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Comment by mekdoonggi | Hacker News Reader

"Why would anyone be opposed to deporting criminals" is verbatim what I've read from conservative commenters.

That isn't the issue being discussed. This is illustrating that armed, masked goons as a political weapon is a pandora's box that will get turned against everyone, regardless of status. Some people just don't care about the violence in Minnesota because it isn't happening to them.

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Almost every major US criminal constitutional rights case started with an actual criminal, or at least someone unsavory. Miranda was a rapist. Gideon of Gideon v. Wainwright was a burglar. Brady of Brady v. Maryland was a robber and possibly a murderer. These cases helped form the foundation of what due process actually means in the United States. But contemporary discussion surely included a lot of commentary like "Why would anyone be opposed to prosecuting murders, rapists, and violent criminals?" And that commentary was just as irrelevant then as it is now.

It's not about whether the US deports criminals. It's about how we go about doing it.

Obama managed to deport more illegal immigrants than Trump. The difference is the local cities and states were working with ICE, rather than weaponising it to try and get a Democrat president.

Obama even gave Tom Homan a medal for his work.

You forget that Obama wasn’t an idiot and did everything above board. Sanctuary cities existed back then, federal agents still enforced immigration rules just without Gestapo-like sh*t stirring. Trump wanted to provoke Minneapolis with aggressive highly visible tactics, and he got what he wanted.

The difference is that the Obama version was done with due process, i.e. constitutionally.

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