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I would be sympathetic to this (because I find it quite plausible that ICE are behaving in an undisciplined manner) if "blue tribe doesn't want immigration policy enforced" wasn't literally true. Every single claim they make, every video they post, every action they take, is tainted with the confounder that they also don't want immigration policy enforced. The world where ICE is completely professional and competent would have near identical protests and complaints to what we're seeing now, although probably with fewer deaths. I don't think most people are actually protesting ICE misbehavior, I think they're protesting "enforcing lawful immigration policy" and the ICE misbehavior is just a cherry on top for them to retroactively justify their protest. For many of them, the point of being annoying and obstructive is not to actually hinder the functioning of ICE but to trigger them into retaliating and thus create more viral videos to complain about. I strongly suspect that if the protests were not happening then all the issues would vanish and ICE could just arrest and deport illegal aliens like they're supposed to.
Maybe they actually are overstepping their bounds and arresting legal migrants they don't have a legal right to arrest, but I would take such accusations more seriously if they weren't mixed in with complaints about any immigration policy enforcement. If the claims were "we should deport every single illegal immigrant, but make sure to minimize collateral damage along the way" (which is what I believe), and then claims that ICE has too high collateral damage mixed in with their legitimate duties, then I would take that seriously. But if the claim is "All ICE behavior is illegitimate" then I'm just going to treat it like wolf crying. Come back when you have a better plan which contains deporting all the illegals as an axiom, and less collateral damage. It's probably possible. But if the choices are (deportation + limited misbehavior) or (total non enforcement) I'd prefer the former.
Yes, and that would be a massive political win for Trump. If ICE were absolutely impeccable and locked in, the protestors would look like fanatical lunatics, moderates/swing voters/independents would all look at them, go, "I'm not voting for the party that panders to these retards" and help Trump not get whacked in the midterms.
Instead, they still look kind of like fanatical lunatics, but they also look somewhat like people standing up against big government, which is based (in general) and more importantly, a profoundly American tradition. Plus, the ICE violence and dead American citizens are scaring the hoes (swing voters).
That would be a massive political win for the right. Not sure about Trump specifically. I have no idea what his actual utility function looks like, but I suspect he did it this way on purpose in order to "own the libs" and bolster the flames of the culture war. I still voted for him, because he was the better of two bad options: at least he's doing something, but he is definitely not the ideal candidate to be getting things done in an effective manner.
The far left and the far right seem to have this sick sort of codependency where they need the other to exist and seem powerful as a boogeyman in order to create enough viral content to fuel their own flames. While Trump is not exactly far right, not on every issue, he copied this particular technique to great effect.
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Is that how things were before Pretti? Before Good?
No, it wasn't.
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I think OP offered that up. Go after companies hiring illegals was the plan.
Requires a law being passed. Is impossible unless Democrats AND RINOs both face a wipeout.
I would have thought that about the current enforcement actions. Trump's MO on this seems to be just pass an executive order, and if it gets struck down oh well, the courts move slow.
ICE actually has wide enforcement powers granted by statute law. It's just that previous administrations didn't use them so much -- some of this being that local law enforcement co-operated with ICE, making direct enforcement less necessary. Immigration enforcement is where Trump is on some of his strongest legal ground.
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iprayiam3 is right that, in the rhetorical context, it's a distraction, but the real point is that it's a poison pill. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that restrictionists have truly won until we see Big Ag CEOs getting perp walked, but you can't do that in six months. The opponents of immigration enforcement have picked it up from the radical populists because it's appealing but unrealistic. Too much of the economy relies on cheap (often fraudulently taxpayer-subsidized) illegal labor to do this overnight without causing a crash. These things will take time to unwind, and are inherently very thorny problems - for instance, if we do need migrant labor in some areas, how to have a legal and regulated guest-worker program that the next Democratic administration won't instantly transmogrify into a vote bank - but I think Trump's actions are concordant with the administration understanding that. Go after the criminals now, make it clear that illegal immigration will not be tolerated forever, and give the economy time to adjust.
Typical government, restrict supply, subsidize demand.
This seems like a more honest assessment of why true immigration reform hasn't happened. But it's also the most damning. If our economy is semi reliant on it then not addressing that point is a total cop out.
