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I'm curious as to why someone in the country for 26 years who has been compliant with regulations isn't given asylum or citizenship. I'm not doubting the story, but if this is so, then the entire system is backed up worse than a toilet and is clearly not able to handle the applicants it has, on top of the new applications flooding in.
As to the whistling, etc. yeah it's annoying rather than dangerous but at the same time, it is intended to interfere with ICE agents doing their jobs. Imagine you at your own job and someone standing nearby yelling, blowing a whistle, etc. Would you just shrug and go "well it's not illegal and I'm not in danger of harm" or would you get security to bounce them out the door? The protestors are there to interfere with ICE carrying out their duty, so they have to expect ICE to question them and even arrest them.
EDIT: Also, your harmless peaceful protestors are plenty able to engage in mob behaviour themselves; invading a church because, apparently, the pastor has the same surname as an ICE official. No checking out who the guy is, if this is the right place - nope, just storm on in and disrupt the service. Luckily this time nobody got hurt, but this is the kind of mob behaviour that can go bad.
The whistling is coordinated signaling as part of the insurgency that's being run.
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People who came in illegally and lived law-abiding lives for decades are still technically here illegally. There are avenues for such people to pursue naturalization and citizenship, but it's not simple and typically they have to leave the country and spend a minimum number of years outside the US before being allowed to reenter. As abused as asylum laws are, not everyone can just claim asylum ("Really, you were fleeing from the dystopian failed state of... Ireland?") So yeah, there are people who have been here for years, raised families, pay taxes, but technically could be arrested by ICE even now. Reagan issued an amnesty in the 80s which allowed many long-time illegal residents to naturalize, but there hasn't been such an opportunity since.
And how exactly is a life illegally spent in the United States "law abiding"? Literally every moment they aren't choosing to leave they are participating in an ongoing crime. I'm not even that invested in this kind of demographic control of the US, but the mental gymnastics the left employs to pretend that immigration law in the US isn't really US law are mind boggling to me, and it seems like normies basically just accept it. If anything violating immigration law should count extra for lawbreaking because it's literally the first area of law you'd need to investigate upon entering a foreign country.
Keep in mind that every time someone smokes weed in the United States, they are still engaging in an illegal act (yes, it’s legal in many states, but still illegal at the federal level). Every time one goes over 55 (or 65, or as much as 80) on the freeway, they are engaging in an illegal act.
There are a lot of things people do in their day to day lives which are illegal, but enforcement is selective.
For years, decades, we have allowed “illegals” to come here, we have allowed them to work here, heck big portions of our economy depend on their “illegal” labor (let me tell you, house maintenance has been a lot cheaper for me because I’m English-Spanish bilingual). It’s something we have permitted because it has benefited us as a nation.
Trump coming down this hard in “illegals” is unprecedented, and while there is a lot I dislike about the Blue Tribe, I can see why they’re so up in arms about ICE’s raids.
Yes, and if the National Motorists Association set up teams to impede the police from catching speeders, they'd be arrested and jailed and get no support.
Do you think people flashing their high beams to warn about speed traps should be arrested and jailed?
I'm not talking about mere warning, I'm talking about deliberately physically interposing themselves between the police and the speeders.
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Fined, probably. Arrested, if they start blocking traffic. Sure, why not?
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I agree that there are many laws that are wrong, should change, and even that it's proper and moral to break and improper and immoral to support or enforce. However, there is no meaningful dispute whether or not the law is in fact being broken. I personally disagree that immigration law is in this morally illegitimate category of law, and I certainly think it's unwise to break regardless of the morality of the matter. Any of these people could have been deported at any time, even if they were statistically less likely to be under a politically different administration. That's the whole reason that evil scumbags like doing business with them, because they've all got a massive blackmail threat hanging over their heads.
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Some grandma staying in the US illegally is very much not a central case of what people think by "criminal" (the directional opposite of "law abiding"), any more than an elderly hippie who grows some pot for personal use is.
I think there are circumstances where 99% would be willing to violate the law of their host country (e.g. if the alternative was to get deported to Afghanistan). I will grant you that there are illegals for whom going back would not be a matter of life and death, but 'merely' an inconvenience.
