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Comment by ipv6ipv4 | Hacker News Reader

That’s one way to push generally law abiding, tax paying people into the black market where they won’t pay taxes, and have a higher likelihood of dabbling in criminal enterprise.

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Perfect way to fill up the for-profit prisons and get that unpaid workforce that will replace all the migrants.

Do the feds still use for-profit prisons?

No, but the feds still rent prisoners out for forced labor. The profits merely go to someone else.

Stopped via EO (Biden) in November 2022.

Trump can easily start using them again, should he care to do so.

Most if not all of those were revoked by Trump EOs.

In case you're serious about the question, the answer is a yes.

Emphasis mine.

> Seventy-five percent of the prisoners in U.S. Marshals custody are detained in state, local and _private_ facilities; the remainder are housed in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities.

https://www.usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/prisoners/operation/cu...

Here is another source:

> The U.S. Marshals Service detains about 60,000 people a day who are awaiting federal trial or sentencing. While it doesn't operate jails, it does partner with public and private detention facilities. The service assesses detention conditions at these facilities.

> We found shortcomings in its oversight. For example, many deputies who reviewed state and local facilities hadn't received required training. Additionally, some facilities didn't meet some standards for 3 years in a row, including food safety standards.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106348

Honest question: What is the plan for all these "illegals" once they're rounded up and sent to "Alligator Alcatraz" or whatever detention facility? Are they just gonna be held indefinitely? Is there gonna be some sort of court proceeding to determine their "legality"?

no, they're (illegally) using a private intake system to bypass the courts.

And I think their argument is that the detainees (the "illegal aliens") are not US citizens (according to them), therefore US laws and courts are not applicable.

Plan?

Slave labor, perhaps: https://snyder.substack.com/p/concentration-camp-labor

This seems like the most likely thing to me, in no small part that it’s already why American prisons exist in the first place.

Republicans would argue they are already dabbling in "criminal enterprise" by having trouble with ICE. You might then argue that "but they haven't been convicted" which is true, but you also know the republicans don't agree with that either.

Being undocumented is a civil offense, not a criminal one. The distinction is relevant, and important.

US Code appears to disagree:

8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien

(a)Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

Ref: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325

Would that apply to dreamers (people who were brought into the US by their parents when they were minors)?

Dreamers are not protected by congressional law, they're protected by an Obama executive order (DACA). Which means that protection could be removed by Trump at the stroke of a pen. Dreamers really entirely on the moral compass of Trump...

Visa application forms are really long and complicated and it's easy to make a mistake somewhere. With some motivated investigation and sufficiently broad interpretation I expect you could accuse most foreign visitors of "misrepresentation and concealment of facts"

This is also exactly why the de-naturalization is such a scary threat, it's essentially impossible to be 100% truthful given how all the questions are worded on application forms.

> concealment of a material fact

For what it's worth, when denaturalization came up in the first Trump presidency, SCOTUS threw them out of court because they deemed the word "material" as... very material. Though who knows if they'll change their tune this time.

What do you mean, you don't think it's perfectly reasonable to ask

Have you EVER been a member of, involved in, or in any way associated with any organization, association, fund, foundation, party, club, society, or similar group in the United States or in any other location in the world?

And then demand dates, locations, roles, etc for each and every time you have?

Not going to dig too far to try and find updated numbers, but as of 2014 about 2/3 of people who had entered the country illegally that year were people that overstayed their visa and the ratio had been on an upward trend for quite a while.

I'm sure you could torture that into applying to that situation, but at least on a very plain reading it doesn't sound like it applies generally to those people.

> 2/3 of people who had entered the country illegally that year were people that overstayed their visa

That doesn't make sense. If you overstayed the visa then you (probably?) entered legally, not illegally. Did you mean something else?

I guess they mean “in the country illegally” but I presume you could also argue that if they entered intending to overstay the visa, they entered illegally.

Yeah something like that. Of the people who entered the country that year and who were now in the country illegally, 2/3 had entered on a valid visa.

Was trying to figure out a succinct way to say that and instead just butchered it. Words are hard.

8 USC 1325 and 1326 represent a fraction of immigration cases, mostly Mexican or South American smuggling. There are many other categories of undocumented person.

