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Comment by SturgeonsLaw | Hacker News Reader

Thousands of people have put their pants on, had breakfast, gone to work, and then been intercepted by militarized federal agents, thrown to the ground, locked up in prison camps, then deported overseas.

Glad things are comfy for you though.

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Or just beaten, locked up, abused, then released, because after all they had never done anything wrong to begin with!

never done anything wrong to begin with

Except illegally migrate to the US without applying or engaging in human traffic and smuggling.

You may not like it, but the USA is still a nation of laws. It's also a modern nation. Third world shitholes have lots of problems caused by illegal immigration because they don't do enough to enforce the law and restore order for their citizens.

I'm rather glad that US culture hasn't yet turned into another Afghanistan or Pakistan.

It's not a crime to be an unauthorized resident of the United States; it's a civil offense. Knowingly hiring an ineligible worker is a crime, however. I'm curious why we aren't going after the employers attracting and hiring undocumented residents.

Besides, people were being deported in significant numbers across multiple presidents in both parties without resorting to the strategy and tactics of the current administration.

I know they were. But when Obama and Clinton were doing it, one of the big differences was that there were not all these Karens blowing whistles and interfering with those operations. The difference is that now there are far more deranged people who want to take the law into their own hands, and often these people are violently attacking law enforcement.

I don't like having these conversations, and I don't consider myself a defender of the current ICE. It's far from a perfect organisation and it has a lot of problems.

But it seems clear to me that the concept of law and an ordered society has taken a big hit. Trump Derangement Syndrome is not an excuse to allow that to evaporate in Minneapolis and all the other cities with extremely violent protests and attacks on law enforcement.

It seems you're under the belief that the Karens blowing whistles is creating the different enforcement mechanism.

Can you explain how this is not disproven by:

1) POTUS's own statements for years prior to taking power that he would enact a totally different kind of immigration enforcement regime

2) The massive budget increase and personnel surge for ICE, planned at least several months before Trump even took power

3) DHS policy memos shared days after Trump taking power that claimed nationwide expansion of expedited removal powers

4) Declaration of expansive state powers under AEA, also planned months before taking power and therefore months before any public resistance to immigration enforcement

These are all extremely, extremely aberrational actions and policy decisions, all of which contribute to the current facts on the ground in Minneapolis and elsewhere, and none of which were in response to Karens blowing whistles.

What evidence do you have that Karens are causing the enforcement shift, versus the enforcement shift causing the Karens, given that the enforcement shifts were planned for months before the Karens even had any whistles to blow?

Do you actually believe every person getting abused is an illegal immigrant, or are you just pretending because it's the only way to make your point?

No, including illegal immigration. There are people who have immigrated fully legally within the boundaries of the laws of our nation and still gotten targeted, detained, arrested, and even deported.

There are American citizens getting stopped and harassed for their papers.

It's always hilarious hearing the "America can't become one of those shithole countries!" while advocating for policies and attitudes that are pervasive in said shithole countries.

Here are a few examples of said violations by our government: https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118180/documents/...

Now show me the country where law enforcement does not occasionally happen to inconvenience people who in the end turn out to be innocent.

Are you also going to call for ban of all vaccines because they or the methods in which they are administered can in rare cases be fatal?

Where did I call for a ban on anything?

I'm simply calling for my government to obey the Constitution.

If they can't execute these operations without violating people's rights, then uhh... they can't execute these operations. That's not me "banning" anything, that's just called "following the law." Violating people's Constitutional rights (even immigrants', even illegal immigrants'!) is already banned.

Can't edit my prior comment, but anyway here are some thoughts from a Founding Father, 2nd President of the United States, and leader of the American Revolution, John Adams:

> We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever

Lots of wisdom in this

> You may not like it, but the USA is still a nation of laws.

I would love it if the US was a country of laws, but the rule of law has been quite thoroughly killed by the Trump administration. It wasn't very effective even before Trump, as you can see by how the prosecution of Trump's crimes got blocked or derailed every step of the way, but after his election, the Constitution has gone completely out of the window.

> Third world shitholes have lots of problems caused by illegal immigration because they don't do enough to enforce the law and restore order for their citizens.

Their problems don't come from illegal immigration. Not even a bit. Unless you use it as a euphemism for colonialism. The real problem there is corruption and a lack of rule of law. And the US is heading in that same direction fast.

> I'm rather glad that US culture hasn't yet turned into another Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Republicans are working on that.

People who were actively violating the law of the country.

Not true. As mentioned elsewhere, plenty of people were not in fact violating any laws when this happened to them.

Here's another case. In this one, the government targeted someone who had violated no laws for exercising the 1st Amendment rights afforded to every individual in our country.

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2025-04/FIRE%20Ozt...

Were these thousands of people all legal US citizens?

>Glad things are comfy for you though.

Things for my family, my relatives and me are great! When I was in my early 20s I often went hungry. Now I'm worth a lot of money. Couldn't be happier as a normal, decent, everyday US citizen.

As someone completely unaffected by both the protests and deportations, I still feel quite sad about the current situation.