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I definitely think that would help reduce the flow inwards, because if they can't get easy jobs then they won't expect a better life here. I definitely approve of that as a low-hanging fruit that we should be doing in addition to everything else. But it doesn't actually deport anyone who's already here. If anything it would turn them even more underclass and thus strain any welfare systems they might have snuck themselves into, or turn them to crime or homelessness. Which I suppose might make them easier to detect and thus deport, so isn't a fatal flaw in a system that was actually deporting them, but is not going to give good outcomes if we just keep playing catch and release.
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Yeah this is always my frustration. It’s so extremely fucking annoying that we got an anti immigration president in power twice, and both times he refuses to press the “easily fix illegal immigration” button.
It's almost like the red vs blue thing is a big distraction from the fact that our civilization is run by a small group of rich people who do not care what you think
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Is there anyone on the left actually pushing that, not as a piece of rhetoric? If Trump pivoted to that, would a sustantial portion of the left get on board with deportations and remigrations? If not, it's not a better plan; it's a distraction.
Was there anyone on the left pushing the current ICE enforcement actions? No, but it still happened.
I don't understand your model of the world here. Trump can't do a thing cuz the left disapproves, unless it's something he is already doing?
Many of his current immigration enforcement actions might end up getting considered illegal. That didn't stop him.
You’re misunderstanding my point. Trump should go after employers. Im responding to the idea that PMme is steelmanning the protesting side. If his suggested solutions aren’t things the protesting side would support then it’s not really an alternative to placating the protests and undermines the argument that the R model of the protestors simply refusing deportations is insufficient
Alright let's chart this out.
Action A: hurts blue state, restricts immigration.
Action B: hurts red state, restricts immigration.
I think OPs point is that the protestors are against "hurts blue state" not against "restrict immigration", because they would protest action A but not action B.
It's hard to call them on this though because Trump is only taking action A. Which makes his claim of 'this is only about restricting immigration' seem dubious. If that was true why wouldn't he take action A and B? People here in favor of immigration restrictions, like yourself, seem happy to have both actions.
My personal take is that this is standard politics for most people (including Trump): benefit your allies and hurt your enemies. And try to prevent your enemies from doing things that benefit themselves or hurt you.
For a smaller minority of people it's actually about the policy. You are probably in that minority. Some protestors are also plausibly in that minority.
Since neither side is a monolith, claims of "their side is just playing politics" are likely mostly accurate. And probably 99% of politicians, including Trump are also just playing politics and don't give a shit about the policy.
And protesting some big entity playing politics with your tiny local entity seems justified. Even if you have zero principled stance on the policy in question.
This is a fair take. Still don’t agree completely but thanks for laying it out
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Perhaps one fewer death. The "ICE is untrained and incompetent" claim is just a backstop to the "ICE is an invading army" claim. I have watched all sorts of videos showing arrests which were claimed to be some sort of horrible, and in nearly every one, it shows an arrest more professional and with less drama than I'd expect from one on the news with local cops. To have Ross not shoot Good wouldn't be a matter of Ross being more competent and professional, it'd be a matter of Ross being omniscient.
I don't even thing protesting "enforcing lawful immigration policy" is the center of the onion here; it's "resistance to Trump". If someone with a (D) after their name wanted to enforce lawful immigration policy, we wouldn't see anything like this.
Bring back Cops. That was effectively early bodycam footage days but with a cool voiceover and better editing. Most people being arrested are shitty people, this blue belief that every criminal is just jean valjean stealing a loaf of bread to get by will be regularly battered by continual evidence of pantless gangsters being assholes.
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This is too heavily entangled for this claim to be meaningful. They like the Democrats largely because the Democrats are obsessed with optics and placating the extreme left and being on "the right side of history". If someone with a (D) after their name wanted to enforce lawful immigration policy we would see complaints and pushback and then the Democrats would back down and not do it. Or do a much lesser version of it. They would surgically come in and get the pedophiles and stuff and deport them and the left would allow it as long as they credibly promised not to deport anyone sympathetic.
But they would not have ramped up ICE activity the way Trump has in the first place, so of course the protests wouldn't have escalated like this, but it's hard to disentangle that from the protestors being nicer to the Democrats, or the Democrats being nicer to the protestors and giving them what they want sooner.
We had the little kid from Cuba.
Democrats are allowed to deport even children that are likely to become Republicans.
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