Even this is stretching it. It's not as though the Andrew Jackson administration was doing deportations (besides the Trail of Tears, which was euphemistically referred to as a deportation campaign). The practice of criminalizing immigration enforcement didn't coincide with any amendment to the Constitution, which is itself only nominally even part of U.S. law anymore.
And a bullet is cheaper then incarceration. But we have a duty to human rights, which isn't always cost effective or expedient. But if those rights are lost for anyone they're lost for everyone. After all, how do you prove you're owed due process in the absence of said due process?
Prosecutions would be much cheaper if defendants couldn't get court appointed lawyers. Or if we didn't have the exclusionary rule. Or if prosecutions didn't need to turn over Brady evidence.
Are you willing to pay for these things? It'd be much more efficient for a cop to simply murder anybody suspected of a crime. Efficiency should not be the goal when it comes to people's rights.
Most countries don't give you a court hearing for being in the country without a visa or other authorization. Being shipped into a detention facility until you can be deported is the norm here.
Genuinely curious for a good faith answer: one administration allows tens of millions of people into the country during its term. You are saying that every individual is owed multiple court hearings, the full gamut which is usually used for people overstaying a visa or something. A system equipped to handle a relatively small number of people.
The court system cannot possibly fulfill these tens of millions of cases in any reasonable time frame. These people will be in court for the rest of our lives and in the meantime they will have children and ultimately be allowed to stay forever by some future administration. Which is basically the same as just making them citizens.
Do you have a proposed solution other than decades worth of court dates? It doesn’t really seem like the other side has a good faith solution to the problem other than just letting them all stay here forever.
Or maybe I’m missing something and haven’t heard the other side’s arguments.
They just increased the budget for ice prisons form 3 billion to 40 billion, and did not increase the budget for the legal infrastructure needed to adequately process everyone.
Why they need to do is increase funding for judges, and make the process faster. Aka, like what the Larkin bill did, but the GOP killed that, because solving the immigration issues would be bad for them electorally.
Is seems like the plan is to just lock people up... And then nothing, except maybe deport them to random countries and let them sort them out.
Keep in mind that this has not been a 'biden' issue. The illegal immigrants already have in many cases been in the US for decades, due to ag/construction/hospitality wanting labor at rates Americans were unwilling to work.
Instead, of actually addressing the issue (why are people allowed to hire illegal immigrants in the first place, seems like cutting off the job supply would work as well).
But the question becomes, why are they increasing the infrastructure for locking people up, but not the infrastructure for due process, seems like they want to throw out due process.
Keep in mind, the people they grab off the streets have not all been illegal immigrants, many are legal on work/student/refugee visas.
And maybe you disagree that these people should have been allowed visas in the first place, but there are ways to change those laws.
This would be more convincing if you told us how many judges are currently working, how many cases they handle in a year, and how hiring that many judges would be able to allow quicker turn around, as is, it could be not resolving the issue he described, and result in them waiting around for 20 years for a trial instead of 30 years.
Let's not continue using propaganda numbers around undocumented immigrants. There's not 10s of millions of illegal immigrants. There's roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in total, and that number has _decreased_ since the early 2000s (when it was closer to 12 million).
A decent percentage of these immigrants are seasonal. A very, very small percentage of the total of undocumented immigrants have criminal histories. Focusing efforts on violent criminals is reasonable, but that doesn't meet the propaganda numbers from the current administration. Deporting tens of thousands of people just doesn't rally hate the same way.
Rather than spending time and money building concentration camps, building out secret police (ICE), and deporting people without due process, we could be fixing our immigration system.
Let's make work visas that allow migrant workers to work seasonally. Let's add paths to citizenship to migrant workers. Let's prioritize fast paths to citizenship for students, especially those with masters and PHDs. Let's introduce a point system to encourage immigration of the best and brightest from high demand countries, allowing them prioritized visas, PRs and naturalization. Let's fix the DREAMER situation by providing those folks clear paths to citizenship.
The reason the immigration situation doesn't get better is because republicans need it to be broken. They use undocumented immigrants as a group to target hate against, which rallies their base.
I don't believe that conservatives want more illegal immigration. I instead believe that conservatives would rather do violence against illegal immigrants than address the reason why people are in the country without legal status.
We could end all illegal immigration in an instant. But this doesn't let the GOP stoke racial hatred and enact its vision of a police state.
They mean the same thing I was suggesting. Illegal immigration is a symptom of a problem. Immigration is too difficult, but we so heavily rely on immigrant labour that we allow it to continue.
