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This solution would still work nearly as well if ICE just acquired a reputation of being very efficient, without the Trumpian "fuck the left" optics.
Lol, Lmao even. Why do you think ICE gets to pick their own optics? Like any federal agency, they get to wear whatever label the media slaps on them today. And the leftoid media industrial complex has decided "nazi storm troopers" is the label ICE gets to wear for the foreseeable future.
Compared to most feds, ICE seems to be undertaking an extremely difficult task, that puts them in quite a lot of personal danger, in a reasonably professional manner. That puts them in the top 5% of efficient agencies as far as I'm concerned. Lefty shitflinging will happen completely independently of how ICE is actually performing, because it mostly works at convincing the average lefty voter their country is turning into the Fourth Reich.
They literally posted a montage of dudes in masks blowing up doors and arresting people with the pokemon theme song.
No media bias required to look retarded
You did the meme.
I voted for this, actually. Deport all foreigners, especially the legal ones, especially the unnaturalized paper citizens, especially the anchor babies. I do not care about their rights, I do not care about their welfare, I do not care where they go when they leave here, I care that they are gone. The longer it takes to accomplish this, and the more resistance encountered, the less I'm going to care about norms, or laws, or rights, or anything other than what I want accomplished.
This is called being a reactionary. The thing is, you can simply fix what I'm reacting to and I won't be a reactionary any more. Neat trick.
I agree! That's why they're going after farms and hotels, two of the biggest employers of illegal immigrants and the main reason they come to America.
Oh wait, they explicitly said they aren't...
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"Gotta catch 'em [illegal immigrants] all" has long been a mantra of Trump and his his supporters.
You think its retarded because the media bias in this country has led you to believe Anarcho-Tyranny is an acceptable form of government. That montage was a cute little poke at the fact that its not, and times are a' changin.
No I think it's retarded because it looked bad and doesn't help them achieve their stated goals.
The economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.
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You would prefer "Ride Of The Valkyries" or "Bad Boys" or "Paint it Black" perhaps?
None of the above. I take law enforcement seriously and I expect the government should too.
Well, "Bad Boys" is kinda hokey, but "Ride of the Valkyries" is serious and "Paint it Black" is in a minor key. So maybe you want no music at all, just ICE agents shouting and the sounds of the raids?
I would prefer 0 montages posted by law enforcement to tiktok, to be clear
That just completely cedes the media ground to opposition agitprop.
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Because they're posting videos from their own raids, and those videos get lots of engagement, and the reactions to the videos that ICE posts is largely in line with what you'd expect given what footage ICE chooses to show and how they choose to show it.
Yes, but that is all far, far downstream of the media industrial complex's and the DNC's (but I repeat myself) decision to push the idea that immigration law doesnt matter and anyone who enforces it is a evil nazi. What options does ICE have? Attempt to arrest between 10-30 million illegals, give them multiple hearings, provide all legal care and shelter during said hearing period, while being fought tooth and claw by approximately half of the population? Lol, not a fucking chance.
ICE is doing the only thing it can do- demonstrate in a highly visible way that they will enforce the law, and the days of free-riding are over, might as well self-deport doe the thousand bucks and free plane ticket. If this offends the left, well, fuck it, they broke the system first.
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Consider the possibility that you are in a bubble. Twitter will show you what it thinks you want to see. When I look at the last "cruel" ICE post on twitter, it shows 161k likes and 10k comments, almost all of which appear to be positive on the logged-out, incognito-mode mirror I'm checking.
I don't think faul_sname meant that the reaction is overwhelmingly negative. But if the positive reactions are along the lines of "hell yeah! make illegals afraid!" rather than "ah, normal policemen doing their work normally, how neat and orderly" then it's still support for the claim that ICE is deliberately projecting an image of themselves as scary chaotic mofos. Which they are. You might very well think that's a good thing because it'll intimidate illegals into self-deporting, but "ICE are scary goons" isn't left-wing slander, it's the image they're deliberately leaning into because that's what Trump's base wants them to do.
I think the "chaotic" you slipped in with no justification there is doing basically all the work in holding up your position.
They're projecting themselves as competent, efficient, confident, inevitable, and actually having a great time doing it.
All of those things seem pretty fine for law enforcement.
That may be what they're attempting to do, but if so, I don't think it's working. "Chaotic", in the sense of "unpredictable; not reliably constrained by rules", is definitely part of the current image - see all the hubbub about their (supposed?) lack of respect for due process. I think if you're a legal immigrant, or indeed a birthright citizen who looks superficially foreign, you aren't currently going to have absolute confidence that ICE will leave you alone - or even let you go with an apology, if they should get you by mistake. To an even greater extent, if you are an illegal immigrant, I don't think you're going to be confident that ICE will guarantee you all the protections and legal counsel that you're entitled to.