I also am generally doubtful that Republicans are really as much into obeying the law as they claim they are. Rolling coal seems to be very much a Red Tribe thing, after all.
(Or hypothetically, suppose that a liberal SCOTUS ruled that 2A only applied to weapon designs existing in 1791, and Congress banned all newer guns. "Too bad, but the constitution says what SCOTUS says it says, so I better get all my guns neutered and buy a nice flintlock pistol for home defense. After all, the law is the law, even if I do not agree with it. I certainly would not want to own an illegal firearm, after all!" is what a law-abiding person might think. I think plenty of Republicans would instead break this law or condone others breaking it, and red states would simply decide that enforcing it is not a policing priority.)
79% of refugees in Sweden have gone on holiday back to their home country. In the US, almost all illegals are economic migrants. I get trying to pick the most tendentious phrasing possible for a statement which is technically true, but you've got to ask which one is actually the edge case you imply.
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Yes, of course it's law. It's not all migrants from third world countries, though. There are people who overstayed tourist or student visas, maybe had some kids, and because of various complicated personal situations, couldn't or wouldn't become legalized. Are they breaking the law? Sure. Do I think they made avoidable mistakes at some point? Yes. Should they all be tackled by ICE outside their homes and shipped home in cuffs, even if they've been working and paying taxes for decades? Yeah, I am aware this gives some people a hard-on.
Should every single one of us be subjected to maximal enforcement of every law we have every violated? Okay, fine, you hate illegals. I think illegal immigrants should be prosecuted and deterred. I think people who break other laws should be prosecuted and deterred.
I hate drunk drivers. DUI is bad, I think they absolutely should be punished. Should the police pull every drunk driver out of their car at gunpoint? No. And I don't necessarily think everyone should go to jail on their first DUI, but certainly on their third or fourth. But some people think you should go to prison and lose your driving privileges forever on your first DUI. I disagree with these people. It doesn't mean I think DUI is okay or shouldn't be enforced. Some people think DUI is a minor violation and no big deal and everyone does it. I think those people are wrong too.
Local right-wingers of The Motte, and especially if we have any actual Red Tribe good ole boys left, do y'all's social groups make the weird sexualized insults towards the left, too?
I only ever see it as a left against right thing, or whatever Amadan is against right apparently, but I assume that's mostly a social bubble effect.
I am not really a Red Triber but the online right has no end of weird sexualized insults towards the left. Many of them are funny. Sexualized insults are pretty common among young guys in general
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Yes. Usually 'the men are fags, but the women are so ugly who could blame them'. Referring to female activists as desperate for male attention or male activists as sleazy rapists is also popular.
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"xyz gives some people a hard-on" is just guy talk. I don't see it as "weird(ly) sexualized" in any way, and I'd be surprised if it were a left-coded way of communicating. I'd be more surprised if someone took time to do a study to determine this.
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If you hang in spaces with actual leftists, >90% of their personal insults to the right (i.e. outside political insults like "fascist") are based around sucking cock or some other accusation that the right-winger is actually a gay bottom in the given situation. What that says about gay/queer/etc. left-wingers' views of themselves is left as an exercise for the reader.
That is not my experience, though I admit I don't exactly hang around with the Hasan Piker fan club. Mostly what I see in the way of insults is they are evil and devoid of human feelings, or they are stupid and uneducated. The most "sexual" common insult is claims that their guns/SUVs/McMansions/etc. are compensating for small dicks.
Dunno where you see all this queer talk. Maybe you are deeper in leftist circles than I am.
Ah, I don't mean in leftist spaces where they're talking about rightoids rather than to them - I mean in contexts where left-wingers and right-wingers are talking to each other (which is, I know, a highly unusual occurence, and probably has some variance per space). I suspect this greatly changes the makeup of the insults used.
Thinking about it, though I rarely check twitter comment beefs, a lot of the retweets there are "you are evil and devoid of human feelings", but I guess Twitter has that element of performing for a like-minded audience, and those still get dragged pretty often (the most recent one I recall was Joyce Carol Oates getting ethered by "wanye").