Most undocumented immigrants are here for work. If we change the immigration system to give them work visas, the problem mostly goes away. Some of them don't want to stay here permanently, and not even for the entire year. They come seasonally. Others would like to stay permanently, and offering them a legal path to citizenship is likely a good idea.
I think it's not possible to end all illegal immigration instantly, but the vast majority is easily within our reach.
It's worth noting that asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants, and the way the current administration handles the situation itself it what's illegal.
It's not disingenuous. Republicans rally their base against "violent illegal immigrants". They don't rally their base on "fixing immigration issues", but on deporting people, which is effectively the same as running on law and order.
If immigration issues are mostly solved, then republicans lose one of their rallying points.
As someone else pointed out, this is exactly why republicans killed a bill that had support across the aisle. Trump was going to run on mass deportations, and it's hard to do that, when a bill was just passed, co-sponsored by your own party.
> Do you have a proposed solution other than decades worth of court dates? It doesn’t really seem like the other side has a good faith solution to the problem other than just letting them all stay here forever.
I think we are at a point where we should accept that there will be decades of court dates. The real alternative is that anyone can be taken away because there would be no process for even a multi-generation born citizen to challenge the arrest. The real deterrent for it happening to such a citizen is reporting and publicity, which is increasingly seeming like it can be thwarted by a population that is primed to strip the humanity of those they disagree with.
The way this is being handled, the timeline where we just let those 10 million stay in the country and avoid similar things in the future seems very appealing indeed. Two wrongs don’t make a right, as the saying goes.
>just let those 10 million stay in the country and avoid similar things in the future
But this is what I’m getting at, this is not the first time this has happened, it’s been happening with millions of people for generations now. Heck Reagan pardoned millions back in the 1980’s. So how long are we supposed to keep saying “okay you guys can stay but let’s do better in the future”? After so many decades it is obvious that nothing is going to change without some kind of drastic political change, which is basically why Trump was elected.
But just looking at the system from a Birds Eye view: it’s easy in, difficult out. All it takes is one president to not enforce the law and the law is basically moot. Just seems disingenuous the people saying deporting people is horrible yet offering no solutions other than to just let them all stay here forever. We are well past the point where saying we’ll do better in the future is an argument that anyone will accept.
Why is there nobody suggesting a law to expedite or fast track the “due process”? That at least seems like a moderate approach.
No, you are not hearing what I am saying. This particular implementation of deportations puts you and I and anyone else at long-term risk of being deported in a similar manner. It puts legal residents at a more immediate risk of being deported in a similar manner. You can’t fast-track due process; that is the point. If you are not afforded due process for allegations that you are an illegal immigrant before you are shipped away then the damage is done and it doesn’t matter that you can prove you were born here to parents who were born here.
I understand what you’re saying and I can agree with you that the rule of law is important. You are ignoring the fact that the previous admin ignored due process for letting them in in the first place, but that was not my original question. You still have not offered any kind of solution other than letting them all stay forever, and at this point the majority of the electorate is more interested in seeing them all go back than making sure that every single one gets their day in court.
> You can’t fast-track due process
We can make laws and change systems, a serious good faith solution would be to propose changes to the due process to account for this case we keep finding ourselves in where we have 20 million people who need to be processed and a system with no hope of handling them all.
>You are ignoring the fact that the previous admin ignored due process for letting them in in the first place
We thought you were kidding, this isn't a fact, it's the complete opposite of a fact, in otherwords, a lie. Very famously the number of arrests of people cross the border went up while biden was president.
Aside from that ludicrous lie, we have to evaluate the situation where we actually live. If there was a literal magic genie who could cause 10 million people to instantly teleport then maybe we could talk about it, but there isn't, so we don't.
In actual reality land, spending 100 billion dollars in order to arrest and deport millions of people who work and pay taxes and in general support the economy of this country is hilariously stupid. Also evil, lets not forget that.
Every axis you want to try to evaluate this on fails at the most cursory examination. Obviously it's a waste of money because you're spending money to remove tax payers and consumers, so that's a double negative. It's also immoral due to the sheer amount of crimes and human rights violations that have already taken place and will continue to take place.
It's not even particularly effective as some kind of macho statement, deporting your own citizens isn't going to impress anyone.
> We can make laws and change systems, a serious good faith solution would be to propose changes to the due process
No, a serious good faith solution would be to establish an actual working immigration/citizenship system with clear rules and then enforce them, because the current situation endangers everyone.
