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Comment by jghn | Hacker News Reader

Why is ICE slated to have a higher budget than the USMC if they're only removing ~40k people per month?

Because border security is extremely expensive. The point isn't just removals, it's also deterrence & denial of entry (of people and contraband) in the first place.

The security worry isn't extra laborers driving down wages, it's terrorists coming across the border and blowing up Mardi Gras (secondarily, serial rapists or murderers or what have you coming here to ply their trade). Prevention of entry is the only defense there, because presumably those bad actors aren't here for the long haul, economic gain, etc.

I haven't seen a budget breakdown so I can't speak to how defensible the budget is, just that it seems clear that removal metrics don't tell a useful story on their own.

don't illegal immigrants commit less crimes per capita?

These are presumably threat actors choosing an infiltration route on purpose. At least, that's how I understand the logic behind it.

Parent is clearly not interested in that kind of statistic. Instead their framing implies that even 1 terrorist/rapist/murderer/etc that makes it across the border is a problem worth solving via authoritarianism. The only successful response is to draw this out and make it clearer for everyone else.

Please stop with the straw man BS. That's not what I was saying at all and I think you know that.

HN has reached Reddit levels of partisan nonsense. Sigh.

It's right there in your framing. The most charitable take available is that you're approaching the problem like a software engineer, and accepting that framing as defensible. It is not. One of the most important facts to remember at the level of government is that while we must abstract human problems in order to solve for them, humans themselves are not abstractions. When perfect becomes the enemy of the good (enough), human suffering increases.

All that aside, feel free to walk your framing back and I'll change mine accordingly.

Please stop defending masked thugs that don’t identify themselves kidnapping us citizens and trafficking them to foreign countries.

Previous administrations followed this thing we call “due process”. This admin is not.

No, that’s simply incorrect. ICE is following exactly the same process that has been in place since 1996. It can’t be due process under Biden but then suddenly unconstitutional under Trump.

ICE is not “kidnapping” anybody, and is not “trafficking” them. They are federal police officers who arrest criminals and deport them according the legal process defined by Congress in 1996.

I didn't realize Biden was instructing ICE to grab people off the street and deport them to a gulag in a country they aren't from before they can have a hearing or make any appeals. Would you please provide references for this?

You're essentially peddling the poisoned M&M fallacy. Do we need capable, rational border security? Yes. Do we need unaccountable masked men armed in our city streets, forcefully detaining anyone who looks like they might be [insert bogeyman caricature]? Absolutely fucking not.

When did I defend authoritarian masked men? Perimeter defense is an expensive endeavor, and if you read the words I wrote that's clearly what I was talking about. At first glance, the new budget includes over 50 billion (!) dollars for increasing our perimeter defense. That sounds like capable, rational border security to me.

Please stop accusing people of peddling the straw man you want to tear down. It's Reddit-tier, not worthy of HN.

A single dollar figure (with no additional context) suggests capable, rational border security to you?

> it's terrorists coming across the border

Then why are they spending so much effort deporting everyday people? This talking point is tired, it's the equivalent of "for the children!". Something that everyone can get behind but isn't anywhere near the level of problem it's made out to be.

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