I feel like we should still have empathy, not only for the people who are completely clean legally, but also for the illegal immigrants. Sure, they made a choice which put them at odds with the legal system, and yet I still don't want them beaten up, stripped of any of their rights (as non-citizens), with their families destroyed. I keep thinking, if I was in their situation, I could've made that same choice, it's certainly possible, if I was just born somewhere else.

Now I don't think illegal immigrants are guilt-free I suppose, some of them are horrible people I'm sure, and they still deserve humane treatment, I have a lot of faith that that's still one of the most important pillars of a good society.

Obviously we can argue about numbers, maybe abuse doesn't even happen often at all, maybe every single person abused has committed a crime. It could be, and even then we should try to be humane, if we can...

I am always happy to hear when people are doing well though! Most of us won't be directly affected, luckily, and I really hope it will stay that way as well. The less people in duress, the better.

Continually pandering to "humane" bullshit is why the country has become the way it is.

And what exactly is that way? Semi-official paramilitary groups harassing americans? Desperate attempts to demonize minorities? Threats to prevent future elections? Trade wars that fuck over the american economy and moronic foreign policy that pisses away decades of power accumulation? That's all the fault of asking people to be humane?

The erosion of accountability and personal responsibility. If there weren't any illegal immigrants there wouldn't be any need to go looking so invasively for them. This is a very strong course correction after many years of neglecting things.

That's some serious right wing programming.

The presence of illegal immigrants does not, in fact, mean we have to go looking for them. It definitely does not mean we have to break the law while doing so.

Also it's weird how the group that used to talk about personal responsibility elected trump, the literal antithesis of taking responsibility for anything ever.

> The presence of illegal immigrants does not, in fact, mean we have to go looking for them.

It does unless you are calling for the selective enforcement of laws.

> It definitely does not mean we have to break the law while doing so

Which is fair but most people upset with ICE are essentially calling for no enforcement due to a couple of incidents among a country of 300 million just like with any other issue being advanced by the opposing tribe. I think we can objectively say that the previous level of enforcement was not a sufficient deterrent to reduce the level of illegal immigration. Whether the current enforcement is "breaking laws" or if incidents are tolerable mistakes will be for courts to decide.

> Also it's weird how the group that used to talk about personal responsibility elected trump, the literal antithesis of taking responsibility for anything ever.

I think many of the voters, certainly enough to swing the scale, voted for the lesser of two evils rather than being believers in everything trump. As a random non-American I am not convinced they made the wrong choice.

You are free to spend your own money to make those people's lives better in their own country or even to get them US citizenship or residency through legal channels if applicable. Turning developed countries into a welfare system for the world's desperate is not a solution to anything and will only result in those developed countries regressing to lower standards of living if not outright imploding as you end up importing the root problems causing the desperation along with the immigrants.

Wrong question. The right question is, "were any of them US citizens or legal residents?" And the answer is yes, some of them were. For some of them the use of past tense is particularly appropriate because they are no more.

That is not the right question because a) zero mistakes is not a reasonable standard for any country-scale operation and b) legal residency does not preclude there being a valid reason for deportation such as violating the terms of that residency permit.

What we’re seeing isn’t mistakes, it’s deliberate abuse. You don’t accidentally tackle somebody and shoot them in the back ten times.

They should have thought of that before entering this country illegally. Millions more have an opportunity to avoid this risk right now by leaving voluntarily but they choose not to.

Citizens are abducted by ICE too. Even native Americans

Newsflash: citizens have also been deported. Maybe you're next, who knows.

Want to bet?

Nobody needs to bet - in a lawful society, the law should protect citizens from government agents shooting them dead. ICE already shot dead two US citizens. What would a bet change here? That is a system that clearly does not work.

People died after they deliberately put themselves in harms way in an attempt to illegally interfere with law enforcement. That's tragic but doesn't make the law enforcement inherently wrong.

One wonders if you would be equally philosophical about an ICE agent getting shot after breaking down someone's door with an "administrative warrant" (which isn't a warrant).

Zero citizens got shot that didn't spend their days conspiring ways to obstruct and assault federal law enforcement executing deportation orders given by our judicial system.

If you obstruct ICE, you are going against the executive branch executing these laws, against the legislative branch who passed these laws, and the judicial branch who granted the deportation orders. You are a traitor to this country.

WTF are you talking about? Next time you fail to obey a yellow light signal, you'd be rightfully distraught if you were put in prison and someone were to say that you deserved it because you should have thought about stopping at the yellow as the law prescribed.

Those people were people who previously made the decision to illegally immigrate to the US. Lots of people start their day normally and then get arrested by militarized cops because they are wanted for murder or assault or burglary or cryptocurrency fraud. The fact that the US has a criminal justice system including police that arrest people suspected of crimes, isn't new, isn't obviously worse than competing systems (e.g justice via informal militia/lynch mob), and doesn't have any implications for the use of Discord today that it didn't have a decade ago.

> Those people were people who previously made the decision to illegally immigrate to the US.