And I… don't think this is an effect of left-wing smear campaigns? I get the vibe that these are, if not objectively justified fears, then at least fears that ICE are happy to encourage, presumably because they feel like it enhances their intimidation factor. They could certainly do more to fight that impression, if it is indeed a misconception. Hence, optics-wise - chaotic, not just efficient.
AFAICT, thus hubbub is just bad faith lies. We had a month-long national meltdown over a single missed piece of paperwork that had no material effect on the outcome. When progressives say "due process" what they mean is "continue the process until we win".
No, I actually talk to immigrants, including illegal ones, every day. Legal immigrants think ICE is snatching anyone, legal/illegal/citizen who happens to be brown and black-bagging them to never be seen again. I have had multiple strangers tell me they believed this. This is not an even slightly justifiable belief, but it is the natural result of the relentless propoganda being pushed by progressives.
And for the last time, this is not a justified belief. All data I can find says ICE error/failure rates are lower than almost every other government agency. Maybe instead of relentlessly hammering how understandable it is that innocent people are believing these lies, you could try correcting the lies.
Then please justify that claim.
That is exactly my point. This is the widespread belief. I agree it's obviously not actually happening, but it is so widespread that I don't think that fact can be attributed to "bad faith lies" alone - at least, not in the sense of lies perpetrated by enemies of ICE and which ICE is fighting back against with any real vigor. I think the prevalence of that paranoia proves that ICE is very bad at optics. Either they are deliberately encouraging this kind of paranoia, or at the absolute minimum, they are inordinately terrible at fighting back against the smears. Which brings me to my next point -
They have not made any PR efforts to counteract that impression. (To my knowledge! I would be happy to be corrected! But if they have, why do they never come up in these threads?) If what we're looking at is the result of an unwanted smear campaign, then where's the counter-propaganda? Where are the ICE spokesmen releasing prominent public statements to the tune of "we have nothing against legal immigrants and we will do everything in our power to make sure they are safe, we take the risk of a raid affecting the innocent very very seriously, you have nothing to worry about", to camera, in so many words? It's one thing to be accused of being evil by your enemies' propaganda. It's another to let that propaganda spread indefinitely without supplying your own side of the story. At that point, I can't help but think that you like the story your enemies are telling about you. Particularly when half of your own supporters will cheerfully say that yes, you are creating a climate of fear and that's a good thing because [galaxy brain reasoning about incentivizing self-deportation].
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I think in general ICE defenders want the perception of unpredictability, even if they don't admit it. The fact that it's sometimes ICE itself posting the videos of sloppy and menacing looking raids that serve as both content for those on the right and outrage bait to ICE opponents speaks volumes. Some here will be more open about the usefulness of this perception, arguing that it's only by creating a climate of fear among immigrant communities that you can defeat the pull factor causing people to come to the country. They believe 'I am here but at the pleasure of capricious forces' is what we want going through the heads of all immigrants, legal and illegal, as well as anyone who might be somewhat 'bad guy' presenting (e.g. tattoos, ethnicity, employed in a precarious and peripatetic part of the economy). They want a sense of order that comes through establishing, with shows of force, who is in charge. I understand the motivation behind that attitude, though I disagree with it. What I find insulting is people trying to claim that what we are seeing is genuinely intended just as efficient implementation of rules, and it's the media doing all the scaremongering.
My primary issue is that I have yet to see a left-leaning person espouse a position in favor of immigration restrictions that actually work, in any country. The mention of e-verify by left-leaning posters is a good example here; Going specifically after the working illegals is the stupidest option possible, and would result in not only still having the illegals in the country, but now they can't earn anything except through crime or charity. You can't imagine an approach better optimized to cause a surge in crime and welfare abuse, and I'm 100% sure that the left would have made fun of the right if they actually had done it that way around. This is pretty much the situation in germany right now, btw. I mostly consider myself in the center, and all I want is a working border enforcement and the deportation of immigrants who aren't working after several years of being here. But no matter what the right tries, the left will even make a mockery of it and blatantly work around it (like "help navigating how to get access to the german welfare system" by telling people who are currently in poland how to get past german checkpoints) and if not successful, they will complain until the right stops whatever it is that is actually working. I can see how, to a genuine right-winger, this will translate into "If the left complains, that means we are doing something right; the harder, the better". I'm still sufficiently worried about right-wing dysfunction to really be in favour, but the ICE situation seems like the logical endpoint of this game.
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I'm not saying that ICE is picking their own optics, I'm saying that the Trump camp are framing their immigration enforcement in a "fuck the left" way.
