The people coming will be coming for a variety of reasons but it won't be to take the jobs of the uneducated Americans
It's fascism 101.
Don't focus on words. Focus on actions. For example, the action of deploying the military on Americans does not make conditions better for us. Quite the contrary. The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. That money could be going to education, school lunches, Medicaid, building bridges, etc. But it isn't. it is only going to stroke the president's ego. Most of his actions, EO's, deals, bills, etc., fall into this category.
The funds for the "United States Army 250th Anniversary Parade" were allocated before President Trump was elected, during the Biden debacle. The fact that it falls on June 14th is what is called a "coincidence".
Be careful about blindly accepting propaganda as fact.
I've never met someone so unlucky /s
That must take some crazy mental gymnastics...
As to your other points, most aren't coincidences, though some aren't real either.
You should read the post you're responding to. It clearly addresses this very question.
> though some aren't real either
I think you mean, "though I'm not familiar with some of those cases"--otherwise a citation is needed.
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-project-2025-first-100-da... 2. https://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/juan-williams/5120168... 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cnyv9qNQSI
The date is exactly what was being discussed. I was responding to the mischaracterization of "a military parade for the president's birthday", which is factually inaccurate. Plus, the plan was made during Biden's term.
> I suppose it's just a coincidence that Trump is following project 2025, step by step, since day one
He's following Agenda 47, which was published on his campaign website. He stated he agreed with some of Project 2025, but not all of it.
It's unsurprising that some involved in writing Project 2025 are working for the Trump admin.
He's stated every stance you can on 2025. Heard of it, never heard of it, love it, hate it, etc.
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+never+heard+of+2025&oq...
Um: "The Army’s 250th birthday celebration has been in the works for two years, Army officials said. But adding a parade was the Trump White House’s idea, so planning for that began only two months ago." (Emphasis added.)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/politics/trump-military-parad...
It's usually about how the poor get Foo for free, which everyone else has to pay for, and also about how they misuse Foo for nefarious reasons. The commons then get riled up, either because "Hey, why do they get free housing when I have to spend tons of money?" or because of all the nefarious things they supposedly do.
Also: Food stamps can't buy alcohol (let alone drugs).
Explain how work requirements to qualify for Medicaid makes conditions better to ensure there are fewer poor people. Doesn't this just harm people who can't work due to disability, and practically ensure they will never get better enough to work and contribute to society?
Sure saves a lot of money for wealthy people though.
There is about the same amount of money allotted to help states stand up new programs to validate these requirements as the federal cost of Trump's birthday party.
Yes. Yes it is.
Pray you never find yourself in a situation where you can't work anymore or rely on anyone. Because under Trump's, this means guaranteed death. In the richest country ever.
Trump, speaking to his nephew about their disabled son [1]: "Maybe you should just let him die"
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/24/trump-...
How does the government know whether any specific person is "able-bodied"?
> How does the government know whether any specific person is "able-bodied"?
Bonus points: we'll be able to remove people that should have had eligibility but failed to get the right paperwork in place. And we all know those who are severely disabled and unable to work are always excellent on filing their paperwork correctly and on-time and always make required meetings.
Business and removing jobs and being rewarded with tax breaks while American workers can't find anything. Whose fault is that?
The phrases to look for are “infested” and “purge”. Some politicians consider low-income to be a character of a person or a group (all the way up to a nation). Those same politicians laud language from Hitler about infestations and metaphors of racial purity.
Even the most generous pro-government take on that passage would have him believing that the state should be separate from the church, so church doctrine should not be imposed through state decree.
"But muh roads and hospitals and police." Lol, that is covered by the ~0.5% of my salary I pay in property taxes and a little extra in use taxes and county and state sales tax. The federal portion, what do I get? Massive subsidies for people who stick their boot down my throat, military provocations that make us all far less safer, the worlds largest prison population (and near the top per capita). None of it makes sense -- the stuff that matters was achieved with the feds spending 2% of the gdp (and I might add, pretty much open immigration).
"Helping the poor" is one of the worst mistakes the USA ever undertook.
History shows we've historically been pretty shitty at doing that at an individual level.
> The federal portion, what do I get?
Ignoring FICA, a large chunk is debt servicing, public health, earned income tax credits, food assistance, SSI, science programs, global trade security, and more. Most isn't "people who stick their boot down [your] throat", unless you're someone looking to abuse workers or food production or happens to be outside in LA these days.
here's the correct indoctrination message
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-int...
> Former President Donald J. Trump, in an interview broadcast Sunday, doubled down on his description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that echoes Hitler.
> “Why do you use words like ‘vermin’ and ‘poisoning of the blood’?” Howard Kurtz, the media critic and interviewer, asked on Fox News. “The press, as you know, immediately reacts to that by saying, ‘Well, that’s the kind of language that Hitler and Mussolini used.’”
> “Because our country is being poisoned,” Mr. Trump responded.
That was the president lying on a nationally televised debate, the purpose of which was to lay the groundwork for exporting poor people who were here legally.
Sure. The rich (R) electorate gladly watch how the non-rich (R) electorate has taken the bait and is happy chasing after the newly othered.
They won't be happy if the non-rich republicans start taking their aim at lobbying, unfair tax-breaks for the rich, or any form of taxation that prevents them from keeping their ill-gotten wealth.
https://lacity.gov/highlights/curfew-announced-downtown-los-...
While the two parties fight about specific measures (as they always do), and don't trust one another at all, they both agree that extreme measures are appropriate in LA right now.
This discussion is about the situation in LA, and not just a generic partisan dispute we could read on any political discussion, right?
it's the feds and the sheriffs and the police causing unrest, by intent and design.
LAPD are trained and regularly used for crowd control and protest dispersal. The guard isn’t. And for sure the Marines have no clue about policing.
I think LAPD is choosing a 1st amendment violation as the lesser failure than permitting any escalation involving the National Guard. That would quickly turn out badly for the guard, become a pretext for ever more violent authoritarianism in response.
I think your line of thinking might be either overly naïve, or maliciously turning a blind eye:
First, "both-sides"-ing, for lack of a better word, is — IMHO — a false equivalence that treats the current democratic transgressions of rights and freedoms from the alt-right government to, for example, democrat's normalizing that saying racist stuff is a faux-pas; i.e. some goons are actively harming humans and that isn't the same as racists being butt-hurt that they were banned from some site.
Second, in this particular case — where there is push back against fascists — trying to reduce the scope of the discussion is like trying to censor police-cam footage to just the split-second segments where the cops get scared and shoot, but that leaves out how the trigger-happy cop broke protocol, escalated the situation, and berated confusing orders at the victim. So, no... We need nuance and context.
I really hope people that find themselves what-abouting for fascists are able to escape whatever information bubble they find themselves in so that they may be able to stop willfully looking past other people's humanity before we all find each other on the wrong end of a power-tripping cop that won't even have to come up with a good lie to snuff our lives out.
Before Trump intervened, LA has had worse Superbowl afterparties than the protest was at that time. This is all very much manufactured rage.
Consider that your news sources are really biased.
Here's a live feed, watch for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6S_OwCgKOU
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1l88mhj/lap...
Old dead link: https://www.reddit.com/r/chaoticgood/comments/1l8ax0z/protes...
Remember, less lethal does not mean non-lethal and doesn't mean it can't cause enough damage to impact someone's quality of life forever.
The cameraperson or another bystander should have called 911, asked for ambulance (and maybe fire dept) to attend. In addition to medical care, that would at least get some higher degree of paperwork going from an accountability perspective.
State-sanctioned organized crime by white supremacist terrorists, that's the connection with Republicans. They pardoned the insurrectionists that violently captured the capital building and pay off murderers whose crimes achieve their political goals. It's mostly happening out in the open, brazenly. We're not rational machines, we're easily manipulated and it takes less energy to settle into beliefs others want us to have. "Flood the zone" works but reality is still happening.
From my point of view, this person was disobeying orders from police, which gives them the right to use force. Is a rubber bullet an appropriate amount of force? Probably not, but I don't see this video as a completely one sided interaction with one party being wrong.
12million immigrants came into the country during the Biden administration. This type of load on the system does not go unnoticed. NYC for example was drastically transformed.
