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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   35801 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Main query: Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?

It's stupid theatrics. A lazy google shows they've deported approx. 200,000 people in six months, at approx. $17,000ish a pop.

If we assume 12 million illegal immigrants (range I saw was 11-13), that's a cool 30 years at the current rate with a cost of $200.6 billion (not including 30 years of inflation). You could obviously hire more people to speed it up, and maybe that would result in the same (or lower) per deportation cost from economies of scale, etc. Although as you picked the low hanging fruit immigrants, the remaining ones would probably get savvier so unlikely but whatever.

Instead, you could crack down massively on American business owners who I'd like to remind the crowd, GIVE THE IMMIGRANTS MONEY EVERY WEEK IN EXCHANGE FOR LABOR, ALLOWING THEM TO STAY IN YOUR COUNTRY. I truly don't understand how everyone hates immigrants and not also the traitorous Americans who enable them??

Just implement e-verify, it's that easy. Crack down HARD on a few businesses who you catch skirting this (you can even do it in California to whip up the base) and the illegal immigrants will deport themselves once they run out of money and can't get a new job. You could even set up free busses back to Mexico or something.

Once you show businesses you're not fucking around they'll wise up quick. Or even better, their debt and equity financiers will do it for you. Every bank credit risk department is going to start looking really closely at your hiring practices if you want a loan for your farm, because they don't want to risk you going bankrupt when Uncle Sam eviscerates your business for hiring illegal immigrants. There's also way less businesses than illegals, and they're all registered with multiple government bodies, so this is less legwork too.

The fact they're cracking down on a relative handful of illegal immigrants instead of the much higher leverage option of the people who give them money should tell you what the priorities are here. Illegal immigrants are responding to their incentives, which are "come to America, get a job, make way more than you did at home". So take away the job...

If they were serious about this, they'd make everyone use the solution they already invented, e-verify.

I'm not saying you don't need ICE, there will be people who won't leave. But if you don't fix the system of incentives that makes them come here you're not actually serious.

See also, Trump literally said they weren't going to enforce it for farm and hotel labour. "We're super serious about illegal immigration guys but shucks the hotel lobbyists made some great points..." Farms at least feed people, but hotels? Lmao, they're just not serious people.

I truly don't understand how everyone hates immigrants and not also the traitorous Americans who enable them??

The business gentry is the heart of the GOP and has zero interest in immigration enforcement via cracking down on employers. Enough politicians are uninterested in dealing with political fallout from the economic shock of rapidly expelling ten million workers. The average nativist voter doesn't think about this that hard.

Truthfully, that was kind of a rhetorical question because I believe in and fully agree with everything you just said.

So does something like half of MAGA, which makes it kind of awkward for this entire argument.

Don't totally follow you here

A significant portion of MAGA agrees that the issue with enforcing immigration restrictions are business attempting to cut costs. It's not a direct contradiction if his argument, there are several factions in the GOP, but the tension between them does make it a bit awkward for the theory that "the heart of the GOP" has zero interest in immigration enforcement. Vivek found out the hard way that it's not so simple.

Ohhhh, gotcha

If we assume 12 million illegal immigrants (range I saw was 11-13), that's a cool 30 years at the current rate with a cost of $200.6 billion (not including 30 years of inflation).

Yes, but overt deportations are not the only thing happening. During the same period, there is evidence that sizeable self-deportation, most likely in the hundreds of thousands of individuals, has occurred.

Saying "evidence" and then linking the New York Post is maybe not the most credible way of doing that.

That article did link to better articles, although both of them didn't link or substantiate their underlying data

In a year or two we'll know who's telling the truth on this

Unfortunately

  • -14

Low effort comments do not require low-effort rejoinders, especially when they have already been modded.

????

See also, Trump literally said they weren't going to enforce it for farm and hotel labour.

That has been reversed now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/06/16/trump-farms-hotels-immigration-raids/

snip snap snip snap

  • -11

What do you mean by this?

Just a reference to the office

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