Hacker News Reader

Depends on how you do it. Yes, they are here in violation of the law. But if that's what bothers you, then the process you use to deport them had better be in keeping with the law. If what bothers you about them being here is the "illegal" aspect, then you must not trample the legal process in order to remove them.

View on HN

That’s a bizarre argument. Conduct is illegal because it’s bad or has harmful effects. Immigration laws exist because society recognizes that immigration has various undesirable effects (cultural change, strain on public resources, etc.), so we need to restrict immigration to controllable levels that manage those negative effects.

The objection to illegal immigrants is that they’re here. While deportation efforts should follow the law like everything else, there’s nothing about illegal immigration that makes the legal process especially important compared to other things.

For example what's an illegal way of departing an illegal immigrant?

Surely there is some kind of due process? You can't just pick up foreign looking types and ship them off in black vans. That would be an illegal way to do that, I believe (I hope). I'm not American so I don't know how it works over there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com