Why do you think it’s just a “perceived” problem?
We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. The video evidence is out there for everyone to see. News outlets that did not engage in hiding reality and promoting falsehoods had crews at the border every day for four years collecting video evidence of what was going on.
If you care about understanding the truth, go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around. You can also cross check with Homeland Security and other official sources. And, yes, you will find data that predates the Trump administration...so you can't blame bias. For example, if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
If such a thing were being reported by multiple reputable sources, I’d be less inclined to roll my eyes at the preposterous idea.
You are living in an incomprehensible fantasy my friend. Good luck.
Seeing immigrants and perceiving an increased in crime, and citing that they are related is post facto rationalization fallacy.
Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here. Oh.. people emigrate and die, so the accumulation of numbers is not valid nor does that handle double counting.
AFAIK a strong US economy generates around 250k jobs per month. Further, there were more jobs created under Biden than were lost during the pandemic.
I'd also suggest if this all were a big deal, illegal entry ought to be elevated from a civil infraction. It is more severe in the eyes of the law to drive 25 hour than it is to overstay a visa.
I didn't say they were and you have no clue if they are or are not. Even if you were personally there to demonstrate peacefully, no have no clue what forces are operating behind they scenes. And we know that part is true. One way to put it is that aspects of this is organized crime. They will eventually be discovered and held to pay for what they have done in a court of law.
> Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here
Not a logical fallacy, but the most incomprehensible development over the years is that somehow large numbers of people think it is OK for people to just pour into the US as they wish, no controls, no admission criteria, nothing. And yet, the same people understand that this is not acceptable anywhere else in the world.
Clearly there's nothing I can say to help people who are firmly chained inside the cave looking at shadows. The indoctrination is way too powerful. Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
Perhaps this is your idea of what this country needs to become?
https://i.imgur.com/JcjpHKe.png
Not going to happen. No way.
> Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
I'd say it would take sound arguments. Meanwhile, your arguments are not sound. You did not address what I wrote. To rebut a 'guilt-by-association' criticism, you said "I didn't say they were [affiliated]". That confirms the criticism.
You did not address the post-facto rationalization criticism at all.
I also saw a person in a pokemon costume too. Until we can have some sound arguments and facts, it's very much a choose-your-own-adventure situation. Are we here to just yell at each other? I personally do think the country needs to maintain rule-of-law (with notable mention of the 1st amendment), and the full rule-of-law goes for everyone, police, protestors, and opportunists.
Not here to yell at you or anyone. Having lived in multiple cultures and countries across the world, I bring to the table a perspective that most Americans simply do not have. I have no clue if you are American, BTW. I have had the experience of being in fear for my life while detained by military thugs as a teenager. I have seen and lived the pain and misery leftist ideologies bring to populations first hand.
Any immigrant who has actually lived these realities cannot comprehend how it is that the US does not simply laugh these people off the stage. And, to be sure, the extreme right is just as destructive, yet that is not a reality in the US at all (despite the media pushing that narrative into people's brains day after day).
So, like I said, nothing I can say to you or anyone else, that much is obvious. There are things you learn about society and ideology that can only be learned from experience. Maybe the US needs to live through a leftist utopia for a period of time for everyone to come out smarter. That would be tragic, of course, but it might also be necessary. If California does not scare the shit out of the rest of the nation I don't know what will.
Have a good one.
Rolling in the National Guard and Marines on a peaceful protest is, quite frankly, un-American. It's massive federal overreach that has led to violence in the past. Would be nice if the current administration knew its own history.
They were throwing molotov cocktails, rocks, scooters, mortar-like fireworks, bottles with urine and chemicals and who knows what else. They were destroying and looting stores and vandalizing everything in sight. I don't know how many Waymo cars they destroyed (it looked like five). Far from peaceful.
The moderate or peaceful majority is never the reason for enforcement actions. These are triggered by a militant and violent minority, some of whom are actually paid to cause disruption. So, you have a couple of choices. The first is to do nothing and just let it burn. We have seen that happen before. The second is to bring forward an overwhelming show of force to dissipate that violent element (and bring them to justice). That's what happened.
This is no different from control system theory. The ideal critically-damped feedback loop does not exist when dealing with mobs. Either you crank up the dampening early or you pay the consequences of doing it too late. We can't have entire business districts destroyed by thugs. You have to stop them as soon as possible. As it stands, these animals caused a massive amount of damage in just a couple of days.
Yesterday showed the contrast very well, there was a peaceful (truly, not the fake "peaceful" pushed by the media while shit is burning) protest that seemed to number in the thousands of people. Perfect. No problems. That only happened because thugs (the minority) learned within a day or two that they would suffer severe consequences for their actions.
Violence happened, but not to any scale that makes a military deployment on American soil in peacetime make sense.
Does this look like a riot justifying soldiers to you? https://kolektiva.social/@jonahgibberish/114663170166350434
> This is no different from control system theory.
Rolling out the Marines is turning the `I` knob, not the `D` knob. It's teaching protestors "if you're gonna show up, come armed to deal with soldiers." Incredibly dangerous in a country where that firepower is in so many private hands.
I don't know when we became a nation so cowardly that we have to point military firepower at our own citizens. When strangers are turning out into the streets to thwart federal enforcement, maybe the problem is the law not the criminals?
Actually, it's the other way around.
The US southern border was very porous for most of its history. Around 1986, a combination of moral panic about Latino influence on the culture and concerns about drug trade enabled the Reagan administration and Congress to tighten immigration law into something approximating the structure we have today in terms of enforcement (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5049707/).
This backfired spectacularly. Let people bop back and forth to Tijuana, and they bop back and forth to Tijuana. Force them to struggle to cross the border, to declare nationality, start evicting them if they over-stay... And now they have reason to choose and to fight for the choice. The result of closing the border is undocumented immigration went up (secondary statistics strongly suggesting that this was actual immigration, not enforcement resulting from more tracking of undocumented immigrants).
Regardless of the law on paper, under-enforcement was the behavior of the land for nearly a century, and this new regime is an experiment that has strongly suggested the law was sourly anti-human to begin with.
(As a meta-comment on law: you're talking to a generation that watched the War on Drugs happen. Don't be surprised Americans have soured on the notion, in general, that law and morality are closely interlocked).
People died and permanently retired during the pandemic. It's possible the 10 million number represents a restored workforce; it's also possible it represents a changed workforce.
If the latter, that illegal immigration allowed the US to recover faster than it would have otherwise and the lesson from history is we're a stronger nation for easing immigration restrictions.
There is no question whatsoever that immigration, legal and done correctly, is a force for good. As a legal immigrant, it understand this very well.
In fact, I understand the entire process very well, including the illegal immigration part. You see, when I was six years old, my parents overstayed their tourist visa in the US. They were then told to leave and my entire family left. Two years later, after going through proper channels, we obtained permission to come to the US legally.
I truly do not understand how people twist themselves into a pretzel to justify illegal entry into a country. Actually, it is worse than that, the only country where they seem to think this is OK is the US. Every single person who is for illegal immigration in the US understands why you cannot just move to New Zealand, for example, to stay and work there without permission. They also understand New Zealand's points system for the selection of who is granted permanent residency. Not in the US. Of course not.
Proponents also say that not enough people are let in legally or that it is too slow. Two points to be made here. The entire planet wants to come to the US, so, yeah, it will take a couple of years (as it did for my family). Second, when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased. Doing so would exacerbate the problem. So, illegal immigration actually hinders changes and growth of the legal immigration system.
Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves. And, when they do include themselves, they don't lead by example and simply send more money than they owe to the government. Same with immigration. How?
I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
Can we all stay in your home forever? You are welcome to come back from your vacation and share the home with us?
Of course not. Nobody of sound mind would accept such a situation.
How is breaking and entering into a country --any country-- justified and elevated to almost be a virtue?
While not a perfect analogy, of course, this does illustrate a fundamental idea: You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did. If the world worked that way we would all be walking around with a firearm strapped to our leg and blood would run down every street in the nation. Violating these fundamental rights is nothing less than destructive to society.
