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Comment by x87678r | Hacker News Reader

I dont really understand why in this country enforcing immigration law is controversial.

- It is an international human right to be allowed to seek asylum from danger and poverty

- ICE is treating immigrants in ways that flagrantly violate international human rights law, such as separating families, witholding adequate nourishment and healthcare, recent reports of forced sterilizations, sexual assaults, and many more that are just a google search away.

- For any reading who aren't familiar with this line of argument: "they're just enforcing immigration law" is a common victim-blaming strategy that blames immigrants seeking asylum for their own abuse at the hands of our immigration agents. It implies that anyone who violates a country's laws, no matter how unfair or in violation of international human rights, deserves any punishment that comes their way.

>its an intl. human right to be allowed to seek asylum from ~~poverty~~

citation needed. danger, yes but poverty?

your third bullet also implies that all illegal immigrants are refugees seeking asylum.

Not everyone might agree but, taking a global view, I would interpret Article 25 of the UDHR [0] - right to standard of living - combined with Article 2 - right to nondiscrimination - as supporting the right to flee poverty in general. Going further, the relative wealth of countries like the U.S. is tied with exploitation and imperialistic meddling in the places where people are fleeing from, so it takes on that extra layer of responsibility. I argue that poverty is a form of persecution (exploitation) of the poor by the rich, which meets the letter of Article 14.

> your third bullet also implies that all illegal immigrants are refugees seeking asylum.

I'm not following.

[0] https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ind...

How much would the human population need to contract in order to provide everyone with the same wasteful quality-of-life that the average citizen from a western industrialized nation has?

>in order to provide everyone with the same wasteful quality-of-life that the average citizen from a western industrialized nation has?

For people in some places around the world a pair of shoes and 3 meals a day can be called a luxury.

citation for why you believe it's a problem of population rather than a political problem of resource distribution?

Yikes, I appreciate the insight into your perspective but this terrifies me that otherwise intelligent people hold the disgusting ideas so confidently that you do.

which ideas do you consider "disgusting"?

I don't think it's that, it's actually pretty radical a position in the US to say we shouldn't enforce immigration law or we should effectively have open borders. The controversy comes in the harsh manner in which DHS has been enforcing those laws in the last few years. It seems like we're not even treating immigrants like human beings, so any company that enables this by partnering with DHS, even if not directly working on targeting migrants, rightly comes under scrutiny and ire.

For anyone unsure of what you meant by "The controversy comes in the harsh manner in which DHS has been enforcing those laws in the last few years. It seems like we're not even treating immigrants like human beings" see https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/new-mcallen-fa...

Probably the human rights abuses.

Well, for a concrete example, sometimes they misuse those laws to deport victims of guards.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/15/ice-deport-witness-s...

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