5 ms·

btw. this > ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture is highly dehumanizing language you normally find only and autocratic regimes ruled by

btw. this > ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture is highly dehumanizing language you normally find only and autocratic regimes ruled by force and despotism instead of law if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm you alarm bells should ring in overdrive historically speaking language like this has pretty reliably an indicator of a country going to commit mass murder (lets hope it doesn't come to this)

nilespotter 1y ago
[flagged]
zb3 1y ago
So what about "ICEBlock is an app that people being in the US illegally use to evade capture"?
- dathinab 1y ago
  much better but the app is protected by free speech so using it isn't illegal "ICEBlock is a free speech protected app that illegal immigrants in the US use to evade capture" would be more precise and still objective would explain why the government used questionable (and actual illegal) roundabout ways to "punish" the creator instead of normal legal actions there is no problem with saying illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants, the problem is with removing the human factor, by calling them aliens, or by pretending all are supper criminal gang members etc. that ICE also goes after people with legal status is another problem and the argument of "it's aliens because they are foreigner non residents" also falls apart because many illegal immigrants have become residents. Not citizens, and not always with legal status. But they are 1) civilians 2) long term residing in the US so residents anyway. What ICE does here beside hypocritically pretending alien doesn't has de-humanizing connotations is expanding the term from "foreigners trying to illegally enter the US" to people living in the US for years and often are also in the process to try to get legal status even through they entered illegally. anyway illigal immigrants are still illegally so no need to reduce it to just people
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
What's "reliable indicator" here? That it happened once? >if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm The term "illegal alien" has been the norm in the United States my entire life and I'm 51. Only recently has it started to not become the norm, because the youngest generations have unbridled enthusiasm for the euphemism treadmill, so first they became "undocumented", and then lately differently-citizenated or whatever.
- dathinab 1y ago
  yes and the US has problem with right wing extremism in ways which have a lot of similarities to fascism since before you where born (or even before fascism rose in Germany) like the KKK or the non-negligible amount of people which wanted to join the Nazis instead of fight them (until the Nazis sunk a larger US civilian chip by accident) or the endless amount of laws regulations tweaked in ways to systematically discriminate against (mainly) black people as enough with power didn't really want to fully let go of slavery or the various variations of christian churches, which by US standards are sometimes just that, but by EU standards would be classified as cult (to be clear not all of them at all!!!, just some but still a surprising large amount), which not seldomly teach "conservative" values which often happen to have a large overlap with fascism and the US had been very hands of about that, KKK crimes or that there where not few people which initially wanted to if join only on the Nazi side is mostly put under the rug to be forgotten. Similar the long trend of lynching of black people, including some gruesome mass murder is also is also mostly no thought in school or any state controlled sources, and the list goes one and one yes not new language, but that doesn't make it wrong racist and de-humizing and pretending that "aliens" doesn't has such connotation (by administration/government) is IMHO just hypocrisy the problem is less that ICE has always used it but how its becoming increasingly more normalized in common language and paired up with other new dehumanizing language, and more calls for more law enforcement violence and in general treating all the elements of society which are seen as harmful increasingly less as humans and that should have you worried, as that in combination with other stuff (high polarization, quite dysfunctional government having trouble passing laws due having way to far apart world views, and the list goes one) are frighteningly very similar dynamics as you had in Germany which allowed the Nazis to size power and it would be VERY absurd to say the US becomes another Hitler Germany, but it also is very worrisome anyway I was over and over thought how the catastrophe of Hiterl Germany happened, what dynamics allowed the Nazis to size power, what dynamics allowed them to commit absurd crimes without the population raising up against it large scale etc. And I'm looking to the US and seeing the exact same kinds of dynamic and people being obvious and downplaying it and then I look at some always conservative but moderat-ish streamers I sometimes watched and see how this whole movement affect them how their language slowly and subtly morphs becoming increasingly more filled with dehumanizing aspects and normalization/acceptance of law enforcement violence. How again and again react to videos which pretend to be "centrist, purely objective" but are highly manipulative and dishonest but also _very_ good at it and every time more and more "Verrohung" (~brutalization, dehumanization, call for more policing with a iron fist etc.) seeps into their language. And you try to reach them and point out how they get manipulated in situations where they could see it just by closely looking at the actual video content, but you don't reach anyone anymore because the person which once was open for many honest discussions is now filled up by a righteous indignation instilled by constantly agitating them with propagandize which very clearly (from a external POV) in conflict with the US having a rule of law and non-make-pretense democracy). And that frightens me, because that is exactly the dynamics Nazis used to size power and normalize putting Jews in Labor Camps (and later death camps, but the labor camps also used calculated mal nutrition to slowly kill them while extracting money through forced labor). And again not saying they will turn into a new Nazi country, this are different times, people, goals, discrimination, even the racism is different. BUT it's still very dangerous anyway. And the US has a tendency to try to export force their current ideology/shit onto other western nations. Which is why people outside of the US should have all reason to worry even through they don't really have any right to get involved into US inner politics.