I'm from a different country. We have ID cards. You strictly need an ID card (or a different proof of citizenship or right to residence) from the age of 18 (or even sooner if you are attending schools, using the health system etc) to do basically anything. It's not possible to live here your whole life as a full member of the society without that. When I read how someone lives 60 years in the US without actual legal basis to do that I just shudder. People should be forced to resolve their legal situation one way or another much sooner. And I am pro-immigration, but also there should be order in that.
Once you have a clear, fast proof of right to reside in a country, you don't need to touch due process because it can go fast.
> I'm from a different country. We have ID cards. You strictly need an ID card (or a different proof of citizenship or right to residence) from the age of 18 (or even sooner if you are attending schools, using the health system etc) to do basically anything.
That's essentially how it is in the states, we have the U.S. passport and individual State's drivers licenses as the primary forms of ID. And government bureaucracy is actually notorious for requiring tons of information (two forms of government ID, and proof of residence, sometimes the literal SS card or birth certificate itself) that everyone inevitability ends up running into an issue with forgetting some document at least once in their lives.
> It's not possible to live here your whole life as a full member of the society without that.
It's not really possible here either, even private companies usually require it in some way or another (such as LinkedIn[0]). The issue is illegal immigrants simply forego these things, or work for companies and live in blue states that don't check any form of ID in the majority of places, on purpose (such as when citizens vote in the presidential election, which is still insane to me)
> Once you have a clear, fast proof of right to reside in a country, you don't need to touch due process because it can go fast.
Well, once you have the undocumented migrants inside your borders, how are you supposed to get rid of them other than how the current administration has been attempting to (utilizing private intelligence and beefing up ICE)?
> And government bureaucracy is actually notorious for requiring tons of information (two forms of government ID, and proof of residence, sometimes the literal SS card or birth certificate itself)
That means it's actually not like in country. Once you have an ID card, you don't need anything else (only very rarely the birth certificate).
> The issue is illegal immigrants simply forego these things
That would in our country mean no phone, no driver's license, no electricity, no bank account, you can't be employed, etc., so really not something anyone could do for a longer time and lead a normal life.
> how are you supposed to get rid of them
Offer them a clear path to legalize their status. Create a system where it's not possible to live a nearly whole life this way. This is clearly a systemic problem and needs a systemic solution, not one that can be created or cancelled on the whim of a president.
> That means it's actually not like in country. Once you have an ID card, you don't need anything else (only very rarely the birth certificate).
We could just increase the amount of places that need a Passport for verification, then.
> That would in our country mean no phone, no driver's license, no electricity, no bank account, you can't be employed, etc., so really not something anyone could do for a longer time and lead a normal life.
I don't know about phone plans or electricity, but you can't get a driver's license without being a citizen in most states (a few blue ones are the exception), and without a social security number you can't open a bank account or get legally employed (employers need your SSN to pay you), but the issue is some employers knowingly hire illegal immigrants and pay them under the table, oftentimes in cash and without reporting it to the IRS, because they like the cheaper labor. This is illegal, but oftentimes unenforced.
> Offer them a clear path to legalize their status.
Why should we have to legalize them? We have a path to legal immigration in this country, and they decided not to go through it. Reagan legalized all illegal immigrants in the past, and that turned out horribly, and set an awful precedent.
> Create a system where it's not possible to live a nearly whole life this way.
Why should we have to? We've been around for ~250 years, this hasn't been a big problem the entire time. Clearly, it's possible to fix this without it.
> This is clearly a systemic problem and needs a systemic solution, not one that can be created or cancelled on the whim of a president.
It's not just the Executive, the BBB passed the Senate and House too, and deporting illegal immigrants has large bipartisan support [0] (though not to the extent the current administration is doing it, unfortunately)
You don't have to, of course. But once someone has strong ties to only one country, lives most of their life there, in some cases even is not a citizen of another country, it's the only humane thing to do - in these cases they are de facto citizens already.
> It's not just the Executive
But before the BBB it was, and it was Biden doing one thing and Trump doing another without any laws changing and this is not a stable environment to be in. And it is reasonable to expect some stability from the State.
In the time it took you to make this snide comment on HN, you could have explained your quote which was evidently incomprehensible to all except yourself.
That doesn't look like something made in bad faith to me, given that we're seeing threats of precisely that from the usa president [1]. Unfortunately, it's hard to conclude that you're correct in your personal determination of bad faith, because you haven't explained that quote [0] which was evidently incomprehensible except to yourself.
Are you sure you want to talk about the topic? Clearly explaining what you meant there [0] would be a good start if so. Why not just say what you mean, and we can all have a civil discussion? Everybody wins then, right? Not that I'm forcing you to discuss anything civilly if you're not into it.