What are the categories you're thinking of and what % fit into each?

You should clarify what you mean by undocumented. "Oops I lost my passport somewhere" is very different from "I lack documentation because I crossed the border illegally."

Depending on the circumstances, the mood of a Federal agent, and of a prosecutor it could be charged either civilly or criminally. The sibling comment explains this better than I could.

Stepping past the direct offense of being here, one must ask how are they supporting themselves financially? Assuming they are workers, they’re either not paying taxes (a crime) or stealing the identity of a citizen in order to fool an employer. Now they are at least paying taxes, but they’ve victimized a lawful resident or Citizen. This is far from a victimless crime, it took my mother two years to fully clear her name after this occurred to her identity. The IRS and credit agencies are not very understanding.

Improper entry is a criminal offense (crossing the border illegally, etc.)... unlawful presence (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil offense.

Republicans will argue whatever orange Kim Jong Un and mass media tell them to this week, but this doesn't mean any of those arguments are logically sensible or connected to reality. As a libertarian I steelmanned Republican points for far too long, but at this point they're completely off the rails. All that remains is a fascist anti-American juche cult, and the main question is what are we going to do about it.

What other regulations do you think people should get to avoid under threat of not paying their taxes if forced to follow them?

A drug dealer who pays his taxes has committed less crimes than one who doesn't unless the IRS reports income to the DEA, then tax savings are a benefit of drug dealing as filing taxes becomes a violation of the 5th amendment.

That's a great point, and I didn't think of that. Taxes should allow you to admit to any crimes with zero repercussions. If you list income from your child prostitution ring, it should be illegal to save the children because it violates the sanctity of CPA-client privilege.

Ah yes, think of the children is always a good way to defend a country of laws from becoming a defensless emotional wreck that has a future worthy of no child.

When in doubt just appeal to people's sense of morality by telling them children are getting touched or something.

I don't understand your convoluted question. In any case, I'm fairly certain it misses the point. Going after people via their taxes is not going to achieve the intended effect of kicking people out. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways, just like prohibition boosted and cemented organized crime in America.

Actually, NOT going after undocumented people via their taxes won't achieve the intended effect you're hoping for. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways even more.

There, now we've made equally irrefutable claims.

https://www.openice.org/ covers lost tax revenue

Honestly why are any of us paying taxes? The probability of future IRS enforcement has never been lower than it is right now.

Beyond that, as we gradually slide towards having zero political representation and near-zero actual human rights, it becomes more and more questionable what we're getting for our tax dollars. The contract between the taxpayer and the government is being eroded.

There is no contract between taxpayer and government. We use "the social contract" as a polite euphemism for the terms of tyranny we live under.

Real contracts offer a chance for all signatories to consider the terms and the opportunity for either party to reject the terms and not be bound to them.

You'll note that you never had the choice to decline "the social contract", because again, it wasn't a contract you agreed to, it was the terms of tyranny you were being made aware of.

The IRS can audit a failure to file taxes without any time restriction. So if you think there's a decent chance that the US will ever again have a president that desires a functioning government, you should probably pay your taxes.

But the possibility for selective enforcement against perceived enemies of the state is still present.

I've never paid taxes based on fear of enforcement.

I completely agree that ICE, or anyone, having my tax info is a violation of my privacy and is of course total BS. However, as a legal worker in the US, I don't think ICE violating my privacy will push me toward the black market. Wouldn't moving from the legal workforce to the "black market" be a big risk on my part?

They're obviously not talking about you.

The goal is to force self-deportation. Whether this will be successful is too early to say.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/27/immigrants-s...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/self-de...

Edit for reply: As for the comparison with prohibition, I don't quite agree. The clampdown on CP, despite being just images and data as much as regular P, has thankfully been very successful. The government actually can clamp down on things, even purely digital information, when it has the will.

Yes, and the goal of prohibition was to end alcohol consumption. Instead it cemented organized crime in America.

There is an unmistakable hint of cognitive dissonance when the administration believes that the best way to get at "freeloading" illegal immigrants is through their taxes.

Like lighting your house on fire to get an unwanted party guest to leave.

Going by the track record of their other so-called "plans" - no, this will not be successful.

they're not doing it to be successful, they're doing it to create an unimpeachable internal security force

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