Though as the constant karma farming off similarly tedious and usually poorly researched and written blog posts of the last week continues unabated perhaps I am in a minority of readers who gets their news from decent sources and likes to come to HN for interesting technical articles.
I suppose things may settle down again - they have after other big events, but... I worry, I worry.
(And for the record, for those who conflate not wanting to see every article about this with not caring about it - I care about it deeply)
They will not be fixed because you clicked the 'upvote' arrow on a bunch of stories on a niche site, thinking that "some smart entrepreneur types" will go fix the problem for you.
I just get a feeling that this is a turning point for the site, but only time will tell.
I share your caution, because I remember that for better or worse this is how reddit started changing back in the day (late 2007 - 2008), by focusing on politics (and then there came the memes and all that). But, one can sort of feel that all this is way more technology- and consequently HN-related than what Obama or Hillary Clinton had to say back in the day.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That US immigration is f'cked up is not exactly new or interesting in any case - and certainly not "intellectually gratifying". Do you remember when Linus Torvalds had bureaucratic problems with his green card?
People are trying so hard to find tangible evidence of someone doing something with info the NSA has collected that they are latching on to anything that could be construed as such if you look at it believing you found that evidence.
Maybe the solution is a dedicated HN technology page, and a separate, dedicated "Of interest" page.