That root post made a very civil request: what are realistic alternatives to mass deportation? Let's recap what kind of responses were made:
* "It's your job to come up with an alternative" (not helpful)
* "Just let them all stay" (not realistic)
* "Actually Republican want illegal immigration, not Democrats, so they can rile up their base" (retarded)
* Lots and lots and lots of ad hominem: "check your carbon monoxide monitor"
The responses overall has just been completely lacking in any thought and lacking in any civility. It's a collective tantrum full stop.
> Clearly explaining what you meant there [0] would be a good start if so.
Don't gaslight.
I reiterate that it was a direct response to a bad faith comment. There is nothing unclear about it. He suggested an unrealistic course of action which while he would be personally happy with, goes against what the vast majority of people would consider reasonable and hence fails the request for a "realistic alternative".
> We simply deport anyone who makes the argument he's making
The response is clear: that's unrealistic and not up to him. He understood exactly what it meant but didnt like his very own words used against him.
The problem people are raising is not "mass deportation." The problem is violation of due process rights.
This is not a viable solution because it is 1) blatantly illegal under the American Constitution and 2) undermines the very premise of the rule of law.
One reason it is clearly not a viable solution is because if it were, then it would also be a viable solution simply to deport aydyn and people who think like him/her. Doing so would only entail the same convenience-driven Constitutional violations that the current administration is undertaking. Neither is a viable solution.
Let's just get to the meat of the matter so you can pick between hypocrisy or ignorance.
Please answer these yes/no questions:
1. Under the US Constitution, does someone suspected of being an illegal immigrant have a right to due process?
2. Is it acceptable to violate the US Constitution when convenient?
> That root post made a very civil request: what are realistic alternatives to mass deportation?
It's been kind of a weird (non-sequitur perhaps?) request, for a couple of reasons:
First because the dismissive nature of some of your responses frames you as the judge of what is acceptable/realistic, which I think we can all agree here without any offense, you're not;
Second, because mass deportation of millions of citizens and noncitizens to gulags, conflict zones, etc, is itself not an acceptable solution. Indeed, "do nothing" is both more acceptable (viewed more acceptably by others) and more realistic (doing nothing is easier than doing something). Thus, it is unhelpful to rule that out as an option while preserving the even-less-acceptable option of maintaining the status quo.
And let's be clear here: the relevant question is of acceptable solutions, not simply realistic ones. As we've unfortunately seen in human history, even killing millions is realistic, but obviously not acceptable.
> [Doing nothing] goes against what the vast majority of people would consider reasonable
"The vast majority of people" find mass deportation of millions of citizens and noncitizens to gulags, conflict zones, etc, to be even more unreasonable. Why, then, must the response be more reasonable than the initial suggestion?
Maybe that's why all the replies expressed confusion at the quoting: it is missing that context, and the full context makes the quote cut against the position of pro-mass deportation of millions of citizens and noncitizens to gulags, conflict zones, etc.
> Don't gaslight
Your personal judgement that people who don't understand your out of context quotes are gaslighting, is rude. The more likely explanation, based on the evidence, is that a given message failed to provide sufficient context and/or explanation.
> The responses overall has just been completely lacking in any thought
This is even meaner. I am confident that you are capable of civil discussion focused on ideas, not on other HN posters. If you want to call your fellow posters thoughtless, you might seek greener pastures.
> "The vast majority of people" find mass deportation
The majority of Americans agree with mass deportation even if they don't agree with exactly how ICE is proceeding.
There's lots of room for discussion which obviously isn't happening here.
> Your personal judgement that people who don't understand your out of context quotes are gaslighting, is rude.
Given the context and aggressive sarcasm of the post, the vastly more likely explanation is the poster didn't agree with the point rather than not understanding it at all.
You understand now that it is simple direct response. Thus, if you want to call for intellectual honesty and civility, you can lead.
> This is even meaner. I am confident that you are capable of civil discussion focused on ideas, not on other HN posters.
I'm happy to have a civil conversation. I'm also happy to have an uncivil conversation. I'd ask you to be consistent when and with who that incivility started.
If anything, "the vast majority of people" find mass deportation of millions of citizens and noncitizens to gulags, conflict zones, etc, to be even more unreasonable than doing nothing. Please don't cut off my quotes mid-sentence when it omits critical context.
> Given the context and aggressive sarcasm of the post, the vastly more likely explanation is the poster didn't agree with the point rather than not understanding it at all.
Given that every person who responded in that thread expressed confusion at your quote (myself included), the more likely explanation, based on the evidence, is that a given message failed to provide sufficient context and/or explanation.