Okay, and I'm saying its only "fuck the left" because the left has abandoned any pretense of rule of law and embraced Anarcho-Tyranny. The left could end the controversy tomorrow, if they just said "actually yes, lets enforce immigration law and stop selectively chosing which criminals are good and which are bad. Then we can work on comprehensive reform."
"Fuck ICE fascists!" Is not the own the left thinks its is.
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Yeah. The mainstream media is definitely trying to make ICE look maximally bad, but also there's been a conspicuous decision from the people managing ICE to maximize the intimidation impact of their activities.
Which might not even be a bad idea, considering it keeps the Red Tribe happy that 'something is being done', makes the blue tribe wail amusingly and seems to have cut down on people entering the country.
Its not just not a bad idea, its the only idea that will work. Self-deportations greatly outnumber ICE deportations, and have to do so for anything meaningful to be accomplished.
The legal system in America is simply unable to deal with millions of deportation hearings, you have to set examples pour encourager les autres.
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No, it wouldn't because the optics are the primary deterrent and the right wouldn't control the bureaucratic infrastructure that would be overseeing this "efficient" process. Without the optics of swift deportation, left wing lawyers and nonprofits would be using every tool imaginable in order to become equally as efficient at delaying deportations.
Just go after American farm owners who pay illegals American money to work for them.
You don't even need to deport them, make it impossible for them to work, make them poorer in America than they are in Mexico, that will solve this permanently.
If you aren't targeting the employers of illegal immigrants, you aren't serious about immigration. If you aren't pushing e-verify, you aren't serious about immigration. If Trump EXPLICITLY says he's not enforcing immigration against farms and hotels, it's clear he's not serious about immigration.
Go after our agricultural industry and significantly increase food prices? What political benefit does that have?
Most in the Republican party don't actually care about getting rid of all illegal immigration. They care about progressives and democrats giving the entire planet a green light to migrate here.
Pause for a moment and try to disabuse yourself of the literalness of the argument you hold yourself to. Nobody who runs the country actually thinks they can get rid of all illegals and survive it politically, but if we can project an image that says "We will deport you if you come or stay here illegally." then the likelihood of people trying to come here illegally plummets. This is far more preferable than quickly creating or using a system that the left will then take and turn into an entry permission slip for millions of illegals, like they already have. If Dems and Republicans want to re-implement something like that, then ok, but it will fuck with the optics and people will flood the border, and the media will report on the humanitarian crisis, and Democrats will adopt policy to allow more people in than what was agreed to. Overall, you want to perfect or streamline something that is ripe for left wing overreach. We know this because we just got out of an admin that did it.
I actually agree with most of what you wrote but projecting an image of:
"If you come here, you won't make any money because every farmer/hotel/roofing company will be too scared to even talk to you, let alone give you american dollars in exchange for your time. You have more economic opportunities in Mexico than you ever will here."
Would be even more effective. In the current version if you can get to Texas/Florida/California and find a farm to work for, you know you're pretty safe.
Sure but then doing dumb shit that degrades personal liberty and stretches norms about acceptable government force isn't worth the marginal benefit of deporting a small % of illegals? That's a horrible trade.
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Given everything you say is true, who are my alternatives? Where is my better option?
I don't see one, and so I won't let perfect be the enemy of good, I'll take what I can get and ask for more.
That's fair enough, I guess I'd just hope you'd ask for more in general from your government and society
America is really down bad if that's where people's standard is lol
It is indeed, no lol. This is what it now takes just to see that the law is enforced. For decades, we've waited for another option, and tried many, and nothing has worked. Things will continue to get more extreme until either the law is actually enforced or America rips itself apart.
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I used to ask for more in general. I voted third-party in every presidential election from when I turned 18 through 2020 because I wanted more than what the two parties were offering.
Then I saw how Biden "governed." And how Mayorkas "defended" my homeland.
It was a tough lesson to learn, but not one I'm likely to forget.
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You have a point. I can see how that would be the case, although that doesn't mean I think that it's necessarily worth the damage it causes to society in other ways or that I necessarily believe that this is the Trump camp's actual motivation.
I can't help but see every counter proposal made thus far as anything other than favorable to progressives and detrimental to Republicans and their voters.
If they try to be legally efficient and spend months checking boxes for every potential deportee, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.
If they defer to local law enforcement overseen by Democratic mayors, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.
If agents remove their masks and get doxxed by the public, it endangers agents and slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.
If they kneecap ICE agents' discretion when it comes to use of force, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.
Democrats and Republicans working together on maximizing efficiency and morality of deportations would be something, but it simply is not possible. Democrats will resist every step of the way.
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