Yes, of course, and this is not contradictory. "American Exceptionalism" means different things to different people, but broadly speaking: as a nation built of immigrants, there's no particular "right" time to pull up the ladder and say "That's enough immigrants now." Most people who support this position (not all, but enough to be concerning), when you peel back the veneer, support it because they want America to be "A nation of X" and America facing the reality of more people with different world experiences threatens that goal. There's a reason the protests in Charlottesville turned from being about the history of the South to chants of "Blood and Soil."
Regardless of what the law says: the reality on the ground is the American economy is relying on the labor provided by the undocumented, and they are our friends and neighbors for years running. Sometimes, when a law bends too hard against what the people actually want, you ditch the law. A government fails to grasp that to its peril; hopefully, it only results in tea wasted in the harbor.
> when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased
Untrue; these are rules we make up for ourselves. Congress could set the number to zero tomorrow. Or infinity. It's entirely up to us.
> Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves
I think we'd have to agree to disagree. I, for instance, am in favor of raising taxes on myself and people in my tax bracket, as well as basically everyone above my tax bracket. No strong opinion on lower brackets. And I do send more than I owe to the government. And buy bonds.
Your meta-argument is "These people don't see the problems;" I think you are mistaken. People see the problems, they just think they're better handled with community service than with truncheons and planes to some other country.
> I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
> Can we all stay in your home forever?
I mean, that's an argument about "squatter's rights," not immigration, but for what it's worth... yes? The law in many states does recognize your right to keep using the land if you develop it and it's de-facto abandoned. If I own so much land I can't use all of it and you find a better use for it, that's on me.
The nature of immigration is so divorced from this analogy as to make it worthless. Try this one instead: You come here, build a house, raise a family. Five years later, I come along and try to kick you out because you didn't cross an 'i' on some paperwork in 2019. Is this just, or should I leave you the heck alone because you're not hurting anyone?
> You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did
I'm sure you're not arguing "America should be returned to the Native Americans..." But that is the argument you are making here. Are you sure you mean it?
... FWIW, I'm sorry your parents were forced out. In an ideal world, that shouldn't have happened. That would have been, what, roundabouts the Reagan presidency? Reagan's administration set us on the path to where we are today by deciding a lot of laws on the books suddenly needed enforcement where little had happened. To all our detriment.
Well, time to exit this thread. The problem with HN having become a monoculture forum is that it is impossible to have conversations. I never downvote or flag anyone, particularly those who disagree with me. The same is not true on the other side, if you don't tow the line you get attacked, downvoted and flagged mercilessly until you shut your mouth. So, yeah, you win. Have a good day.
I appreciate seeing your vantage point on this topic. While we do not agree, It is helpful to see other people's takes.
Just in case you misinterpreted my story, I think it was 100% correct and proper for the US to ask my family to leave, apply for permission to come back legally and finally do so. My parents did not do the right thing by overstaying their visa and working. In other words, I do not agree that they should have been allowed to stay.
When they did obtain authorization they had to agree to not be a burden to US taxpayers for five years. I also agree with this.
Legal and orderly immigration is essential for societies to function. This is true everywhere on this planet.
We are left in a very, very bad place when the media can't be relied on to tell the truth. But here we are..
I wish we could tell that to Trump.
>We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. T
Okay, and Biden deported more people than Trump's first term. Is that fact a joke too?
>go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around.
Okay, what am I looking for? The most recent news update was June 5th about building a wall in Arizona. I thought that 2016 narrative was over?
>if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
And
>In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, there were 271,484 individuals removed from the US by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This number represents an increase of nearly 90% compared to the previous fiscal year. This data includes removals by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
Why are we acting like Biden did nothing?
> Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people.
From ChatGPT:
> So, while 10–11 million CBP encounters is the most solid official figure, when you add gotaways, overstays, and parole entries, the total number of people likely entering without full authorization could reasonably be around 15–17 million during the Biden presidency.
They cannot handle it with the resources being given. This is true for the red states like Texas and what not, the social services we do have struggle to handle the load. But we're choosing to let these systems struggle. We could solve it if we chose to do so.
In 2020 our population was ~330 million people. Even if 12 million people immigrated to the United States, that's an influx of 3.6%. In reality its probably closer to 4 or so million, so really more like 1.2%. We're supposedly the wealthiest country on the planet with so much opportunity and freedom and yet we can't handle adding far less than 5% of the population as migrants in five years? If that's the case, we're probably the poorest country on the planet, not the wealthiest.
And even then, we could choose to do something about that. We could do more to help people settle all across the US and be well supported to succeed. But we don't. So instead, we have people crowd the areas where we turn a blind eye to hiring illegal labor and have the social impacts concentrated there and then refuse to actually do anything to help those social costs.
But these are all things we choose to do. We could choose to do something else.
How do you decide who goes where? What stops them from moving back to the bigger cities? How to you limit demographic displacement?
The UK is doing this, and the US under Biden was trying at a smaller scale with Haitians in smaller towns. It doesn't work, and isn't so simple.
Once again, we're choosing to not have these social supports or social services. It's a choice. We could do it if we wanted, after all we're allegedly the wealthiest country on the planet but somehow can't seem to afford anything.
> How do you decide who goes where?
I'm not suggesting we force it to be a top-down forced decision. I'm often a pretty free-market and empowering people to make their own decisions kind of guy, when it makes sense. And sure, people will tend to cluster more in large cities, that happens even for non-migrants. But in the end, we're doing practically nothing to encourage people to spread out that social cost (or worse, encouraging for forcing the clustering), and that doing nothing is a choice. And then we're doing very little to support these places experiencing such large social costs, which is once again a decision.
All of this is stuff we could do differently, we just choose the status quo (or now choosing violence!) that doesn't work well for a lot of us. Sure seems to be making some people exceptionally wealthy though.
America is really struggling to support & enable a people, to create a social safety net. Opportunity is low. But often when immigrants come in from other places, they will put in enormous energy, that can bring some very sad towns back to life.
So sick of Americans empty-analysis and ignorance of externalities their society puts on others; overseas colleagues see it as white Taliban. They don't see people in streets over tariffs screwing up their lives, so they've started to tell their politicians Americans (as in the public) are not reliable actors. They don't realize it, but the American publics own credibility is shot, not just their politicians.
I have taken to cutting off friends and family and shit talking anyone in public that wants to socialize; do the politic work to put me on the hook for their healthcare, otherwise I refuse to bother with their existence. Withdrawing from people's lives is a forcing function for self reflection.
You all keep me off the hook caring you exist. I just have to help make line go up. Anything to do with you all as individuals is not my responsibility. That's the choice of the American people. I'm here to profit, not give a fuck you exist.
That's what my fellow Americans taught me through their feckless political effort. Illusory idea some invisible hand gives a shit based upon the gibberish from history they read by people who were wanking their literacy rather than inventing indoor plumbing.
your calcuation needs to account for ppl coming in on non immigrant visas too.
usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas.
Also, Trump approved for. Ore H1B Visas this year.
parent and gp comments are talking about "immigrants" . where do you see illegal immigrants ?
Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?
Are you saying 'immigrants' anywhere in this thread automatically implies 'illegal immigrant' . Thats really confusing to me.
> Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?
this is ridiculous twisting of my comment. I was just correcting record about population increase from immigration. population increase doesn't happen just from immigrant visas, ppl on non-immigrant visas stay in the country often for decades.
But sure, somewhere around 4-5 million illegal/undocumented immigrants, add another 10 million or so non-immigrant visas (which I agree, tend to have people end up staying for lots of other reasons), we're still somewhere around 15 million or so migrants with most of those having some kind of stable job lined up before they arrive. It's still less than 5% of the overall population increase with these migrants, but now a lot of these in this addition are largely economically self-sufficient from the get-go (those with work visas). You're not really changing my point at all.
In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?
Also, your claim of:
> usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas
is factually incorrect. The US issued around 11.5 million non-immigrant visas, of which 8.5 million were visitor visas. So not a total of 15 million visas and excluding the tourism its really about 3 million non-immigrant not-tourist visas.
> in 2024, in Fiscal Year 2024, we issued 11.5 million visas, and that’s a world record for us, breaking all previous records. Of these 8.5 million were visitor visas.
https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-s...