baggy_trough 1y ago
That is quite an overreaction. The language is normal.
- dathinab 1y ago
  no it's not at all calling humans aliens is NEVER normal, this has always been racist discriminatory, de-humizing language. and yes ICE has used such languages for a while, and they also have done things for a while which by international law (mainly the parts conveniently not recognized by the US) are crimes, some very heavy crimes, too (like when they split very young children of illegal immigrants from their parents and sold them to orphanages)
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Um, you realize that (at least in some translations) the Bible calls people aliens, including in passages that command that they be treated humanely? You are very mistaken in your interpretation of the word "alien".
    - dathinab 1y ago
      the bible also has a long history of - being intentionally miss-translated to push political believes - a lot of violent actions most western people would call barbaric and not acceptable today and especially for the first point it's also not just the bible, many other religious texts have that problem, too and neither change that today the word alien has not the annotation of "foreigner", but one which inherently de-humanizes the described group of people Connotations of words change over time, that is normal, and it is possible that in the past alien really just meant foreigner. But like I said elsewhere pretending that the connotation just means that today seems to me very hypocritical, at least close to no one under 40 will think about foreign people when hearing the word alien. Instead they will think of aliens, like extra terrestrial live.
      - baggy_trough 1y ago
        Young people are misinformed about many things, but we can educate them.
vorpalhex 1y ago
I'm a US citizen. If I illegally enter Japan or Mexico, am I not committing a crime? I would expect to (and both of these countries would) be arrested and returned to the US, usually after being fined and not allowed re-entry. An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident. Someone who illegally enters a country is an Illegal Alien. Are Japan and Mexico on the verge of committing mass murder?
- dathinab 1y ago
  > An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident. no it's not and never was tourist aren't alias they are foreigners not aliens illegal immigrants are immigrants even if they come in illegally this always has been racist de-humanizing language used to make people not thing about this groups as humans which then is used to facilitate more extrem and violent actions against such groups And yes you will probably find it in some laws, like especially from around the time the KKK had been big int he US. US problems with right wing extremism in forms looking quite similar to fascism predate the rise of fascism in Europe which lead to Nazis and WW2. (And lets also not forget there where quite a bunch of people in the US who wanted to join the Nazis not fight them and some companies have supplied Nazis Germany with resources (e.g. Oil) quite long into the war far beyond the "we didn't know better" point). This kind of approach of tweaking language is btw. one of the major *parts* about how the Nazis managed to first put all Jews in Germany in Labor Camps and then later build Death Camps in Poland without it leading to a internal civil war, they used constant dehumanizing language to make people not think about Jews as humans and as such remove sympathy, pity and so on. This is also why you find stories of leading KZ personal saving some Jewish child or similar, because somehow they ended up seeing that individual child as human again and in turn started having feeling of sympathy, pity and in general "killing them being wrong". But only to that specific individual not the group of prisoner in general. To be clear, that isn't supposed to say MEGA is Nazis, they probably are not. But this doesn't mean you can't compare things which have similarity, like MEGA leaning propaganda using increasingly more dehumanizing language and brutal/rule by force arguments, and MEGA associated politicians mostly just going "thumps up seems fine" wrt. this propaganda, or even repeat it them self. And that should still have you very worried. You don't need to go to Nazi level bs to have a very bad situation. > Japan 1-to-1 translating words out of context tends to not work, as it loses suitability. Like you could translate "Fremder" to "alien" and then claim German is using that language, too. But it still would be wrong as in the given context the right translation would be "stranger" or "foreigner", and alien as close to never the right translation. > Maxico inmigrante ilegal, extraño, extranjero. And yes extranjero can be translated as alien _or foreigner_, but this again is where subtilities of languages and languages in general not having a perfectly 1-to-1 mapping words come in. Also the translation of illegal immigrant is still inmigrante ilegal, not extranjero ilegal. Also putting all that aside when was the last time mass murder wasn't quite frequent in Mexico? Like there is a good reason why people flee this country and try to immigrate into the US even today even if it's illegal and means being abused for cheap labor for the rest of your live. Anyway in English Alien has a VERY different connotation then foreigner, immigrant etc. and administration pretending to not know that and that it's just a normal word for people-not-from-here is just hypocrisy.
jigguit 1y ago
[dead]
- grimblee 1y ago
  It's funny how fascistic people want to destabilize and exploit other countries but not bear the consequence of having the now poor and desperate population migrating to the country they see as responsible for their misery. We have the same in Europe with african immigration, we exploited these people for hundreds years, become rich on their backs and now some people want everyone out ? That's hypocrisy if I've ever seen any.