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The right equivalent is usually calling leftists pussies, cucks, or otherwise implying they are weak and womanly.
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Calling the left cucks is an extremely common sexualized insult from the right.
It's a sexual metaphor, but the point is the concise metaphor and not the sexual aspect: the person being insulted is meant to understand that they are willingly handing over or choosing not to protect something that belongs to them in a craven way. On the other hand it seems like the sexual aspect of "it gives them a hard-on" is the intended reading.
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I haven't heard that one for a while so it dropped off my radar. Fair enough. The right has cuck, the left has "makes pp hard," it seems. Gross.
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This analogy would work better if the drunk driver was choosing to drive drunk every single day for years. He can stop at any point, but he chooses not to. Residing in a country illegally isn't committing one crime, it's committing the same crime every day for however long you stay in the country.
Okay. Lots of people walk around every day committing some form of crime, whether it's minor violations they aren't even aware of or an ongoing illegal behavior. I am just not moved by "EVERY SINGLE DAY THEY WAKE UP ILLEGAL THEY ARE CONSTANTLY IN A STATE OF DOING CRIME!" Yes, that's true. I disagree we should make every one of them eat pavement and boot and there's no other remedy but that, but I understand this is a minority view here. Perhaps if you stretch your capacity for charity a bit you can understand this does not also mean I think everyone should be allowed to COMMIT CRIME EVERY DAY with impunity.
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I'm just objecting here to the rhetorical pose of remaining in the country illegally as "law-abiding" behavior.
If I inserted the word "otherwise" would you be less distressed?
Yes, though it's a loadbearing "otherwise" and I think it unravels the argument you're trying to make, as you're trying to argue the state should be less aggressive in punishing a completed crime, not that it should be less aggressive in stopping an ongoing crime.
I'm arguing the state should exercise discretion in punishing crimes, not all crimes are equal in severity, and not all criminals are equal in deleteriousness to the public good. This is why we have courts and judges and a Constitution, though I am increasingly persuaded by those who argue that these things are fabulations and all that matters is who's holding the gun. I think that's a very unfortunate descent.
We tried that, and look where it got us. If there is a better option, I don't know how to achieve it without writing it into law and enforcing it rigorously.
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Also it's presuming that the median peaceful resident of the USA is productive simply by virtue of not actively commiting crimes. It's still eminently possible to be a net drain on public resources whilst holding a full time job
Sure, but that also describes many people who voted for Trump. Should we deport every working-age able-bodied adult who falls below a given productivity threshold?
Potentially one grandfathers the existing legal population then applies moderate filtering to try and ensure that new additions are net positives?
That well is utterly poisoned
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If that is the deal that needs to be made to get far more deportations then that is the deal that should be made.
Genetically inferior America is a huge risks to civilization. Indian doesn’t invent tech despite potentially having as many IQ individuals as the west because they have a lot of low IQ people do. Civilization would entire be dependent on China if America fell.
If we could only do deportations based on measured IQ then we should do it.
Keep geniuses hotties and femboys, shoot everyone else at the border. There is literally zero downside to this rationale.
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If they are immigrants rather than than citizens, then yes. All immigrants should contribute to their host country.
But deportation of illegals isn't a punishment or a form of demographic shaping, it's correcting a breach in the law, like repairing a vandalised window. France* shouldn't be deporting the native French underclass because they are rightly France's problem, but France absolutely should deport its immigrant underclass, especially if they arrived illegally. Similarly, the heritage American dysfunctional Trump voters are America's problem, why should any other country be obliged to take them?
*I chose France to avoid the mess of birthright citizenship, which should obviously be abolished due to the moral hazard it represents.
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I've encountered my fair share of Irish people unironically describing it as such. They lack perspective.
Is it the "I survived the Irish theocracy of the 90s" type or are they saying Ireland is like that now?
The latter. Personally, I don't think the standard gripes about a shortage of accommodation, unreliable public transport and an imperfect public health service a failed state make.
A lot of my friends are non-natives, and I often joke that, in Ireland, there are no issues, problems or inconveniences. There are only crises.
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