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...
There were 10,438,327 non immigrant visas. Out of which there were 5,902,426 b1/b2 and 29,286 B1.
looks like i din't count ppl with BCC in visitor visas.
> In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?
again, i didn't say this. i was just trying to correct the record. I honestly have no say in "how many is too many" . i have no idea how to even think about that to come up with a framewrok to answer that question
There were not 12 million immigrants entering during the Biden administration. Please provide balanced proof.
The only people in NY that claimed we couldn’t handle it were the Mayor who was trying to get out of his blatant corruption by appealing to Trump.
Funny how that seems to have ended magically as soon as Trump was elected.
We all point to Texas's education department as a laughing stock of results. But we expect Texas to bear a massive part of the burden of low income non-English migrants while using the same measuring stick to compare. And we act like this is fair. And don't get me wrong, Texas' legislature is complicit for the failure! We should all do more to support these communities.
I do agree, it's largely a self inflicted problem. But things need to change to properly deal with the increase in those relying on public programs. They're underfunded, understaffed, and under supplied. We're not setting people up for success, and it shows.
It can't possibly be that hard to find Spanish speaking teachers in Texas.
When you can have 80% of the take home apay but have fewer parents issuing death threats while filling tacos at Taco Bell (and they pay for your community college to go elsewhere) it's no surprise teachers choose to go elsewhere.
Practically every school district in Texas is facing a qualified teacher shortage.
Of course, the Trump admin has responded to this by deciding not to fund the TQP grant program, which in part trains and places teachers in high-need areas like STEM, special ed, and bilingual ed. This struggle is mostly a self-inflicted policy choice.
I'm saying we need to change our funding for education and protect workers rights. We need to crack down on those hiring illegal labor. I agree things need to change. I think the federal government should acknowledge we're being more impacted by immigration than many other states and help more with education and other social programs. I think it was a bad choice for us to not expand Medicaid back in the day and I think its bad we're talking about restricting it more. I'm probably not the person you're picturing in your mind, I'm going to go ride a bicycle to pick up my kids from school today and I've talked a few friends of mine out of buying a pickup truck.
> And don't get me wrong, Texas' legislature is complicit for the failure!
I'm fully agreeing at least half the problem is within.
> Rounding people up and locking them up won’t solve the other self inflicted problems
I agree! I don't think a lot of what Texas is doing is good!
The Democrats, who love to lecture everybody about "protecting democracy", are attempting to sway voter demographics in their favor through illegal immigration. California used to be a Republican state till it was turned deep blue through immigration.
And one-party states produce the worst, most incompetent politicians, who rise to the top not through the battle of ideas, ability and accountability but through political favors and backroom deals.
Gavin Newsom is the perfect example of this.
If they're failing, they're failing extremely well. I wonder how we get some of that failure in my part of the country?
Remind me again why we want to kick immigrants out?
Trying to research this, I see examples like Denver and Chicago that have had struggles, anx did things like limit shelter stats to 72 hours. I found no examples though that were point blank: "we cannot handle this." Again, excluding mayor Adam's, perhaps you can help fill in the gaps with concrete examples and hopefully some verbatim quotes of "we cannot handle this?"
When you wrote "so they", I want to be sure that the 'they' refers to bus operators that were payed to drop off migrants in Chicago:
"The city says buses can arrive only during daytime hours so volunteers can be available to help, but bus drivers are responding by dropping migrants off in Chicago suburbs at night." [1]
The '2 buses per day' needs context. That could very well be a simple ask to not send them all at once. Further, the buses we are talking about were meant to overload the target the cities. They were sent with no notice, no coordination, just dumping a couple hundred or more people off into a random place in a random city. The ask therefore of "don't send all buses just on the same day", instead spread it out so that the volunteer resources are not overwhelmed and have a chance to work with and place everyone. I don't want to belabor this too much further, but I strongly suspect the desire for 2 buses max was a lot more about load balancing than it was rate limiting.
My impression, Chicago was more like "do this orderly, we can handle it, just don't drop off a couple hundred people all at once in some random place without telling us."
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/06/1223287116/chicago-is-tighten...
load balance with what exactly ? there is only one server thats rate limiting. oh you mean other servers being border states that aren't allowed to do similar rate limiting?
you asked "examples and hopefully some verbatim quotes of "we cannot handle this?""
I gave you an example of exactly that but you say you "suspect" its not that. Chicago doesn't need "volunteers" to handle intake. City spent 700M dollars to migrant housing, employing thousands of people in all sorts of roles. You think they are dependent on volunteers to man a bus intake point? That was all clearly a ruse. Migrant shelters were very unpopular with mayor's core constituency[1].
> do this orderly, we can handle it
It was not like that it was "we can only take 2 buses total per day any" It was clearly stated in city ordinance. Why are you twisting it into something else. Demand doesn't just drop off just because city decided to rate limit.
I think you are being higly disingenuous here.
Edit: ok i see why from your other comments. You were making a statement not asking a question about cities not wanting migrants.
Anyways, I don't have dog in this fight. I am telling you what the mood was here in south chicago at that time.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/05/11/south-shore-neighbor...
Sorry, I should have been more direct. I do not see your example is a verbatim, "we cannot handle this." Your example strikes me as a: "please don't dump everyone on us all at once without telling us first. Spread it out some, give us notice, and don't do it in the middle of the night so that the people who would help are available."
> Chicago doesn't need "volunteers" to handle intake.
I'm just quoting the source, from the previously referenced [1]: "The city says buses can arrive only during daytime hours so volunteers can be available to help."
> Demand doesn't just drop off just because city decided to rate limit.
We agree there was a limit put in place. We have not yet established the intent was to rate limit vs any other plausible explanation. Even if load balancing were not the intent, that does not prove the intent was rate limiting.
OTOH, if we did know the total number of buses, then we could infer rate limiting. Notably if there are more than 14 buses/wk, then the 2 buses per day limit would be a rate limit. If it's 10 busses/wk, then a 2 bus/day max is not a rate limit beyond the 24 hour threshold, which is exactly load balancing.
> Anyways, I don't have dog in this fight. I am telling you what the mood was here in south chicago at that time.
I appreciate that. I can understand that there would have been a tense mood. The way people were 'shipped' to Chicago seemed intended to put high stress on the community receiving them.
> I strongly suspect
> My impression
so i guess its just your interpretation against mine. prbly not productive to discuss this anymore.
anyways kind of boring done to death on internet a million times before :)
Do you actually have any source to support your claim? I mean, MAGA nuts have been swearing for over a decade that there was a torrent of illegal immigrants arriving each day into the country, and that somehow democrats were to blame, but even after Trump's fascist push with it's forced deportations of everyone including US citizens without due process the numbers barely reached 100k. And now we're seeing Trump's ICE thugs mobilizing a small army of agents to assault Home Depot parking lots?
Where are all those illegal immigrants?
The numbers cited by Republican scaremongers like Stephen Miller were probably inflated and derived from CBP border encounters, rather than on how many people were entering the country. But there does seem to have been a significant surge, partly thanks to new immigration programs that made it easier to entering the country while seeking asylum. Deportations seems to have remained high under Biden.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/briefing/us-immigration-s...
Sure, it couldn't possibly be anything else like inflation after COVID (which happened globally) that caused incumbents to lose around the world. No, Dems just needed to get this one thing right and they're to blame for Trump. Sure.
I'm pro Trump and have been for many years. I just don't think we would have won if the Dems hadn't handed us the victory. Thank you Democrats!
How has Trump improved our lives and country in his first term?
And how is he improving our lives now?
Trying to understand how you as an HNer, who I’m assuming applies logical / critical thinking, considers facts and evidence as important, can vote for someone who a) is a convicted criminal b) absolutely not interested in improving our lives.
What’s the appeal?
You are happy to agree with nonsensical statements, as long as they imply your side is winning, why?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control...
That's led directly to the current mess because it taught people that the most important thing is to get into the country, regardless of legality, so you could be in place when the next amnesty came along.
We know how to stop illegal immigration--you put CEOs in jail for employing illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration stops dead.
"Illegal immigration" is simply a dogwhistle.