Now that we have the context explained in my previous post, we see why the quote was confusing: because it does not support the position you have been espousing. That is to say: to whatever extent that other poster 'doesn't get to decide what constitutes American interests', neither do you.
> if you want to call for intellectual honesty and civility, you can lead
I think I have been civil. If I've insulted you personally, I am sorry, and wouldn't mind you pointing it out.
> I'd ask you to be consistent when and with who that incivility started
That other poster isn't being nice either, but I don't like to comment purely to criticize tone. I prefer redirecting to substance when I can. That said, the incivility started when you cited an out of context quote, were asked what you meant, and refused to explain.
Now that you have civilly explained what you meant (thank you), we can focus on substance, which is that if you don't provide an acceptable solution, then it's probably not reasonable to expect others to.
> If anything, "the vast majority of people" find mass deportation of millions of citizens and noncitizens to gulags, conflict zones, etc, to be even more unreasonable than doing nothing. Please don't cut off my quotes mid-sentence when it omits critical context.
It is not critical context, the root post asked for realistic alternatives.
> Given that every person who responded in that thread expressed confusion at your quote (myself included)
All two of you?
> That said, the incivility started when you cited an out of context[sic] quote,
Ah we're dealing with a comprehension problem. Let me explain then.
The point of "deport people I disagree with" was to highlight it as an illegal solution, much like the "don't give due process" solution.
If we are to take your solution seriously (of simply ignoring our Constitution), then we have all sorts of "solutions" on the table, including ones like "deport people I disagree with." That is to imply that neither of these are actual solutions because both of them would require violating our Constitution.
I suppose I made an error expecting I was speaking to someone with the cognitive firepower required to understand analogies and implicature, so I hope this helps.
Some people start abducting anyone off the streets and it’s called a “solution” so other people who don’t like it need to shut up or offer a better one? Well, we are each entitled to our opinion and I don’t agree with that one.
Anyway, here’s a better solution: let them stay. I can’t see how that would be nearly as bad as this. For me personally, for my neighbors, for the rust belt, indeed for anybody except those wanting to abuse power.
I think this conversation is very clearly people speaking past each other.
Let's reset.
They are asking for a solution that is realistic. Something that is happening right now is, by definition, a realistic outcome. "Let everyone stay" is not a realistic solution for obvious reasons.
> They are asking for a solution that is realistic.
Indeed, they asked for “a good faith solution to the problem other than just letting them all stay here forever” and I explicitly said I did not have this. I also see them and you saying “someone” should come up with a solution and, failing to find one yourselves, say deportation without any court hearing is acceptable. I’ve outlined my reasons for why that is dangerous and unacceptable and you just throw up your hands and say it must happen because it’s happening.
(Did you notice how you went from “solution” to “outcome” and then back to “solution”? People are decrying the “outcome” because it’s a shit “solution”. Yes, it seems we are talking past each other.)
> Did you notice how you went from “solution” to “outcome” and then back to “solution”?
Thats perhaps a bad habit of mine, finding synonyms as I dont like to repeat the same word in the next sentence.
> Indeed, they asked for “a good faith solution to the problem other than just letting them all stay here forever” and I explicitly said I did not have this. I also see them and you saying “someone” should come up with a solution and, failing to find one yourselves, say deportation without any court hearing is acceptable.
So on the other side "just letting them all stay here forever" is also an unacceptable solution.
So what then? There's no acceptable solution we are just screwed?
If "just letting them all stay here forever" is an unacceptable solution, then "send millions of people who are here legally or illegally to gulags forever" is an even less acceptable one.
The Joe Biden Administration didn't continue the Remain in Mexico policy and brought over people to America who they lost contact with after scheduling a court date.
"Remain in Mexico" isn't a law, and in fact the legality of that original Trump policy is still unsettled (but it probably isn't legal without an act of Congress given its clear incompatibility with the INA). The 9th Circuit shut it down within its jurisdiction before the Biden admin did.
1. What to do with people apprehended entering the country illegally and who then claim asylum.
2. What to do with people already inside the country who are suspected of being here illegally.
The first thing is complicated and badly in need of a rethink because clearly our asylum laws are being gamed. I don't have any ready answers but I'm sure that there are a zillion proposals for reform.
For the second thing, yes I believe that if you are suspected of being in the US illegally then you should absolutely have the right to challenge deportation in court. Otherwise literally anyone can be scooped up off the street and deported with no recourse whether they are an American citizen or not. And honestly it is a bit maddening to see people continuously fail to grasp (or pretend to fail to grasp) this basic point.