  - dathinab 1y ago
    it's not that simple I mean for the refuges coming to the EU it often is that simple. But most of the refuges of countries systematic destabilized by the US for greed (often with the help of EU-countries, not always knowingly tho) end up in the EU not the US. And the relationship between the US and many of the countries where most illegal immigrants in the US come from are a bit more complex. That doesn't change that they (the politicians, not necessary the voter) have for years no only been quite fine with it (and publicly, too) but in some cases (e.g. stereotype Indian IT workers) outright goaded people to come to the US temporary and now are surprised that some staid longer then allowed and brought friends (which is pretty much the expected outcome when you consult history). So IMHO they should take responsibility for it, and kicking everyone out by force at the cost of even hurting your own citizens isn't really a good way to solve that.
- dathinab 1y ago
  but this doesn't require to: - de-humanize people - use over the top violence - persecute people which have integrated well and are hard working - tear apart family without care for the child - severely undermine the US constitution and put _supposed_ "organized crime" criminals basically into life long forced labor prison without trial in some far way country outside of the eyes/oversight of US citizens (the constitutional right for a fair trail says _anyone accused_, not just US citizens!!) There is also the whole thing that the situation of illegal immigrants was for a long time tolerated and even wanted by politicians of _both side_ (but not voters of both sides). And funnily it matches the "American Dream", i.e. you come to the us and will have a shit live by being abused for labor no one else will do without being able to call in any labor rights BUT int turn you children can have a better future. And how is that so different to the initial US settlers which came to America knowing their live will be shit but in turn they can create a better future for their children, which also technically where illegal immigrants in many situations. So what did change outside of a very very far right fraction in the republican party taking over, and more populism and more fear mongering? 1. the new US citizens (e.g. children of immigrants) tend to not vote republican anymore with increasingly little chance to convince many of them 2. the left tries to extend worker rights to illegal immigrants 3. for quite a while having lost nearly every presidential election, if they where concluded by majority vote (which they aren't, but it still sets a clear trend for your party and yes, except for the elections Trump won), it shows shitty stuff like biased Gerry meandering will be increasingly not enough anymore to reliably secure future wins so in other words the right wing realized that they where losing power badly; realized that one group they could push all the blame (IMHO mostly undeserved) and villainify (also IMHO mostly undeserved) and also act ruthless/inhuman against to show they do something (even if it isn't fixing issues) are illegal immigrants. And the best tool to archive this turned out to be a populist named Trump, problematically for them that populist also took over their party/camp and now not falling out of line with him might risk their carrier more then the Democratic party ever had or would. And that's where we are today and that's why it's dangerous. Gaining election through populism and fear mongering and blaming most issues on a minority(1) which might be tangentially related to some of the issues but isn't the root cause and claiming you fix it by ruling with a iron fist i.e. fear (of retaliation), violence(of law enforcement) and disregard (of the actual meaning of laws and the humanity of whoever you victim is) instead of ruling by law and order has in history very seldomly ended well. (1) This is slightly oversimplified, modern media allows quite a flexible multi prong propaganda warfare where you can use information overload and targeted advertisement and information bubbles to victim blame the right group for every recipient in a automatized scaling way where you don't need to manually target any individuals (so it scales to US population size and beyond). You are jobless -> it's the immigrants, you have a job but children and are religious -> the evil LGBTQ people want to brain wash them, etc. etc. > This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified. A lot of the action taken are NOT the law. They often are incompatible with the law, sometimes even the constitution. And often based on a pretty despotic reinterpretation of law and abusing some very old very badly written laws meant for other situations. Its a pretty common opinion of lawyers that, when it comes to civil rights, the US is no longer a state of law and order but one, not half a step, but half a pinky toe away from being fully despotic and autocratic if you tolerated illegal immigrants for decades and even incorporated them into you economy then you have to take responsibility for that, And taking a baseball bat and hitting your problem until it stops twitching seems to be pretty much the worst possible solution. Its not that there aren't human solutions to the problem, it's just that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, because they don't really fix _their_ problem (the one I listed at the beginning). Problem is that this a problem of a small circle of politicians, not the people as a whole. But the side-effects of their approach to fix it has long eclipsed just being a problem for illegal immigrants. And now causes suffering for many US Citizens too in all kinds of way. So it's very egoistic, egocentric and short sighted to a point I personally would call it evil, some others wouldn't. The philosopher who created the quote "the end justifies the means" made it very clear that this is only true if you act selfless for the grater good and all other solutions will lead to far more suffering. So even under the standard of the "end justifies the means" the current means aren't justified (as the actions aren't done selfless and there are alternatives).