Commutation and Pardons under the current regime are signal about what behaviour will be forgiven, ignored, or even outright rewarded.
When they had their big press conference to announce the 900 arrests, reporters asked about plans to investigate the company based on the documentation found.
"That's not in the scope of our investigation. We do not have plans to do that at this time."
To no one's shock, they've never found time to do it since, either.
Undocumented immigrants are too important to the economy, to the tune of over 17.7 billion worth in 2005. (in Texas)
Instead they do things that look great (and check the most important box): border wall (that the US gov pays us for), security forces (that the US gov pays us for), mandating that the sheriffs work with fed agencies (that the US will reimburse them for). But passing a law that requires businesses use a free quick government service to check documents and a small agency to do random audits -- that's to too burdensome on the state's bottom line. Any one that thinks states like Texas actually wants to eliminate undocumented immigration at this point, has simply been hoodwinked.
[0] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/05/texas-e-verify-requi...
People wouldn't have continued to come if Conservatives hadn't continued to employ and build business models around undocumented labor. Not addressing the root cause of the problem, employers willing to reward people for coming to the US, is the problem with the Reagan amnesty. Nothing else would have stopped immigration like stopping the reward for immigration would have. But conservatives are addicted to their bottom lines/business special interests and couldn't bring themselves to do what needed doing to stop what they term a 'foreign invasion'. At least the dems do it out of compassion and don't see it as an invasion. The conservatives just allowed the financing of what they see as a 'foreign invasion' for a small share of business special interest dollars.
Really shows the priority of some people here. It's clearly not getting a job.
That is a strange thing to think is to blame. I'll take a guess that you do not live in a (south) border state.
People were taught they could come into the country and (1) find work that (2) paid more than not having work -- when they got paid at all [0] and still less than US workers [1] and the state not only allows it but encourages it. Why? There continues to be a chronic shortage of construction workers to fill jobs. Our housing situation would be far worse if the GOP immigration stance was anything more than a dog and pony show. [2]
The state with the longest south border has refused to require businesses use the fed e-verify system to check work id's, everyone knows they use fake ids. It's not some scandal that Reagan or the "Dems" recently caused. It's simply just the way it always has been. Makes for great rage bait though.
But, we do appreciate all your federal tax dollars paying us to "get tough on immigration"!
Texas, again, failed to pass a bill aimed at conducting a "study of the economic, environmental and financial effects of illegal immigration on the state" -- just the cost mind you. The last study in 2006 found that they contributed more than they cost. Deporting the "estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas in 2005 would have cost the state about $17.7 billion in GPD." [3] They have since refused to do another study. They know mass deporting immigrants would devastate the economy and growth.
For the undocumented that's been here awhile, it's just another day. Maybe they get unlucky and it's their turn to play a part in the "tough on immigration" hoax. They'll be back in a few days because the state and their employer needs them and no one will bat an eye when the cameras are off. Which is why we should be taking note of the extremes Trump is going to, there is something else to it; else his buddies in Texas would have passed those bills last month.
[0] https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/16/undocumented-workers...
[1] https://www.fosterglobal.com/news/report_half_of_tx_construc... [pdf]
[2] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/05/texas-e-verify-requi...
[3] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/06/texas-undocumented-i...
It is absolutely not. It is politics 101: you are the only one who can solve a problem.
War on Drugs, War on Terror.
It's no mistake that the War on Drugs and the War on Terror were both radical increases in authoritarian power, both of which were implemented by Republicans as part of right-wing approaches to addressing both perceived and real threats.
Yes, those are political objectives, but the entire point of calling them out as fascist is to distinguish them from other anti-fascist political objectives which seek to reduce or constrain the power of the state, or to strengthen human rights guaranteed by the state.
In between republican presidents there were also Democrat presidents and they did zero to put a stop to any of them. Zero. Using your logic above, both types of presidents are fascist in nature since they followed the same policies.
What I am saying is that when the state takes power from the people, it (almost) never gives it back. Just like with laws, repealing them is a gargantuan task and again, almost no will to do it. Taxes, they go up more then they ever go down.
Also, isn't it completely reckless to import a lot more people in a short timespan, without the necessary housing and infrastructure (doctors, nurses, teachers, etc) to support them in the first place?
It's definitely not the case now. Unemployment is way up. Which I suspect is a combination of factors (slowing economy & tariffs) not just immigration.
But yes, Canadian governments work for employers, not workers. Just like any other advanced capitalist country. There is an expectation that there's a "natural" unemployment rate in this country around 6%, and they freak out if it goes much lower than that.
In general, when regular people are complaining about inflation they're complaining about their groceries. When you hear businesses and governments concerned about inflation .. they mean they're stressed out because minimum wage employees are demanding some basic respect that employers feel they shouldn't have to provide...
No wonder Canada's productivity is stagnant and on track for the lowest growth in the G7. Why invest in technology or productivity when you can just cry to the government for cheap, indentured labor?
Quarter with the slowest population growth since at least 2018, excepting one quarter in 2020.
Increasing immigration is a good way to revitalize a stagnant economy. This is the great chasm between people's intuition of how national economies work and economists' understanding of how they work.
Then why is Canada's economy stagnating with all that emigration? When is that supposed economic boom coming?
The second issue is, if that economic boom is gonna trickle down to the Canadian working class or only to the top 1% of Canadian business and asset owning class while everyone else is left holding the bag?
Because we've been duped for decades with this uncontrolled immigration trickle down economic fallacy.
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/largest-joint-immigration-...
If I was a betting man, I'd handicap the number of paper-less workers he employs at his 3 golf clubs in Florida at 100. If we were to take into account the amount of work-permit-less laborers working on his golf courses nationwide, I'd say the number is over 200.
And even then, I'd bet my life on the over. Having played golf once at his club in Doral (shitty course, would never play again, even if my round was covered), I can safely assume ain't nobody mowing that course that can speak English passably, let alone are in this country working legally.
How proletarian of him to hire "normal" help. Lol.
Based on my limited experience with comparable clubs in the northeast I would have expected the properties to be run by (subcontracted) crews of "you pay extra because we speak english and have no face tats or felonies" type service personnel because that's what the old money wasp clientele expect.
I can also attest that some of the multigenerational "my great grandkids won't have to work a day in their lives" wealth types are some of the cheapest and stingiest people I've ever met, and most certainly don't care that the groundskeepers at their too-cool-for-school clubs in Westchester or The Hamptons or Greenwich speak zero english and aren't here legally. In fact, that's the expectation, because god forbid their club dues go up by a few hundred dollars a year (while they spend that same amount on a single dinner at the clubhouse).
Now, I get that "a few" isn't a trend but the effect is pretty observable. IDK if it's the customers really driving things or if the townies are simply more capable of excelling in such roles.
I've played tennis and golf all over Westchester County, all over Fairfield County, and in Long Island. On the golf side, yeah, it's townies. Same goes for pro shop, tennis assistants, pool staff, and sometimes, kitchen/snack bar staff. But the folks who mow the lawns, clean the locker rooms and toilets, water the greens? Hell no those aren't locals.
Remember folks, with this administration, hypocrisy is the point.
Omg, I’m in tears.
It’s an open “secret” in some industries that it’s trivially easy to hire illegal immigrants en masse through Florida-based “recruiters”.
If this somehow changes, some big R donors are going to be very upset.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/05/texas-e-verify-requi...
> President Trump spent much of his campaign vowing "mass deportations" of undocumented immigrants, and the first weeks of his term have been marked by public displays of immigration enforcement. It could pose a blow to multiple parts of the country's food supply chain, including the dairy industry, where more than half of the national workforce is undocumented.
* https://www.cbsnews.com/video/how-undocumented-workers-suppo...
I don’t know that that is true:
Florida: https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/100-undocumented-immigrant...
Texas: https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2025-06-05/ice-raids-...
California farm country: https://calmatters.org/economy/2025/01/kern-county-immigrati...
“This appears to be the first large-scale Border Patrol raid in California since the election of Donald Trump, coming just a day after Congress certified the election on January 6, in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency.”