There are no limits here and there many publicly available proofs of people getting harassed and detained regardless of legal status and deported contrary to court rulings that apply to their situation. You don't need to repeat the current ICE/DOJ lies - they can speak for themselves.

You should consider how allowing millions of illegal immigrants impacts legal residents next time you vote then.

The legal immigrants have it the worst --- they're the ones who got in legitimately, that already being a struggle as it is, only to be cheated by all the ones who didn't.

What does it mean to be "cheated by all the ones who didn't"? Their ire, if it's a real thing, is directed at the wrong people. They should direct it at the ones who made becoming an American citizen a long, drawn-out bureaucratic process, not their fellow immigrants who came to the US seeking a better life through hard work. As a true blue and red-blooded American, I'd vote a hundred times to make it as simple for those people to become an American citizen as it was for my forefathers, who only had to hop on a boat over in Europe and not shit themselves to death before they got here.

>They should direct it at the ones who made becoming an American citizen a long, drawn-out bureaucratic process, not their fellow immigrants who came to the US seeking a better life through hard work.

No one is entitled to come to the US. We are not the world's soup kitchen. You follow the process we the people have decided or you go somewhere else. Period.

You alone don't get to decide this, these laws were passed by a democratically elected Congress.

> No one is entitled to come to the US. We are not the world's soup kitchen. You follow the process we the people have decided or you go somewhere else. Period.

I strongly disagree. Everyone is entitled to come to the US, and we should welcome them with open arms. Immigrants built this country and immigrants make it better, whether they're highly qualified programmers and doctors, or refugees from "shithole countries" who had to bribe their way across the border and now work on a dairy. All are welcome! Though please spare me your inevitable "have you let them into your home?!" bullshit, it's a tired argument.

> You alone don't get to decide this, these laws were passed by a democratically elected Congress.

"Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'" — Martin Luther King Jr.

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.” — Henry David Thoreau

“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.” — Henry David Thoreau

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" — The poem engraved on the plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

Though please spare me your inevitable "have you let them into your home?!" bullshit, it's a tired argument.

You are the one who's spouting bullshit, and alongside the usual deliberate confusion of legal immigrants with illegal ones. We don't need any more of the latter, especially the ones who commit violent crimes and are otherwise a threat to society.

> don't need any more of the latter, especially the ones who commit violent crimes and are otherwise a threat to society

Weirdly we're fine with the legal citizens who do that though

Hi, I'm a legal immigrant.

I've seen what scum ICE and CBP are a long time before the current brouhaha. I hope they are in a world of hurt after Trump is kicked out.

This has nothing to do with the treatment of the current people residing in the US by ICE, regardless of status.

You should reconsider it.

You would have to include ALL actions, including ICE troopers shooting dead US citizens too. You can not merely confine it to "this is what they do in theory"; you need to look at what they do in practice.

I have considered it, which is why I'm voting blue.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/09/irish-man-se...

No they weren't.

Did you even read the article? He entered the country on a tourist visa and never left. That is entering the country illegally. Getting married and applying for adjustment of status does not give him legal status. He should rightfully be deported.

Every story is like this without fail.

You just said that he entered legally. Then you said the opposite.

You do understand that visas have terms and limited durations, right?

Entering on a tourist visa with intent to stay is illegal. Do you know what the word tourist means?

Except most US voters disagree with you. Someone married to a US citizen does have residency rights, notwithstanding the paperwork quirk that you're supposed to exit and re-enter, which typically involves flying somewhere going to the US embassy to get a stamp and flying back. So just as most people don't support the death penalty for speeding, most people don't support criminal deportation for someone who has the right to be in the US but for whatever reason (perhaps lack of money or perhaps fear of strip searching and disappearing to the gulag) didn't follow the proper process. Because most voters don't see this situation as a crime and certainly not one requiring deportation, the law doesn't treat this situation as a serious crime, or actually a crime at all.

If you want to aggressively going after folks who have skirted immigration rules perhaps the place to begin is in the east wing (if it still existed).

He has resided and worked in the country illegally for 16 years. Getting married at the end of that time doesn't automatically grant you legal status, you have to apply for adjustment of status at which point they will review your history with adhering to US immigration law. He could have chosen to be deported, per the terms of the visa waiver program he entered on, but he chose not to so he can wait in detention until the legal process he has repeatedly avoided proceeds.

Majority of Americans are against illegal immigration. Only liberal elites want it in order to stay in power. The people do not want this. Every poll confirms this.

That assumes that e. g. ICE were only involved against people who have broken the law. First and foremost - this is not the case. Second: when you look at the two executions of US citizens, that is also something not touched by your comment. It is not good to try to describe e. g. ICE without also mentioning the negative sides, such as them having shot dead at the least two US citizens already for no justifiable reason.

> for no justifiable reason

How about we wait for the courts to come to a conclusion on that instead of making assumptions based on agenda-driven outrage media?

This narrative has been debunked many times already. Legal residents, even citizens, have been arrested, deported, or shot. And people get denied entry based on social media posts. Your comment is way off base and severely detached from reality.

If the US criminal "justice" system arrests people suspected of crimes, why are the criminals running the country while innocents get locked up?

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