nilespotter 1y ago

[flagged]

zb3 1y ago

So what about "ICEBlock is an app that people being in the US illegally use to evade capture"?

dathinab 1y ago
much better but the app is protected by free speech so using it isn't illegal "ICEBlock is a free speech protected app that illegal immigrants in the US use to evade capture" would be more precise and still objective would explain why the government used questionable (and actual illegal) roundabout ways to "punish" the creator instead of normal legal actions there is no problem with saying illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants, the problem is with removing the human factor, by calling them aliens, or by pretending all are supper criminal gang members etc. that ICE also goes after people with legal status is another problem and the argument of "it's aliens because they are foreigner non residents" also falls apart because many illegal immigrants have become residents. Not citizens, and not always with legal status. But they are 1) civilians 2) long term residing in the US so residents anyway. What ICE does here beside hypocritically pretending alien doesn't has de-humanizing connotations is expanding the term from "foreigners trying to illegally enter the US" to people living in the US for years and often are also in the process to try to get legal status even through they entered illegally. anyway illigal immigrants are still illegally so no need to reduce it to just people

NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago

What's "reliable indicator" here? That it happened once? >if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm The term "illegal alien" has been the norm in the United States my entire life and I'm 51. Only recently has it started to not become the norm, because the youngest generations have unbridled enthusiasm for the euphemism treadmill, so first they became "undocumented", and then lately differently-citizenated or whatever.

dathinab 1y ago
yes and the US has problem with right wing extremism in ways which have a lot of similarities to fascism since before you where born (or even before fascism rose in Germany) like the KKK or the non-negligible amount of people which wanted to join the Nazis instead of fight them (until the Nazis sunk a larger US civilian chip by accident) or the endless amount of laws regulations tweaked in ways to systematically discriminate against (mainly) black people as enough with power didn't really want to fully let go of slavery or the various variations of christian churches, which by US standards are sometimes just that, but by EU standards would be classified as cult (to be clear not all of them at all!!!, just some but still a surprising large amount), which not seldomly teach "conservative" values which often happen to have a large overlap with fascism and the US had been very hands of about that, KKK crimes or that there where not few people which initially wanted to if join only on the Nazi side is mostly put under the rug to be forgotten. Similar the long trend of lynching of black people, including some gruesome mass murder is also is also mostly no thought in school or any state controlled sources, and the list goes one and one yes not new language, but that doesn't make it wrong racist and de-humizing and pretending that "aliens" doesn't has such connotation (by administration/government) is IMHO just hypocrisy the problem is less that ICE has always used it but how its becoming increasingly more normalized in common language and paired up with other new dehumanizing language, and more calls for more law enforcement violence and in general treating all the elements of society which are seen as harmful increasingly less as humans and that should have you worried, as that in combination with other stuff (high polarization, quite dysfunctional government having trouble passing laws due having way to far apart world views, and the list goes one) are frighteningly very similar dynamics as you had in Germany which allowed the Nazis to size power and it would be VERY absurd to say the US becomes another Hitler Germany, but it also is very worrisome anyway I was over and over thought how the catastrophe of Hiterl Germany happened, what dynamics allowed the Nazis to size power, what dynamics allowed them to commit absurd crimes without the population raising up against it large scale etc. And I'm looking to the US and seeing the exact same kinds of dynamic and people being obvious and downplaying it and then I look at some always conservative but moderat-ish streamers I sometimes watched and see how this whole movement affect them how their language slowly and subtly morphs becoming increasingly more filled with dehumanizing aspects and normalization/acceptance of law enforcement violence. How again and again react to videos which pretend to be "centrist, purely objective" but are highly manipulative and dishonest but also _very_ good at it and every time more and more "Verrohung" (~brutalization, dehumanization, call for more policing with a iron fist etc.) seeps into their language. And you try to reach them and point out how they get manipulated in situations where they could see it just by closely looking at the actual video content, but you don't reach anyone anymore because the person which once was open for many honest discussions is now filled up by a righteous indignation instilled by constantly agitating them with propagandize which very clearly (from a external POV) in conflict with the US having a rule of law and non-make-pretense democracy). And that frightens me, because that is exactly the dynamics Nazis used to size power and normalize putting Jews in Labor Camps (and later death camps, but the labor camps also used calculated mal nutrition to slowly kill them while extracting money through forced labor). And again not saying they will turn into a new Nazi country, this are different times, people, goals, discrimination, even the racism is different. BUT it's still very dangerous anyway. And the US has a tendency to try to export force their current ideology/shit onto other western nations. Which is why people outside of the US should have all reason to worry even through they don't really have any right to get involved into US inner politics.

