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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   28374 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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First, undocumented immigrants are, not to put too fine a point to it, undocumented.

This is one of those cases where euphemisms are confusing the issue. Minnesota is far from the southern border.

Most of these cases are going to be things like visa overstays, green card holders / visa holders who had their status pulled because of a conviction, asylum claimants who lost their case but never left. People who had TPS status pulled for some reason.

Obama and Biden had programs called "administrative closure" or "parole" where the deportation case was closed without actually granting them real legal status or deporting them.

There's just a lot of complexity in US immigration. Many, possibly most, of the "undocumented" are in fact highly documented with extensive paper trails.

People who had TPS status pulled for some reason.

Someone somewhere at an ICE field office is literally doing TPS reports. Hope they remember to use the new cover sheets.

There's just a lot of complexity in US immigration. Many, possibly most, of the "undocumented" are in fact highly documented with extensive paper trails.

Exactly. Actual honest to god 'carried into the country by a coyote or completely undetected and stayed completely off the radar' cases are rare especially above the Mexican border states.

Most of these cases are going to be things like visa overstays, green card holders / visa holders who had their status pulled because of a conviction, asylum claimants who lost their case but never left. People who had TPS status pulled for some reason.

Obama and Biden had programs called "administrative closure" or "parole" where the deportation case was closed without actually granting them real legal status or deporting them.

There's just a lot of complexity in US immigration. Many, possibly most, of the "undocumented" are in fact highly documented with extensive paper trails.

This sounds like the streetlight effect to me. The words "we deported X illegals" might sound good to Trump's electorate, but realistically they wanted him to start deporting the illegals "dat took deir jerbs", not random-ass schoolteachers that lost their green card over speeding 20 years ago. This will run out of this kind of low-hanging fruit quickly anyway.

Sooner or later ICE will have to go after more central examples of illegals: Joses in restaurants and hotels, on farms and construction sites. And you can do this only by raiding the place and detaining every worker until they or their employer can prove their legal status.

I think the Trump base just likes to feel like something's actually done, and both sides are happyish to dance around the cheap labor manufacturing/agricultural illegals in the South for as long as possible since there's too many competing interests. However stuff like the Somali fraud (Yes they're mostly legally in the country) is relatively easy optics for ICE to go after since it's very very very hard to defend their actions

Sooner or later ICE will have to go after more central examples of illegals: Joses in restaurants and hotels, on farms and construction sites.

This is honestly the most baffling part of the american immigration system to me.

In Australia, we have a requirement for all workplaces to verify that a new hire has a right to work in the country. You provide your birth certificate or working visa, or other proof upon your first day at work while you're signing a document with your preferred bank account for your salary. This costs the employee and the business approximately zero overhead.

If a business is found to be hiring illegal immigrants, they are fined.

Sure. There are some dodgy businesses who hire undocumented cousins from India. But these businesses are tiny, and the problem is also tiny.

I just don't understand why the US doesn't implement this policy. Like all of the associated issues here would be solved over night.

I'm pretty sure you need to prove you're not an illegal immigrant to study or get a driver's licence here. Why is this not the solution for the States? It puts the pressure on businesses and is totally politically palatable.

That's the huge problem which leaves both sides open to charges of hypocrisy: some sectors of the American economy are reliant on cheap, disposable labour. They can't/won't get the natives to do that anymore, so they need a constant flow of immigrants willing to take on hard, dirty, uncertain work. This is going back decades, my teen years were blighted by every local talent show where someone with a guitar did Deportees (a song from 1948 by Woody Guthrie).

The hypocrisy of the right about economic exploitation is easy to see, the hypocrisy of the left less so: but they are de facto defending the permanence of a serf class for manual labour in order to keep their nice lifestyle of abundance going.

The problem is you have to enforce immigration law consistently, nationwide. Otherwise the non-compliant businesses gain a substantial competitive advantage.

This is honestly the most baffling part of the american immigration system to me.

In Australia, we have a requirement for all workplaces to verify that a new hire has a right to work in the country. You provide your birth certificate or working visa, or other proof upon your first day at work while you're signing a document with your preferred bank account for your salary. This costs the employee and the business approximately zero overhead.

But it costs those Australian businesses collectively billions of dollars in (direct and indirect) labor costs. Hiring illegals would be significantly cheaper, after all. Which is why the Americans don't do work permit checks. Every push for legislation like that would be met with intense lobbying from employers in the stereotypical sectors (farming, construction, hotels, ect.).

But it certainly also helps that a faction of the blue tribe is also opposed to work permit checks, for different reasons.

Sooner or later ICE will have to go after more central examples of illegals: Joses in restaurants and hotels, on farms and construction sites.

It's possible that by that time the anti-ICE movement will have discredited itself so much that no one will care.

Or, that if the anti-ICE movement is in power, that they might be tempted to spend political capital to make them legal (such that they can't be targeted again as they have been this time). Which is arguably the revealed preference of the Trump admin anyway.

What good is retaining their illegal status, if enforcing it somehow "reveals the preference" for revoking it?

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