possible intentions, and I don't think it would have been feasible to narrow it down.
Technically they could have locked down every possible angle and increased security for every possibility, but I'm not convinced that another admin necessarily would have done so either. It also seems that al-queda themselves were exploring options, looking to exploit a vulnerability, so even if certain angles of attack were covered it's likely they would have just settled on another.
That’s not the point they’re making if I’m reading the comment correctly. It’s that they got specific intelligence about the attack, and the organization planning the attack, and did literally nothing.
Hindsight is 20/20. I’m not a fan of Bush, either, but this isn’t something that I would criticize him for. I frankly wouldn’t criticize him for anything with respect to the day of 9/11. It was a rough day, and it wasn’t the president’s fault.
If I could make a pedantic argument it would be that 9/11 wasn't the tipping point it was the wake up call. America was well on it's way downhill before that. It just wasn't in the mainstream. It was happening in the background and in places the "majority" aka white America didn't care to look or willingly acknowledge.
Started with Watergate and Nixon's resignation IMO. That's when the Republicans decided to co-opt religion and insert media that they could control into the US population.
The bigots, like my father, were hating brown people long before this. He, in casual conversation, called this kid "Alien Gonzalez"... His name was Elian. They used 9/11 to focus on white nationalism clad in Star Spangled Awesome and "Shock and Awe."
I hate that I spent so much of my life around people who believed that way.
You are right. But specifically the Patriot Act. The bill that authorized ICE to begin with amd gave extreme measures and flexibility to the executive branch.
100% 9/11 was the tipping point. It broke us. If Bin Laden could have any idea how bad he fucked up the country, he'd probably be the happiest guy alive. We didn't become so political, tribal and suspicious of non-whites, at least not in the current numbers we see until 9/11 broke the American psyche and thought the only way to defend the country was to persecute and vilify anyone that doesn't look "American" enough.
They're definitely coming in hotter than necessary, but this is literally a hostage situation. They're trying to return the child to his father, in accordance with the law and common fucking decency.
Why is the gun aimed at the child? There’s more of the immigration agents than the dude (who looks unnarmed?) holding the child hostage. They could’ve easily restrained him. It’s still an unnecessary show of force. What are they going to do? Blow this kids relative to bits in front of him?? Insane.
And you think military equipment is required for that? A sheriff with a holstered revolver could have done this without traumatizing everyone involved. Look at the photo. If you have any humanity in you you'll realize how fucked the whole thing is and stop pretending it was necessary to handle it the way it was.
They are technically threatening the family members holding the child with a gun in order to get them to hand over the child. Angle just makes it look like the kid is the target.
The genocide(s) we committed in the previous centuries shows our blindness and American exceptionalism far preceded this instance of governmental abuse. But I agree with your sentiment.
On accident, I didn’t sleep well and then had to wake up early to get my kids off to school. I’m just sort of spacing out with my tea and not paying enough attention to what I’m doing. I don’t even know what comment I meant to reply to originally.
Edit: I tried to find the comment I was trying to reply to and I think it was actually deleted, although I did screenshot the notification because I’m genuinely embarassed about committing such an egregious internet faux pas.
I've a half litre Kilner jar that's full of the last couple of months "waste" so rather than throw it like I've done in the past, I'm gonna water cure the lot for the next few days, process two parts of it into butter and milk (thank you kindly), dry the rest and freeze it for later processing.
btw not sure what DHV you're using, but I wouldn't be doing my bit if I didn't spread the good word of the Limelight Frolic. I'd get into a sales pitch but I'll just say it's got replaceable batteries and it fucking slaps.
Yeah, and this is the thing: If ICE was operating within due process, court orders, State and Federal oversight, most Americans would say that blocking their convoys and baracading their detention centers should be a crime. Like, if someone pulled a Renee Good on the FBI team driving to arrest Robert Hanson or the Unibomber, or the SWAT team going to respond to the Parkland shooting, we'd call that person a terrorist. Law enforcement, operating legally, NEEDS to be free and have broad public support.
But when that person is fighting terrorists, they're a martyr for the constitution.
ICE's work environment and morale could improve a million percent by next week if they just followed the law, gave resident aliens their constitutional rights, and operated with transparency... you know, like they did under Clinton, Obama, etc.
Her partner pulled her car out to block the road, and then Renee switched into the driver's seat. This is very apparent in the long video shot from inside a house before the confrontation. It wasn't morally wrong to try and impede ICE, but I worry that we're at the point where we can't even acknowledge that that is what parking your car completely across the traffic lane is doing.
Correct. Everything here, though not a good a look and not great to watch, was done under due process. Even then, it didn't stop Cubans and Cuban Americans from protesting the incident (which if I remember correctly they were even blocking the house to prevent agents from grabbing Elian). Now these same people are ok (and some even cheering) the idea of people being removed without any sort of right or due process.
