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Notes -
General poll of opinions here, since I don't see much conversation about it - either because of news bubbles or general disinterest in discussing the ugly side of authoritarianism.
Main query: Are the blackbagging tactics of ICE a necessary evil, a dangerous overstep, or some nuanced in-between?
Genuinely, I don't have a steelman for blackbagging tactics. Right now, ICE is targeting a certain type of "undesirable", namely, allegedly undocumented illegal immigrants, and appear to have carte blanche to apprehend anyone who disrupts that process. But the hallmark of authoritarianism is to expand the definition of "undesirable" to include your political opponents - and if blackbagging undesirables is already palatable, then you can blackbag your political opponents. It's a matter of convenience that political enemies are already attempting to disrupt the blackbagging of undocumented illegal immigrants - it makes that leap that much easier were it to happen. How convenient as well that there's now an entire organizational apparatus gaining valuable experience in how to make people disappear on US soil? They may look like mall cops who are dressed for the paintball arena for now, but if they happened to get any of that DoD money...
Blackbagging by ICE seems to be an extrajudicial process by design, as a flex of the unitary executive theory that the judiciary exists only to serve the will of the executive. The judiciary is viewed as uncooperative and painted as obstructive, despite being intentionally hamstrung by the right wing of congress that has refused for several presidential terms to pass any immigration reform despite bipartisan efforts. One doesn't have to look very hard at all to find red tribe voices foaming at the mouth to declare enemies of the state: official mouthpieces of the current administration, senators, congresspeople. History rhymes, and I know enough of the current admin has read Carl Schmitt to recognize the paths that are available to them at this point if they happen to be hungry for power.
Ending query: Assuming (for the sake of this question) that the end goal of this administration is to establish a type of authoritarianism where people are kidnapped and disappeared because of vocal opposition to the regime, what should be the response by the opposition that would want to prevent that? History buffs, what are the best examples of countries barely recovering from the brink of authoritarianism?
Edit: I appreciate the responses, there was actually quite a bit of variety which was nice to read. I came away with a steelman (which I didn't have originally) which is that the theatrics of ICE is meant to intimidate illegal immigrants. In effect, it would seem like that would select for immigrants who are reckless and fearless (yikes), or immigrants who face such extreme danger in their home country that even Twitter videos of brown people being tackled by men in masks doesn't slow them down (these desperate people would probably be considered "authentic" refugees by most leftists, and not just "economic migrants").
The deportation LARPing events are stupid wastes of political capital meant to appease fools like Catturd that want to watch a few dozen immigrants be manhandled by armored goonsquads on Twitter and Fox News. This is the type of crap that made Dems freak out when they won the presidency and do defacto open borders via loophole. With the current bent now the public will have even more reasons to associate any enforcement of immigration laws with authoritarianism. It's just a dumb, unforced error by Republicans who are listening to their sectarian cheerleaders instead of trying to be strategic with their approach.
If MAGA actually wanted to deal with immigration, they'd first take the R trifecta and pass comprehensive immigration reform like the old Lankford bill, but an even tougher version. Close the loopholes and make it harder for Dem presidents to not enforce the law. Have more of their executive orders get shredded in the courts like DAPA did during Obama's tenure, and like a lot of Trump's EOs always do. This at least does something to prevent the problem from getting worse, and is the lowest rung on the totem pole in terms of political capital required.
Then, if Republicans want to remove the illegals already here, go after the employers that hire them. Break the incentive structure that acts as a magnet to illegal immigrants in the first place. This will cause economic pain and will take a lot more political capital, but is better than hurling immigrants out one-by-one. Note that I don't really think this is actually a good idea, at least for throwing out the entire illegal population as there are a lot of jobs Americans genuinely don't want to do for illegal-tier prices. I'd go after some of the legal immigrants instead, mainly the H1B scourge that's drenched in fraud and that's actually hurting the employment prospects of Americans for good jobs.
You are misinformed, the MAGA/Tea-Party Right isn't looking to change existing law, they're looking to enforce the existing laws.
Trying to "make it harder for Dem presidents to not enforce the law" by changing the law is charitably a fool's errand, and less charitably completely asinine. What is supposed to stop a future Democratic president from just not enforcing the law against not enforcing the law?
No, the real way you make it harder for Democratic presidents to not enforce the law is by setting the precedent now that such behavior will come with harsh consequences.
I don't see how "consequences" is the right model here. The current administration (and future ones with the same goal) would enforce immigration law regardless of what Democrats do in power.
Unless harsh consequences is actually a thought experiment/answering the question? Do you have any ideas for harsh consequences?
The harsh consequences are the terror, pain, and distress of the deportation process, ideally aggravated as much as possible by willful right-wing executives. This is what I referred to in my other post as the "psychic wound" -- make being an illegal in the US as traumatic as possible, and many of them will self-deport, while others, not yet in the US, will be scared of the danger and not come at all.
There is no meaningful way for the state to bind its descendants. Laws can be changed or ignored. Personnel will change. Short of a constitutional amendment -- which ain't happening, and even if it did, could theoretically happen again after that to undo it -- there is no way to stop the next admin from fucking everything you did up.
So solutions must be outside the usual bounds of law and state capacity. The solution is to create something that outlasts any one administration. Memories of horror and pain are one such option -- generational wounds, enduring long after Trump's out of office and the next Democrat is once again promising infinity immigration with no brakes and permanent amnesty.
Or maybe administrations should not try to bind their successors by extralegal means, because the fact that it is difficult is a feature not a bug.
I don't agree that the Trump administration is engaged in unusual thuggishness, but whether they are or they aren't, they shouldn't.
I agree, it'd be great if they didn't. Unfortunately, we've had multiple administrations fill the nation with illegals, who contribute to the electoral power of the very administrations that do this, and they then dodge (with help) the legal means of deporting them.
It'd be lovely if I could make Democrats stop, but I can't. So instead, I'm going for the fixes that are actually possible.
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