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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

They're not criminals until they're found guilty in court. Imagine if the local police were able to use CIA records, including phone and location data, to prosecute you for, say stealing a car.

Entering the country without permission is illegal, but let's not act like it's a crime so heinous that law enforcement should be exempt from due process and warrants and such when prosecuting people for it.

Keep in mind that ICE does sometimes inadvertently deport US citizens, and that there is no central database of who is or is not a US citizen, nor any single canonical way to prove citizenship.

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Well I mean, it seems pretty much case closed that they are criminals if they are undocumented immigrants. I'm not advocating that law enforcement should be exempt from due process, but if you're not a citizen I'm not sure what rights you're entitled to here? It's a bit messy, but it's very close to the bottom of the list of police actions I'm worried about. I'm way more concerned about things like the disproportionate amount of African Americans locked up than the due process of people who are here illegally.

Every country on the planet has borders that are enforced. Every country has immigration policies that just be followed. Every country that finds immigrants that are there undocumented (illegally) deports them and uses databases with public/private cooperation to do so.

There are ways to prove citizenship. Easily obtainable documents like a social security card, passport, birth certificate, etc... . There is no real issue with ICE deporting Americans. None whatsoever.

Nothing in the Constitution says that due process only applies to citizens.

Obviously if they're undocumented immigrants then they're criminals. My point is that ICE can't consider them to be definitely criminals until that's actually proven in court. You can't just say, well, ICE is totally sure that José over there is undocumented, so it's OK if ICE treats him like a criminal even though they haven't gone to court.

I'm not saying we shouldn't guard the borders or enforce immigration law. I'm saying that it's still law enforcement and the ideas of innocent until proven guilty, and requiring warrants for searches, still applies. Or at least should apply.

Not every US citizen has a social security card, passport, or even a birth certificate. There are quite a few US citizens that get detained by ICE:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635/...

And yes, sometimes they do get deported:

https://news.vice.com/article/the-us-keeps-mistakenly-deport...

Yeah but it's largely a non-issue.

Also while people in the US who are here illegally may be permitted due process, it'll be a pretty easy case. Are you a US citizen? Yes? No? Pretty simple. I guess you could argue that the state has to provide evidence that you're not, but if the evidence doesn't exist you're asking the state to prove something exists that doesn't, which is a non sequitor.

People getting charged with murders they didn't commit is largely a non-issue, but that doesn't mean we should just bypass the whole trial thing.

I don't understand your last part. If the state can't prove something exists that doesn't, then the state can't prove its case, so the accused should go free, no? We don't change the rules of legal proof just because it's inconvenient to the state.

So all I have to do is show up in a country and just say "I'm a citizen" and if they can't disprove that claim then I get to stay?

Because that's essentially what you're saying here.

Well no, you're the one who said it's impossible to prove lack of citizenship, not me.

I'm guessing that ICE is generally able to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that most illegal immigrants are not citizens. Most can be fairly easily proven not to have had US citizenship from birth (due to being born outside the US to non-American parents), and there is a central database of naturalized citizens, so if they are also absent from that, done.

What I'm saying here is simply that if it is indeed impossible to prove, as you say, that is not a good reason to relax standards of proof.

There are issues with CBP personnel harassing Americans. I have a constitutional right to freely travel around the country without fear of search or seizure if I'm not suspected of a crime. CBP personnel camp out in airplane jetways ambushing law-abiding American citizens who have no choice but to submit to an illegal and improper search of their personal papers to prove their citizenship. Any freedom loving citizen of the United States should resist this bullshit.

> improper search of their personal papers to prove their citizenship

this is pretty sensationalized. It's very rational to request proof of citizenship before allowing entry to a country

Rational or not, in the US, we have placed upon our officers the burden of having a reasonable suspicion (one that can be later explained to a court) before requiring anything of a detained person.

As such, if I am a U.S. citizen, and say so, the burden is then upon the officer to identify a reason to suspect that I am not actually a citizen before requiring that I submit to additional questioning or produce documentation. We desire that our cops be required to have an actual reason before hassling us. That form of behavior was what goaded our forebears into shooting at the king's men.

At the risk of inciting an opinionated pissing contest, I'd say that meekly presenting your official papers to a government authority is reason to suspect that you are not an American, and that loudly arguing with the officer (especially when relying on spurious legal grounds) is almost as good as stapling a notarized copy of your birth certificate to your forehead.

I think a simple majority of Americans would probably prefer the government to treat the public more respectfully and courteously--citizens or not--even if it means some dangerous people will find it easier to commit crimes. I may be mistaken in this perception, but I wish for it to be true. It's a crying shame that people are deciding not to visit because our government is acting like a paranoid brute and that I can't find any rational grounds to disagree with their decisions to stay away.

I doubt that "camp out in airplane jetways" is describing border controls entering the US. Probably something more like this: http://sfist.com/2017/02/24/border_patrol_agents_stop_and_ch...

I was referencing domestic travel. Within the US.

Is your argument that ICE has data they're not supposed to have? Part of ICE's job is to enforce immigration rules. Let's work on your analogy here:

> Imagine if the local police were able to use CIA records, including phone and location data, to prosecute you for, say stealing a car.

Imagine if the local police were able to use their plate reader software to identify and prosecute people who had stolen cars?

Right, ICE's job is to enforce immigration rules, so they're getting phone and location records from the CIA without a warrant, and that's OK because...?

Police are allowed to use license plate readers because that's considered to be in public view. Since the CIA is separate from both ICE and the local police, let's just use CIA in the analogy too.

> ICE's job is to enforce immigration rules, so they're getting phone and location records from the CIA without a warrant

Do you have a source for this? It's not clear to me that this is the case -- and if it is we are totally screwed whether Palantir is involved or not.

Maybe I'm assuming too much, but given the broad language and complete lack of mention of judicial oversight, it seems like it. This document about how ICE uses ICM, a similar system that works with data from other agencies, only mentions warrants in the context of the database holding information about them, or certain information in the database being obtained using them: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy...

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