It strains credulity somewhat to act as though ICE, whose purpose has always been immigration enforcement, only started enforcing immigration under Trump. I remember hearing about ICE/immigration raids for many decades now in California.
In any event I think the prior’s point was that the current admins’ zealous focus on immigration is mostly optics. The idea is to get California activists to juxtapose themselves on the evening news throwing bricks and Molotovs against clean cut patriotic young servicemen. The American electorate prefer marines to brick throwers, so it’s just easy politics. It’s been the go to gambit of the Trump team for most of his two terms. Immigration is a very popular issue with voters, but not with educated journalists who know most GOP donors like the Koch brothers are free market libertarians who want totally open boarders and therefore despite the voter concern, nothing meaningful will ever happen because immigration enforcement and reform will remain in essence a tool to whip up hysteria in the non-sophisticated. Immigration and deportation numbers don’t lie, and tell most of the story.
Gun control, abortion, immigration (legal and illegal), taxation/gov’t spending, affirmative action (aka DEI), etc.
Trump is really good at pushing buttons and generating outrage though. Not unexpected for a reality TV show star.
How did the market going up lose her money?
The loss of potential gains?
Why do you assume that that doesn’t happen?
- Chicago (2014) https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/chicago-area-company-fined...
- Texas (2012) https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/2-companies-admit-hiring-i...
- Colorado (2025) https://www.cpr.org/2025/04/30/ice-fines-colorado-janitorial...
etc.
ACSI fined $2M for the same amount paid as wages to illegal labor. How much profit did they make from that? Sounds more like the cost of doing business than any real crushing fine.
Put the management of these companies in prison for ~~knowingly~~ recklessly hiring illegal labor. Make it likely they will be audited and caught. Make it easier to get a work permit That will solve a lot of illegal migration.
Also for tech jobs like software engineering? Or only for manual labor?
This current structure of immigration status being tied and sponsored to your current employer is pretty messed up though. It does a lot to artificially drive down wages even more, these people aren't free to choose where they work.
You just provide proof of why it doesn't happen in the very first link. 300k fine for 604 illegal for a repeat offender. That's essentially saying: The cost to hire illegals is too small not to do it.
They were fined less than $400 per undocumented person they hired, or about a week and a half pay at minimum wage. That just sounds like a reasonable fee to hire someone without having to pay minimum wage, healthcare, payroll taxes, etc. If you put aside ethics, that sounds like the smart business move.
[1] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/how-do-undocumented-immigr...
Why jump to these conspiracy notions about division and blatantly ignore the simplest and most obvious explanation.
So ... who is hurt and how badly are they hurt? Because when I see the amount of perfectly legal murder, robbery and torture happening in the U.S. [5] [6] [7] [8] I just don't understand what the big deal is. I guess it's whataboutism, but when we have limited resources, why are we using them for this specific problem? How bad is it compared to this other stuff?
[1] https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/undocumented-immigrant-o... (the feds took it down -- gee I wonder why -- but the facts are in the permalink)
[2] https://www.cato.org/blog/white-houses-misleading-error-ridd...
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7768760/
[4] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor#lega...
[5] https://www.techtarget.com/revcyclemanagement/feature/Breaki...
[6] https://ij.org/press-release/new-report-finds-civil-forfeitu...
[7] https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/27/whistleblower-e...
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison#United_States
https://nhjournal.com/as-illegal-immigrants-swamp-mas-emerge...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/migrant-arrested-broad-daylight-r...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/migrant-custody-person-interest-ra...
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/salvadoran-illegal-immig...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/haitian-migrant-accused...
> So ... who is hurt and how badly are they hurt?
Your answer: not many people, not nearly as many as our prisons-for-profit our healthcare-for-profit systems. Plenty of legals rape 13 year olds, hell a legal here in my home town cut open a mom to be and tried to kidnap her fetus.
So yeah your anecdata proves my suspicion. This illegal immigration crackdown is a false flag for racism and xenophobia. As long as people have feet they're going to move, and as long as people have brains, they're going to resent and fear that.
"Our domestic systems are broken and ruin more lives so anyone who opposes foreign criminals preying on our citizens is a racist." No. Some of us minorities appreciate law & order too.
Immigration enforcement is low-hanging fruit from a policy perspective IMO, with real, tangible positive impacts on the quality of life of the citizenry. Going after the monied class that benefits from the prisons-for-profit is a MUCH harder objective (but also absolutely necessary and SHOULD be done in conjunction with the street enforcement). I find nobody hates criminal immigrants quite like law-abiding immigrants; we end up stereotyped due to the actions of the high-profile idiots.
All that said, I find that many actions which would be "government doing its job" in other countries bring out the worst low-IQ racists in the US in support.
What makes the violent crimes high profile? I don't see anything done by illegal immigrants that isn't done at a higher rate by citizens, be it rape, murder, gang activity, you name it. It's a well documented fact (you can look it up yourself) that illegal immigrants in the U.S. have a lower crime rate than legal immigrants or citizens.
As far as tying cybersecurity to this, sure. The only safe network is one that its unplugged from the rest of the world. Problem is it's also a pretty useless network.
What is a low hanging fruit policy wise is clearly not so low-hanging from an execution perspective.
I oppose anybody preying on our citizens, not just foreigners. While there might be a political need to control immigration it ignores basic human nature, which has been around far longer than any political system.
Coming as someone living in Texas - yes, it affects no one. It's always been an hallucination. We just attribute random things to "the illegals" when, in reality, they're not hurting anyone.
In fact, if you've ever been in Texas, you'd know this state is run by illegals. I drive around and I see homes being built out the wazoo and who's on the roof? Huh? Who is it? It's not white people.
I drive down 114 and they got 2 lanes closed for construction and I look over and what is working on the concrete? It's not white people. I stop by 7/11 to buy a coke and who checks me out?
People just don't like "illegals" because they're racist. That's the hard truth, the pill a lot of y'all don't want to swallow.
https://apnews.com/article/new-york-migrants-shelter-time-li...
Except these raids aren’t targeting that population. They’re going after the ones paying taxes. To the extent we have folks overburdening the system, it’s largely our native born (and refugees).
As of Saturday, it was about 118 arrests, 20 of which appeared to have been targeted towards dangerous people [1]. Otherwise, the locations of the raids have been employers, e.g. the garment warehouse [2] and Italian restaurant. I am assuming they aren’t working for free. (To my knowledge, no refugee centres have been raided as part of these actions in LA.)
[1] https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/officials-name-12-ic...
[2] https://abc7.com/post/who-is-ice-arresting-in-socal-raids-7-...
We gotta stop calling people working hard manual jobs 7 days a week the scroungers and start calling the people working 0 days a week and collecting rent and passive income the scroungers - they are the real drain on society.
They act accordingly to those incentives.
They sometimes say that they want less illegal and more legal immigration.
Biden’s dementia isn’t an explanation here, that’s really mostly just political ammo.
It would seem most likely that the Marines were called strictly to protect federal buildings, facilities and agents. The problem I see is the latter category. I am personally fine with National Guard being used to protect people and infrastructure when appropriate and when confined to federal facilities, and I'm even fine with the use of military to protect federal facilities... however, the second active duty military engages civilians 'on the streets' we have martial law and that's a whole new can o worms with explosive possibilities for escalation.
Yes, there is.
> It would seem most likely that the Marines were called strictly to protect federal buildings, facilities and agents.
So, to engage civilians deemed a threat to federal buildings, facilities, and agents.
The distinction you are trying to draw does not exist, and is simply a very weak attempt to craft a mission that can be argued not to be using the military as a posse comitatus (even though it clearly is exactly that) for the sole purpose of reserving invoking the Insurrection Act until the aggressive use of federal forces has been successful in provoking a suitably dramatic incident.
Even if we had a perfect e-verify system that magically guaranteed the result was accurate, it probably wouldn't make a difference. Not while it's use is "optional" in states like Texas.
It was a multi-million dollar if-statement that copied the expertise of the relevant law into a permanently legacy expert system.
Doing anything besides that would be illegal. But that also means there is no cross-referencing or vendor enforcement of fraud.
It did things like check if some tax-related status code was valid for the indicated home country of emigration. It didn’t do things like check against a national database for an SSN.
