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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").
If we decided immigration policy based on what aesthetically looked good to liberals, we'd have open borders.
I'm reminded of the meme of 'Top Twelve Images That Will Make You Go Fuck Having Borders And Laws', roughly paraphrased, with a picture of a crying brown crudely drawn in fake news article. If you give into emotional blackmail, then every illegal will cry and sob as they're yanked to the border. No one ever goes 'it's a fair cop, guv' and gamely goes back to South America with a cheeky, roguish grin. We're not playing cops and robbers. This is real life.
What you are getting now is the compromise between open borders and putting up guards on the Berlin Wall and ordering them to shoot to kill.
And if you do immigration policy based on what aesthetically looks good to right-wing voters, you get ICE!
Spending maximum money for minimum results, but the clips on TV go hard
They do go hard. The optics matter to people who aren't educated. Which demographic is the least educated? It's illegal immigrants. Check out the plummeting border encounters if you need evidence of the impact of TV clips and rhetoric.
The educated lib class takes a lot of pride in their knowledge of stats and trends. So much so that they forget that other people believe what they see in front of them, and not numbers on a screen or piece of paper.
Border encounters have been plummeting since December 2023 (or, as they call it, dec fy2024): https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters
In that link, what period of time has the starkest drop by percentage?
The period starting December 2024. The problem is, the clips on TV couldn't have started in December 2024, nor could they have had much of an effect even in January 2025 on account of Trump being sworn in on the 17th of that month.
Now, perhaps you will claim that it was in fact the threat of the Trump presidency that caused numbers to drop even faster than they were already dropping. Perhaps, but that's not the claim you made and the claim I'm arguing against.
I'm with you on this part. Pushback in Congress started in January of 2024, but before that Ron DeSantis orchestrated the Martha's Vineyard publicity stunt all the way back in 2022. Outlets like CBS News were documenting record high daily crossings in May of 2023. After that, local reps and officials started making public demands for federal action shortly after. It was a gradual accumulation of outrage from the right and the undeniable reality of a border crisis that even left leaning outlets couldn't ignore.
I'm not with you on this part, and I will indeed claim that it was in fact the threat of the Trump presidency that caused numbers to drop even faster. The Democrats trying to get the border bill through in 2024 affected groups from an optics standpoint. For the immigrants, it showed Democrats might do something about the border. For undecided moderates, it showed that Democrats were willing to come to the table about the border issue.
All of these things had an impact on illegal immigration from an optics or "TV clip" standpoint, but the most impactful were the "TV clips" showing that Donald Trump was elected president. As far as that not being the "claim I made" I might be misunderstanding what you're saying.
Come on. @fmac was obviously talking about clips of ICE raids, not of Trump getting sworn in.
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