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Comment by rmah | Hacker News Reader

It saddens me that your rather innocuous comment has been down-voted so aggressively. Immigration enforcement is required. Illegal immigration should be discouraged. ICE's current tactics seem overly aggressive to me and, yes, seem to be used politically. But immigration laws should still be enforced. I imagine you'd agree that if ICE agents/supervisors act beyond the scope of their duties or with excessive force, they should be disciplined/prosecuted. I also have a hard time understanding people who don't agree with what I just wrote. I can only imagine those that want to disagree think I'm writing with some sort of underlying agenda and in code to push some broader political narrative (I'm not).

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> rather innocuous comment

It may appear innocuous yet it normalizes ICE's actions as mere "immigration enforcement". Their actions are far more and far worse than that, as you note:

> ICE's current tactics seem overly aggressive to me and, yes, seem to be used politically.

It is not an issue of immigration laws being enforced, it is an issue of rights being infringed. The "overly aggressive" tactics being "used politically" is exactly the problem.

>It saddens me that your rather innocuous comment has been down-voted so aggressively.

Despite the ridiculous narrative that Obama and Biden were "bringing in illegals en masse to vote for Democrats," if you look at the actual numbers, it's not surprising that folks are down-voting that comment.

Mostly because those previous administrations (Obama and Biden) managed to deport many more undocumented folks than either this or the previous Trump administration, without the thuggery, violence and murder we're seeing now.

I'd note that even without the gratuitous violence and intimidation, folks were also protesting Obama's and Biden's ICE activities.

Because the real issue around immigration in the US is that our system is broken and we haven't constructively addressed those problems for nearly 40 years.

So no. I'm not surprised by the down-votes because there's nuance that's being glossed over and, while doing so, giving violent thugs a pass by claiming that they're "enforcing the law," even though they're doing a crap job while harming our citizens, legal residents and helping to destroy what's left of our civil society.

I'm not pushing any "broader political narrative" either. Just pointing out a few things not mentioned in your or GP's comments.

It's like you didn't see where I agree that current enforcement is too aggressive. Why are you writing in a tone that implies we disagree when we agree? This is the sort of thing that confuses me.

>It's like you didn't see where I agree that current enforcement is too aggressive. Why are you writing in a tone that implies we disagree when we agree? This is the sort of thing that confuses me.

I combined my response to your comment[0] and its parent[1], as I mentioned:

   I'm not pushing any "broader political narrative" either. Just pointing out a 
   few things not mentioned in your or GP's comments.

Rather than disagreeing with you, I was attempting to add nuance and additional substance. As the site guidelines[2] recommend:

   Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone 
   says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

You appear to have assumed bad faith on my part. Why is that? Was I not clear enough? What could I have added to the above to be clearer?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46620707

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618048

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> ICE's current tactics seem overly aggressive to me and, yes, seem to be used politically. But immigration laws should still be enforced.

Yeah, it's strange that this take is so polarizing.

> I imagine you'd agree that if ICE agents/supervisors act beyond the scope of their duties or with excessive force, they should be disciplined/prosecuted. Yes of course, it's hard to disagree with that.

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