It basically punished people for filling out forms incorrectly or not being able to scan a document.
We didn’t get new regulations every quarter or ever. I dunno what the point was.
Edit: the everify step technically used personally identifiable information to contact a national database.
I guess my gripe is that I didn’t see how it could prevent fraud in any way a normal HR person wouldn’t have caught if it were to be caught. It’s a duplication of a process everyone was already doing.
How come the blame is not solely on the businesses willingly employing thousands of "illegal workers", not paying tax on them nor health benefits, and not even minimum wage, and in that way undercutting the value of blue collar labor?
The only way this would stabilize is if the government came in and subsidized and socialized farm work heavily and that would also never happen.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/wh...
Something along the lines of:
Now nobody is picking fruits, all the fruits die on the tree/vine, so there's none of that in the supermarket and those farms go bankrupt. Also, most of those who were paid to butcher the cattle are gone, but the cows are still there, costing the farmers money, so those farms go bankrupt. And then so do the feed suppliers for cattle farmers that don't ranch (or do but need extra feed besides the grass). But everyone still needs to eat, which means there's correspondingly more demand for the stuff which is heavily mechanised, so prices for that go way up, but because this is an instant supply shock the average person is still hungry no matter what the prices are, unless the humans start eating alfalfa en-masse.
The whole working class/middle class divide was made up by the rich to get you to vote against your interests, and propped up by pick-mes who want to feel like they're better than someone.
please tell me that's not a typo /g
Good, working class salaries need to be high! We can't function as a society without all the people who dispose of our garbage, maintain our plumbing and water supply, grow our food, provide our electricity, and support our IT infrastructure.
Only one clarification: there is no difference between lower class, middle class and working class. White collar or blue collar, we are all collared.
The middle class construct is artificially invented so the owning class (people who don't have to work for their money) have something for the workers to aspire to. A software engineer with $300k/y is far closer wealth wise to a minimum wage worker in Mickey-D than they are to your Tim Cooks, Jeff Bezos and Adolf, pardon, Elon Musk.
In a Tesla, Prius or in a old Dodge, you are still stuck in traffic while they are flying with private jets.
If the US were more self-aware and honest it would expand existing guest worker programs and create new pathways for temp labor to work without obtaining citizenship the way Singapore and Middle Eastern countries do. They seem cruel but at least each side of the equation knows what it's getting and they can even visit home every year! But Americans' hubristic tendency is to look at a place like Singapore or some other new skyline in the middle east or Asia and declare smugly "borderline slaves built that."
As soon as you institute such a program businesses could get sued for illegal labor conditions, abuses of employees, sexual abuse of employees, violations of contract law, and more. Their expenses for imported labor would probably triple.
Would such businesses close as a result? Maybe a handful would but the real impact would be a huge drop in profits—also known as a greater share of profits going to workers.
FWIW, I bet the part of the population saying that is also the part opposed to the current immigration enforcement, namely liberals.
It isn't remotely the problem or even in the same galaxy as needing this type of response.
The cause for the actions is racism. The protests are due to calling out racism and removing due process.
Anything else is denial or sophistry, that's the simple truth.
Your response is a straw man. Be better.
FWIW I don’t agree with OP in that there isn’t a single cause, but racism definitely plays a role.
And then "Anything else is denial" shows a myopic, closed minded viewpoint, suggesting any further discussion would be pointless. As is most internet chatter on this type of matter.
The person I was replying to refuted an argument that GP did not make. And one that was arguably weaker and more difficult to defend.
That’s my understanding of what the strawman fallacy is. What’s yours?
> But I think the problem is that "The cause for the action is racism" doesn't actually contain an argument at all.
Yeah this is an oversimplification and not really an actionable one. But there’s an argument buried in there and it’s not wrong. The current administration plays on existing racist and xenophobic undertones to drum up support. It’s all fear based rhetoric.
I never said that, but that's quite the strawman.
It would have been possible to reform the system, without deporting anyone the wrong color to a damn megaprison in a foreign country, or arresting people right at their court hearings, most who are here legally.
The way things are going, the protests are more than warranted, more than justified. As far as I'm concerned, anyone still defending a clear authoritarian is a traitor.
Please inform me how the US under democrats has NOT had "strong border policy"? Do you know what Obama did more than any president before him? He rounded up immigrants, placed them in front of judges to give them due process, and shipped them out of the country if they did not have a legal right to be here.
Sure is funny how that is "weak border policy"
You're talking about the same country that had the "White Australia Policy" within living memory. "Are Australian immigration policies motivated by racism?" is unfortunately not a preposterous question at all.
It is a well know open secret that not only do practically every large construction site employ illegal immigrants, but there is also a tier system for who do what job. The highest risk and longest hours are given to illegal immigrants. The next tier are those that work off the books, and then last we got those that operate legit as there need to be at least a few of those. This setup seemingly works, until there is an accident or the hiring firm suddenly refuse paying the illegal workers and the miserable details of the human slavery becomes news for a day.
They charges 4 low level managers with aiding illegal immigrants.
But I don't think the companies had to pay any fines or any owners face charges.
In hindsight I suspect the answer was to file that form to amend the W-2, but this was before the internet so it would have been much harder to get answers.
I saw them, worked with them, so don't tell me they all criminals or lazy. "Legal" or "illegal" is just a label we put on the same person, but person doesn't change.
It's non-working lazy criminals we want to push against. Oftentimes those who could get their *ss off the couch and emigrate are the most active.
Then businesses or even individuals could hire someone for an hour, a day or a year and pay them with no friction. And the check for eligibility would be automatic. Fees could be driven to very low levels by the fact that there is no creativity whatsoever in actually implementing the transfer.
But there’s a showstopping problem here: the US economy, especially agriculture, is highly dependent on employing people illegally. So a real solution to controlling illegal employment would also require the kind of immigration reform that actually allows useful immigration, and it would require a competently run nation database of employment eligibility, and good luck getting bipartisan consensus on that.
It is entirely possible to hire all the migrant agricultural workers one needs using it, but most farms just don't want to pay visa fees, transportation or housing on top of a prevailing wage.
The Nazis leveraged hatred towards minorities as a wedge to force their totalitarian control over Germany's state and society. They built up a ficticious enemy within, they inflamed society against that enemy, and proceeded to promise they would eliminate that enemy if the were granted total control over everyone and everything.
It's no coincidence that Trump is targeting California to fabricate a crisis and rapidly escalate the issue he created himself, specially how he forced the unjustified and illegal deployment of national guard and the armed forces. The goal is clearly not illegal aliens standing next to Home Depots. The goal is to force a scenario where loyalists in the armed forces target any opposition. It's no coincidence Trump has been threatening the governor of California with prison for the crime of "running for elections" at the time he's announcing deploying armed forces in California without authorization or legal standing and against the will of the governor of California.
They blamed them for pre-existing social problems. I feel the important context was that the government had to be significantly dysfunctional for the Nazi party to even exist.
The military are now being used for police work, and the police are behaving like the military.
This mob are creeping towards KristallMethNacht.
But also, he doesn't need to be literally Hitler to be bad.
What I'm trying to say, or I guess repeat after you, is that fascism doesn't have to be Hitlerian to be fascism. Or in other words, at this point it's too late anyways.
We absolutely should start comparing and measuring now, because at the point where the comparisons match 100%, too much damage will have been done.
If I was religious I'd probably pray for the US, as I'm not I'm just shaking my head in astonishment.
I think that focusing on broad comparisons is not the best idea precisely because it's way too easy to deconstruct, and "X is literally Hitler" is such an overused political trope that most people stop listening right away regardless of how much truth there is to it. It's better to focus on the specific negative actions.
Well, yeah, PM’s (and the Chancellor in the German system at the time, and now, is a PM) are almost invariably appointed by the head of state after either a general election—or sometimes between them if an incumbent resigns or a vacancy occurs by other means—as the leader of the majority party (if any), the leader of the majority coalition (if there's no majority party but there is a majority coalition), or sometimes (and whether this is allowed and whether it makes a sooner next election than would otherwise be required varies) some minority party leader based on some combination of size of minority, support and opposition from other parties, and discretion of the head of state.
