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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27429 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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This would allow any actual alien to avoid detention by refusing to identify themselves.

I can see how, again, you could imagine a poorly worded rule that would have this consequence. But any reasonable implementation would provide the necessary protections so that before someone is locked up in a detention center, ICE would be required to do due diligence on the person. Obviously anyone, US citizen or not, who refuses to give their name would not be protected by this. How could you imagine it otherwise? But there are cases where a US citizen told ICE who they were but were still arrested and taken to a detention center, and had to call a lawyer to get out. That's obviously unacceptable!

Because they're not required to tell their badge number and last name to anyone who asks.

Protestors would go up to ICE agents and ask their badge number, over and over again, just so they could film it when the ICE agent quit answering because he had something else to do.

Again, any reasonable implementation - in fact scratch that, literally any implementation - would provide guidance on when and where ICE agents need to identify themselves. Seriously, how do you imagine this stuff works? Not to mention, your horror situation doesn't even rely on the new rule, protestors literally already do this!

It’s not obviously unacceptable. I’ll fine with spending a day a month in ICE lock-up while they verify my identity. I’ll gladly do my time to help ICE out.

I would gladly wear a masks if I thought it would prevent COVID or get a vaccine if I thought they worked. Or lock myself at home to stop the spread (I actually locked myself at home a week before any lockdowns began).

It’s unacceptable if you think the mission is wrong or would fail. It’s not unacceptable if you think it passes costs-benefit analysis.

I’ll fine with spending a day a month in ICE lock-up while they verify my identity. I’ll gladly do my time to help ICE out.

Sorry, that's insane. I'm not going to dignify it by treating it as an argument.

Your response is wildly disproportionate to the suggestion, which (to be clear) is that ICE should make checking someone's citizenship part of standard operating procedures for immigration enforcement arrests so that US citizens aren't arrested and detained when they shouldn't be. It's already the law that they cannot detain US citizens for immigration, once they know that person is a citizen they are required by law to be released - this is literally just saying 'hey, you have to check if they're a citizen'. It's a procedural remedy to a mistake ICE has been repeatedly caught making. Your cost-benefit analysis is so off the rails it's laughable.

It's a procedural remedy to a mistake ICE has been repeatedly caught making.

It isn't. Currently they sometimes arrest people believing they are not citizens, then they verify their citizenship, and they let them go. The "remedy" would be they somehow have to prove they are not citizens before arresting them. Which is like saying you have to convict someone before arresting them, which is entirely backwards.

I don't think you really appreciate the extent to which many people really, really hate illegal immigration. 'I will endure a high and probably unnecessary cost on a regular basis just to prevent even the possibility of making it slightly harder for ICE to do their job over the next few years, until the illegal immigrants are all gone' is a valid position, even if your cost-benefit analyses don't work out that way.

Broadly, people are well-aware that the Left is the party of pro-bono lawyers and suspiciously-well-instructed activism. It's not that weird that people on the right have started refusing point-blank any restraints that are likely to turn out to be a tripwire or a trojan horse. Personally I'm not sure whether I think giving ICE absolute carte blanche would help or hinder them in the long run, but I can believe the former. It works fine in Japan.

Yes, now protestors can ask ICE agents for their ID, but if the ICE agents don't give it, they've done nothing wrong. If they were required to give it, protestors could and would do exactly as I said, and the agents or ICE itself would be in trouble if they didn't answer.

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