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Comment by Gabriel54 | Hacker News Reader

We should be clear that many (most?) of the immigration raids you are describing are taking place in cities that have explicitly stated that they will not cooperate with the federal government regarding immigration, meaning that anyone in these cities who interacts with the police or justice system (generally speaking, in most cases) will not be reported for being in the country without documentation. This means that the federal government has fewer means of detaining individuals without documentation in a safe manner, even those convicted of serious crimes. We see the result of these policies now.

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The results of the opposite of these policies (as practiced by many other countries) are, generally speaking, worse. Undocumented immigrants are necessarily an economic underclass, but whether they will be a lawless underclass is a deliberate choice that pretty much entirely boils down to whether you make it unsafe for them to turn to the police. (I mean, the first part, creating an underclass at all, is also a deliberate choice—that of having immigration laws of the post-WW2 kind—but any alternatives seem to have been thoroughly pushed out of the Overton window.)

Can you name another country in which I can enter without inspection, commit a crime, and then be released, all without having anyone ask, "what is your basis for being in this country"?

Argentina. Possibly Brazil. (Kurdish / KRG) Iraq released me as an illegal after the cops decided they liked me, they even gave me a police card in case I ran into further trouble. Kurdish part of Syria will not check either, they're 'stateless' people so see such enforcement as tyrannical. Most ethnic enclaves of Lebanon would similarly work, particularly if you are Druze or something.

Also in Argentina you can arrive, on day 1 file court case for citizenship, which bars deportation. Then stall case for 2 years until you meet criteria. I personally have seen court case documents that did this successfully for criminal who arrived with fake passport.

So should we model our immigration system on that of those countries? My point is that we are a country of laws, based on rule of law, and therefore must start by impartially enforcing the laws we have. Syria and Iraq (to name two of your examples) are certainly not what I would describe as countries based on rule of law. As you yourself point out, in Iraq the police liked you, so they let you go. I do not want to see such a system in the USA.

Honestly, I would hate to live under the rule of law in the USA. Everyone that waited 31 days to register for the draft would be a felon, the guy who gets wasted and takes a nap instead answering the census worker would be in jail, and about 10% of the USA would be in the federal pen for 10 years because they own a squirrel hunting gun while also at sometime in the past year smoking a marijuana cigarette.

Meanwhile the so called people enforcing the "rule of law" are bagging people up all masked up, no visible credentials, shifting them around in jurisdictions faster than their lawyer can keep up, then sending them in 3rd world shithole prisons even if there is an active order barring that from happening.

If you want to show me rule of law, first of all show me a government that even vaguely follows the very constitution that authorized its existence in the first place. I would rather have anarchy than rule of law enforced by bandits.

> I would rather have anarchy than rule of law enforced by bandits.

This indicates to me that you have no idea how desperate people become in a failed state, in the absence of law and order.

I've lived in a failed state. The US government brutalized me far worse.

In the failed state I joined a militia, and we actually were able to fight off the people trying to brutalize us. In the USA if you tried this they would just insta Waco you.

> My point is that we are a country of laws, based on rule of law, and therefore must start by impartially enforcing the laws we have.

Would be nice if that were the reality. But we have a POTUS with 34 counts giving out a presidential medal of freedom to a crooked guy with melting hair goo and releasing all J6ers with a pardon.

Impartiality isn't real.

Is that supposed to absolve the methods ICE uses in those places?

That’s a nonsequitur. My neighborhood in DC, with high immigrant population, has a lower crime than Capitol Hill, with a far lower immigrant population. DC has a lower crime rate than the places that are sending federal agents here.

NO we shouldn't.

You are defending playground rules "why are you making me punch you" with people's lives.

Detaining and deporting individuals who are in a foreign (to them) country without documentation is not "punching them".

"Why are you making me punch you" is a stand-in for the kind of broken logic a child uses on a playground. It isn't about actually punching people (although many have been assualted by ICE). Instead, it is about deploying maliciously faulty logic in defense of bad action.

Think of it as a cousin to the "he's no angel" style defense of bad acts.

Governments have a right to detain and deport individuals in the country without documentation. The fact that ICE resorts to the tactics we are describing is unfortunate but necessary because many cities and states refuse to cooperate with federal authorities regarding immigration. These operations of ICE, generally speaking, are legal. (I say "generally speaking" because I cannot speak for every action of every ICE agent in the USA). You may find it distasteful or disagreeable, but it is within the purview of the federal government to enforce federal immigration laws.

Governments don't have rights. They didn't spring fully formed from the wombs of other governments without a say in the matter.

They have privileges. Provisional privileges derived from the people (or at least that is what some very drunk men in wigs seemed to imply). I don't like it when my government uses dressed-up faux authority (DHS just issues itself administrative "warrants") as the basis for assaulting people. Seems pretty cut-and-dry wrong. And as responses go, really lopsided.

So here I am... making a fuss about it.

I mean detaining jews were also "legal" at one point in time. So, let's just base our morals on what's legal and defend people who abuse the laws to do more heinous stuff, so we can hide behind "Generally I'm against it, but it's legal, so nothing wrong is going on here".

That'll surely make things work out great. right?

>That'll surely make things work out great. right?

Yep. I'm not sure why we're even bothering with deportations. Just shoot 'em in the head and grind them up for fertilizer and pig/chicken feed.

And if a few hundred thousand citizens get caught up in that, it's no big deal. They wouldn't have been involved if they didn't look like illegals, right?

Besides, folks like me (with the map of Ireland all over my face) won't get caught up in that. So why should I care?

