Mem Fox on being detained by US immigration: 'In that moment I loathed America' | Hacker News Reader

Mem Fox on being detained by US immigration: 'In that moment I loathed America'

theguardian.com

34 pointsmantesso17 comments

> Instead of crying and being sad and sitting on a couch, I am going to write to politicians. I am going to call. I am going to write to newspapers. I am going to get on the radio. I will not be quiet. No more passive behaviour. Hear me roar.

I have a serious question. What does it mean to be on the frontline? It's obvious that she intends to do something and push the system, but it's not "revolution", as she says she is for. She is arguing for action inside the system, but that is not revolutionary.

I very much want to force change, but it sounds more like she doesn't want to be on the frontline, but instead call others to action.

I'm horrified by what we as Americans are doing to people of all stripes coming to the US. We are supposed to be the land of opportunity, the land that is welcoming to all. Some claim that we are a nation based on Christian morals, but then we throw out the primary messages of being Christian. It's horrendous.

So what is the best way to fight this? The things which are getting the most attention recently are the large marches. I suppose that's the place to start, and it feels tangible. Civil disobedience, boycotting supporters of these policies, these seem to cause the powers that be to take notice.

I don't think they have anything against her personally. These tactics are used to fluster and confuse, and hopefully cause the subject to make a mistake. Clearly it's effective.

In a perfect world, this would only be applied to criminals. Because the agents aren't allowed to profile, they have to pull in people across the spectrum. Which includes authors, women with children, and old ladies.

I don't think they mean any harm. They're trying to do their job of protecting the border, but they have protocol that they need to follow.

Edit: anecdata, but there may be other reasons they make ridiculous selections like this (like old ladies). My grandmother, who is an elderly white lady who is hunched over, has the same name as a criminal on a watch list. Every time she went to the airport she was selected for additional screening. She never had the same experience as Fox, but sometimes they got real nasty. She always thanked them when they let her go, because what if she was actually the criminal, and they were protecting the country.

> I don't think they mean any harm.

It's not the intention, but the fact that they are causing harm. They are not properly trained is what she pointed out.

Minimal training, and lots of power... bad combination.

Edit: maybe not lack of training, but instead being trained improperly. They could easily have been trained very well at acting this way.

They are expertly trained. They did exactly what was needed, and it seems like they did an excellent job. Unfortunately the subject didn't need to be subjected to that for any reason other than random selection.

Edit: They were trained for exactly what the situation would necessitate. Even if they only pulled her in for random selection purposes, they can't not subject her to the same treatment. Otherwise they could get sued for not treating everyone who gets selected the same. Go figure.

there is zero percent chance of suing, they are not acting under the Constitution. They have no legal limit to what they do.

So why do they pull in elderly women in wheelchairs? Because someone sued, saying that the agents were profiling.

Yes, see my edit. But I disagree that this is appropriate, even at random. We are treating everyone like criminals. Why?

This is not the society I was raised in. We are acting out of fear, I was raised to act out of compassion.

Someone gets pulled from a line, at random, and is treated like a criminal... for no reason. They could easily have not pulled the criminal from the line, and now what you have is a pissed off person will do whatever she can to fight this system.

They're treated like a criminal, because the criminals sued, saying "why are we the only ones treated like this". They'll also do it because something tripped their alarm, and they have to do due diligence (see my updated note about my grandmother).

I think they do mean harm, they want to distress the people because they know that people in distress tend to self-accuse. They go as far as they can on the spectrum from verbal abuse to torture.

Moreover 1) there is absolutely no need to behave that way even to a criminal 2) people on the international zone of an airport have not yet had the opportunity to commit any local crime, since they are not yet in the jurisdiction, the entire premise is flawed if they are not returning. And if they are returning and accused of a crime, there is a different system in a different room for them.

Yes, they do want to distress people, but they don't have anything against them personally.

They weren't looking for Fox to self-accuse; she was only in there to fill their quota of older white women who they needed to pull in.

If someone is coming into the country with intent to perform illegal activity, then I say they're not doing enough. As a citizen, I don't want those people in my country.

You don't get a job where your role is to make people's life hell, even for a few hours, if you don't have any inclination for it, these are unionized federal workers whose skills are transferable, not slaves. They are not bothered enough by their own and their co-workers behavior to resign, they self-selected.

Moreover, this entire "the bad people are coming to kill us from outside" is crap, Americans suicide themselves with their food, their cars (about 100 every day) and their guns. This is just pandering to the red necks.

Wow, your anti American bias is showing.

So you maintain that because a percentage of Americans live their lives a certain way, there's no need to defend the border?

I have an employee from the US (I'm otherwise from Europe) and while visiting through the conversation/personal stories he explained the most interesting part of relationship between US authorities and citizens: You're less likely to be "harassed" if you lie to them, because they can turn pretty much anything you say against you and dig so deep to finally find an excuse to bully you, or charge you with something.

That is quite a sad state for the society to be in, being always afraid of the authorities, rather than knowing their primary goal is to protect and serve.

How is there no damned accountability for these people? I'm sure decent humans in positions of power read such stories or are aware of them. Have they no authority to curtail this, fire those individuals, or do something?

It's this way because they want it to be this way. Product working as designed.

Those in authority hold these people accountable towards actually pushing the new agenda. All bets are off then aren't they?

There is no accountability. In the US there is generally no real internal accountability inside the uniformed units for their behavior towards people outside the unit (if you are a policeman, federal agent or military, you will be disciplined if you steal from or kill a co-worker, but not a civilian).

Only the judicial system sometime takes action against uniformed people. In the case of the CBP, by nature there is no judicial oversight, since most of their actions are not covered by the constitution, and the Executive power doesn't want to provide any due process or any kind of right to the population they are in contact with. There is no system in place to moderate their behavior.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com