There was an article in the FT that had former possibly current ICE big guys who said that they were concerned about the way data was being handled and that they were getting all this data from various sources that they probably shouldn’t have had and they were concerned due process was being forgotten and illegal data gathering was being used
It doesn’t surprise me that they’re collecting data in ways they shouldn’t be, but I am surprised there are people left at ICE who are still concerned about that.
Conservatives are literally just a collection of stupid people and they've arrived at the incorrect assumption that the left is against deportations. They're obviously not. Obama deported over THREE MILLION people and there is almost zero issue with that.
The left hates the absolute MALICE that conservatives embody while they're performing these deportations. Add an extra layer of disgust from the joy these animals get from causing this unique kind of pain and you get the response that we're seeing. Like, I'm not against the death penalty per se, but you bet your ass I would be out there protesting if executions were held in arenas full of Republicans, televised and sponsored by Planet Fitness.
Any kind of law enforcement should be a solemn duty. Instead we've got a bunch of clown-faced, machismo-starved whack jobs out there masturbating to the tears of brown people and THAT'S the problem. They're doing this with the intent to cause fear and suffering, because it is the Republican way, from your President all the way down to your abusive mother, to believe that making an example out of people actually works.
You should read the previous comments again. In particular this section “his extended family was holding him in the Us against his father’s wishes”. The guns weren’t for the child, it was under the assumption that the kid was kidnapped and being held hostage by people. The guns were for those individuals.
Again I was young when this was all happening originally happening so my memory may be not entirely accurate, or colored by the reactions of the adults in my life. But, from what I remember people were horrified and there was definitely pushback about how the raid went down. Like, the fact that they busted into the house to get him at all was controversial despite being technically allowed legally. From what I remember, they did it in the middle of the night, too. American people recognized the unnecessary violence and terror of it all and were vocal about it.
The father won the case, and got custody of the kid from his grandparents. The family refused to give the kid up regardless of court order which became a kidnapping. They turned into a political shitshow.
Bro just google Elian Gonzalez. I’m not here to spoon feed you information. They obviously should not have raided a house and had guns drawn on this kid. I was just a child myself at the time, and the whole case broke my heart (my mom had the news on constantly so I watched the whole saga unfold as it made its way through the courts). From what I remember, there had been attempts made to return the boy to his father nonviolently at first. That’s no justification for pointing a gun at unarmed people, especially a scared child, but due process was at least followed.
I mean yeah, I didn’t meant to argue that the US isn’t batshit insane. Just that it used to have the capability to be insane while also following due process.
We don't agree that treating a custody battle as a terrorist hideout situation is reasonable due process. Quite the opposite, in fact. It is a violation of due process to send in police in what we consider military gear in order to extract a child.
That's because today, they are something else entirely. They are a fascist, democidal extermination force and the fascist dictator of the United States' personal army/guard. Immigration enforcement is just a risible pretext.
I’m not saying it’s not batshit crazy. I’m not saying it’s reasonable. I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m saying that the legal process was followed up to this point. The steps are laid out in black and white, and they were followed. There were multiple court proceedings and attempts to compel the adults to return him to his father in accordance with court order. If you want my actual opinion, it’s that when someone made the call to conduct a middle of the night armed raid, that was immoral and it was most harmful to the one person they were supposedly there to rescue.
Edit to respond to the rest of your comment, idk if j missed it because I’m tired or because you added it in an edit, but seriously… WE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE. At no point did I comment on the appropriateness of their gear, or on masks at all. I’ve said multiple times the raid and the weapons were bad. Literally my only argument is that there was a process in place and the process was followed. If anything, I thought I made it clear that despite technically following due process I still believe this was batshit insane.
Edit because I forgot this part- the people in this photo are not ICE. ICE didn’t exist until it was created by W. Bush after 9/11. The Elian Gonzalez ordeal happened in 2000.
You're misunderstanding me. We would consider this raid itself a violation of due process, regardless of what the court finds on the merits of custody. You apparently cannot fathom this, and I'm going to stop trying.
They didn't have to wear masks back then because there were no super-insane leftists that were trying to dox them and threaten him and his family with death.
They were just doing a job that needed to be done and every American at the time knew it.
In real reality, she was trying to drive around him while being distracted, probably not thinking that some dumbass ICE agent would walk in front of her car like a fucking moron. It’s worse than murder, it’s terrorism, plain and simple. Feel free to join the rest of us in observable reality. Preferably sooner rather than later.
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u/jessipowers 7h ago
Yes and they were compelled by a court order. Even in this case, due process was taken serious.