Yeah, why bother deporting them. Shooting them is quicker and cheaper. We could save even more money by converting warehouses to gas folks and then we can cremate them and/or use them as agricultural inputs.

Easy peasy. I mean, it's not like they're human or anything. My god! They're criminals, every last one of them! Rapists, killers, gang bangers. If they weren't subhuman, we wouldn't need to treat them like this.

But they're not like us decent, hard working people. They're evil, twisted murderers, just like the pedophile demonrats who murdered all the ICE folks during the Obama and Biden administrations.

Both Biden and Obama just sent the Marines in to ICE offices and killed them all dead!

So it's perfectly fine to do that to all the brown^W illegal people too, right? I certainly won't have to worry about it, nor will the other white^W real Americans.

USA! USA! USA!

They aren’t legal. They disregard the rule of law, ignore judge’s orders, and display an immense amount of cruelty in the process.

They only get to do this crap if they follow the rule of law, which they aren’t.

> Governments have a right to detain and deport individuals in the country without documentation. The fact that ICE resorts to the tactics we are describing is unfortunate but necessary because many cities and states refuse to cooperate with federal authorities regarding immigration. These operations of ICE, generally speaking, are legal. (I say "generally speaking" because I cannot speak for every action of every ICE agent in the USA). You may find it distasteful or disagreeable, but it is within the purview of the federal government to enforce federal immigration laws.

Legal is a moving target. Legal was used to justify interment camps.

Be careful justifying what should and could be done based on "it's technically legal"

Punching them actually is "punching them." And these "agents" are basically roving patrols which target and violently detain people based on skin color. These aren't normal enforcement operations, they're intended to be cruel and violent and deprive everyone of their rights.

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5440311/ice-raids-maske...

This situation in and of itself is very unique and American. No one seems to be happy about it, but this is separation of powers playing out - in how many countries out there will you find states that actively obstruct federal law enforcement because that's what the people in that state voted for, versus what the rest of the 350 million people voted for? Well when they're worked up enough Americans will do just that.

Personally I'm not sure I have a huge problem with this, yes it's a mess, but I'm not at all convinced we need more consolidation of power just because of that. I'm DEFINITELY not convinced that one side or the other has what it takes to permanently govern everything and always get their way.

The same general principles are at work when it comes to the legalization of weed, with lots of little details being different of course.

I agree, I think this situation is uniquely American, and yes, this is exactly separation of powers (federal vs. state) playing out. I also agree with you that neither side, given more authority, would produce a better outcome. It is my personal observation that many on the left seem to believe that there should not be a border, and that many on the right are clearly xenophobic. The answer is somewhere in the middle but unfortunately that is not what wins votes.

> ... versus what the rest of the 350 million people voted for

Are we talking about a different country than the USA? There's ~174 million potential voters in the US, 77 million voted republican vs 75 million voted democrat at the last presidential election (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1139763/number-votes-cas...)

So there's an about even population split that is in theory in support of those policies, versus the same amount of people against. Surely it's not "one state against what the rest of the country voted for" like you're suggesting...

I think it is a stretch to conclude that because someone voted for Trump, they support all of his immigration policies. Some of the policies perhaps, but I think it is a matter of degree. Many viewed Biden (rightly or wrongly) as not enforcing the law at all.

This just feels like nitpicking over the exact numbers? At the end of the day, it's still cities/states representing some fraction of the country unilaterally deciding to override the immigration policies of the federal government.

>This just feels like nitpicking over the exact numbers? At the end of the day, it's still cities/states representing some fraction of the country unilaterally deciding to override the immigration policies of the federal government.

No. That's not it at all. While Federal law is the supreme law of the land, it is enforced by the Federal government.

The several states and any municipalities within them are under no obligation to enforce Federal laws, just as the Federal government is under no obligation to enforce state and local laws.

Which is why the Federal government often ties funding to legislation, using the carrot of funding (and the stick of pulling such funding if states do not) to compel states to cooperate with the Federal government.

What's more, the Federal courts (including SCOTUS) have repeatedly ruled that the states are not required to enforce Federal law for the Federal government.

And no one is "unilaterally deciding to override the immigration policies of the federal government." In fact, state and local law enforcement have repeatedly been used to back up Federal agents executing those immigration policies.

No Federal law requires a state to enforce Federal immigration policies. And not enforcing a law outside of a law enforcement agency's jurisdiction (again Federal law is the jurisdiction of Federal government not state/local governments) isn't "overriding" anything.

You appear to be confused about the law and how it works in the US and the several states. Here are a few links to help straighten you out:

https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-states-can-nullify-some-...

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/898/

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/144/

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/can-the-u.s.-government...

>The several states and any municipalities within them are under no obligation to enforce Federal laws, just as the Federal government is under no obligation to enforce state and local laws.

Be careful with this argument. Cops also don't have any "obligation" to stop crime, so if we take this argument to its logical conclusion, then it's fine (or at least, it's "not unilaterally overriding laws") for a cop to stand by while someone gets lynched.

Yes it is 'fine' for a cop to stand by while someone gets lynched. The supreme court ruled as such. They generally only have a duty to act if they've formed a special relationship, like having someone in their custody.

>Be careful with this argument. Cops also don't have any "obligation" to stop crime, so if we take this argument to its logical conclusion, then it's fine (or at least, it's "not unilaterally overriding laws") for a cop to stand by while someone gets lynched.

You're just figuring that out now? You're 50 years late[0] for Warren v. District of Columbia (rape, assault and burglary) and 20 years late[1] for Castle Rock v. Gonzales (triple murder).

Maybe you should start paying attention?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale...

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