And, yes, Hitler was first appointed as the last and weakest kind, but that's still effectively winning the tiebreaker set out for an ambiguous electoral result, since it could only happen because no other party or coalition could form a legislative majority.
Is immigration a new hot topic in the US?
I mean, a few years ago the US government started wasting money building a wall on the US-Mexico border whose only purpose was propaganda and dog whistling.
And is it really necessary to point out the obvious parallels between the Nazi's "vital state" propaganda and Trump's "Canada as 51st state" and "Greenland is ours" rhetoric?
If they talk like Nazis and they goose-step like Nazis, what are they? I would ask if you'd start being concerned when they started rounding up random people off the streets, but apparently that's still not enough.
Conspicuously nobody is checking agricultural businesses in red states.
Coincidence? Definitely not.
I mean, this is a guy who put out a press release about his own health where everyone could tell he was lying because it included his own height and they just found pictures of him standing next to other people who were supposed to be the same height or shorter.
The side that's trying to maintain a population of illegal immigrants and explains that this is necessarily because it is necessary to have a pool of workers willing to work for illegal wages.
Trump needed immigration to go unsolved in 2024 to have something to run on.
Liberals may make the point that removing millions of workers from the country would be bad for the economy, but you're being downright disingenuous if you suggest that is the primary reason people are upset about the raids and deportation.
Nothing GP wrote suggests that. Listing some realities and effects doesn't mean you approve of them.
Then both liberals and conservatives accuse thrawa8387336 of being a member of the opposite group, due to how bad thrawa8387336's argument sounds.
Your analysis is simply off. The side pushing for worker and immigrant rights are not saying "please keep immigrants here so we can exploit them more".
The employers/government don't do this because the prices of existing goods depend on that cheap labor. Money printing (deficit spending) through the economy has created many chaotic distortions and as a result of currency debasement has pushed the profit margins down close to zero for many businesses concentrating them in few hands.
These businesses can continue functioning for a time thanks to money-printer loans they receive in the form of non-reserve based debt to a primary dealer, but that doesn't solve the issue that the price of good inputs and the amount of money that gets circulated through work in the economy is insufficient to purchase basic necessities (its sieving, which often happens before a deflationary collapse).
On top of this already floundering problem which we cannot address, we have a demographics problem. The old, infirm, and disabled outnumber the young who work. There is no way forward without replacement as the costs of the old far exceed the young, and the only means to do so is through taxing immigrants who come here to work.
On top of this, China wants to go to war to retake Taiwan, and so securing the border is a critical national security interest/threat.
Its called a debt trap, any historian can tell you about how this and other behaviors towards empire (hegemony) culminate in destructive cycles.
The baby boomers as a cohort largely caused this, and have been orchestrating it in leadership so that the consequences of their choices don't hit until after they die.
you think tyson foods is paying ppl cash under the table?
No, it’s much better to go harass people who aren’t in republican circles. Us vs them. Round up some illegals, make some examples, stick it to the democrats (who loosened the borders and are complicit). Trump is strong, and finally cracking down on all of this illegal nonsense, hoo rah!!
It’s all theater, that’s what Trump is - a darn good showman. Some illegals will get deported, eventually some of his core will see him as the thug he is. We just need to ensure democrats have a viable candidate lined up…ideally a white southern man. Clearly the push to elect a woman isn’t working at this time - we’ve tried it twice and Americans vote Trump instead.
Also, I'll keep saying it: the cruelty is the point. And sadly the Stanford experiment shows that people will always oblige over the change to torture others if there's no consequences.
it's so widely know im unsure if you're really oblivious or being sarcastic. sorry.
- Recall back to the old republican party of just 20 years ago, GW Bush wanted a guest worker program.
- Recall back to just a year and a half ago, a big bill was in congress to drastically ramp up employment laws and increase border funds - funny enough that was rejected. That rejection by the republican party _increased_ illegal immigration
- The deportation rate under BOTH Obama and Biden has been higher to date compared to the current (second) Trump administration.
So, if you want higher deportation and laws to increase border security - apparently we need to go back to the previous administration... The facts are seemingly all very topsy turvy compared to the narrative.
If you want something like this to work, federal agents need to do it.
And if illegals are such a problem, why do the Republicans toady up to the corporations that perpetuate and profit from it?
Doing the arrests? Sure. Intimidating protesters for partisan messaging while desecrating the honour of our armed forces? No.
The only "they" doing arrests are ICE and the LAPD. The California National Guard isn't arresting anyone to my knowledge.
> local law enforcement did nothing to protect ICE from the mobs that try to set free illegals
Source? For literally any of this sentence.
Yesterday I saw a pic claiming to be of local law enforcement keeping the protestors separated from ICE. It was shared by protestors very upset that ICE was being kept safe while ICE shot at the protestors with tear gas — but(!) I have no way to tell if that was even taken this week in LA or 10 years ago in a different continent, because even before GenAI, there's loads of cases where people share videos of something awful, but label it about something completely different and use it as evidence about that other thing.
The person you replied to is looking for evidence that "local law enforcement did nothing to protect ICE from the mobs that try to set free illegals" — it's really hard to show "did nothing" from any single clip.
Even absent GenAI being pretty good now, what kind of video do you think will actually demonstrate that (1) local law enforcement, (2) did nothing, not just in the area being filmed but even when the camera was off, (3) specifically that the mobs were trying to set free "illegals" rather than being very unhappy that unidentified armed people wearing masks were hauling away their local pizza maker who they'd known for a decade?
LAPD/Sheriffs are doing vandalism related arrests including unlawful assembly.
CA guard is standing around federal properties. They normally don’t do arrests but they can and will do “detainments” until another agency can take over.
But the FBI is on site doing federal arrests (vandalism etc against a federal building is both a state and federal offense).
Not properly, they are hiding while wearing masks and not making it clear they are LEOs.
Not to mention arresting people here LEGALLY....
Doing a lot of work for you there.
The balance between State and Federal power is part of how the country works. You can’t just call in the military whenever States refuse to help you, which they aren’t obligated to do.
[1] “The clause relating to fugitive slaves is found in the national Constitution, and not in that of any State. It might well be deemed an unconstitutional exercise of the power of interpretation to insist that the States are bound to provide means to carry into effect the duties of the National Government nowhere delegated or entrusted to them by the Constitution.” Prigg v. Pennsylvania https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/41/539/
[2] “Congress may not simply ‘commandeer the legislative process of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.” Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-476
The other was about the deportations, which the court said they need to serve deportees a notice of deportation before they are actually deported.
There is no ruling that says ICE can't go after them wherever they are and arrest them.
Looking at it from both sides, they are providing cheap labor to the bourgeois, taking a penance and it's agreed that it's okay, and now an outsider is coming in(trump and his administration) threatening that contract and they expect the state leaders to protect them, as they currently are with their inaction and posturing that everything is fine and safe until Trump opened his big mouth and showed force. The inaction and posturing not being effective, now they are out there punishing the elite for not protecting them by burning down the city they love, and love for them to work in, like slave labor.
Everyone knows this to be the case in LA, the argument is does ICE have the right to go in and mass-raid? I believe it does act in the interest of the state, but I also believe that no party has ever wanted to solve the issue of illegal but otherwise law-abiding people having a path to be legal, and that issue also should also be of great interest to the state.
Count how many gray posts are here and think what will happen when they will all leave. Not to mention that this site is Reddit v2.0 and have the same result and that is not coincidence.
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
Where are they finding these actors? Why aren't the job advertisements ever leaked to the public? Why hasn't an investigative journalist gone undercover to get paid to protest?
But, you're the smart guy, right? We're all imbeciles because we don't want a ruling class of billionaire grifters to normalize the concept of extrajudicial kidnappings. My bad.
Btw, nothing significant was "burned down" in 2020 either. Some shops hit by looters closed for a while and eventually reopened. Fairfax was hard hit by looting and if you went there today you would have no clue that anything happened.
The current events are primarily happening in an area that is full of state and federal government facilities, not really anyone's favorite spot. No looting either, there's nothing to loot. The demonstrators are burning Waymos and Bird scooters, better if it would not happen at all, but it's nobody's personal property.