baggy_trough 1y ago

That is quite an overreaction. The language is normal.

dathinab 1y ago
no it's not at all calling humans aliens is NEVER normal, this has always been racist discriminatory, de-humizing language. and yes ICE has used such languages for a while, and they also have done things for a while which by international law (mainly the parts conveniently not recognized by the US) are crimes, some very heavy crimes, too (like when they split very young children of illegal immigrants from their parents and sold them to orphanages)
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Um, you realize that (at least in some translations) the Bible calls people aliens, including in passages that command that they be treated humanely? You are very mistaken in your interpretation of the word "alien".
  - dathinab 1y ago
    the bible also has a long history of - being intentionally miss-translated to push political believes - a lot of violent actions most western people would call barbaric and not acceptable today and especially for the first point it's also not just the bible, many other religious texts have that problem, too and neither change that today the word alien has not the annotation of "foreigner", but one which inherently de-humanizes the described group of people Connotations of words change over time, that is normal, and it is possible that in the past alien really just meant foreigner. But like I said elsewhere pretending that the connotation just means that today seems to me very hypocritical, at least close to no one under 40 will think about foreign people when hearing the word alien. Instead they will think of aliens, like extra terrestrial live.
    - baggy_trough 1y ago
      Young people are misinformed about many things, but we can educate them.

vorpalhex 1y ago

I'm a US citizen. If I illegally enter Japan or Mexico, am I not committing a crime? I would expect to (and both of these countries would) be arrested and returned to the US, usually after being fined and not allowed re-entry. An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident. Someone who illegally enters a country is an Illegal Alien. Are Japan and Mexico on the verge of committing mass murder?

dathinab 1y ago
> An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident. no it's not and never was tourist aren't alias they are foreigners not aliens illegal immigrants are immigrants even if they come in illegally this always has been racist de-humanizing language used to make people not thing about this groups as humans which then is used to facilitate more extrem and violent actions against such groups And yes you will probably find it in some laws, like especially from around the time the KKK had been big int he US. US problems with right wing extremism in forms looking quite similar to fascism predate the rise of fascism in Europe which lead to Nazis and WW2. (And lets also not forget there where quite a bunch of people in the US who wanted to join the Nazis not fight them and some companies have supplied Nazis Germany with resources (e.g. Oil) quite long into the war far beyond the "we didn't know better" point). This kind of approach of tweaking language is btw. one of the major *parts* about how the Nazis managed to first put all Jews in Germany in Labor Camps and then later build Death Camps in Poland without it leading to a internal civil war, they used constant dehumanizing language to make people not think about Jews as humans and as such remove sympathy, pity and so on. This is also why you find stories of leading KZ personal saving some Jewish child or similar, because somehow they ended up seeing that individual child as human again and in turn started having feeling of sympathy, pity and in general "killing them being wrong". But only to that specific individual not the group of prisoner in general. To be clear, that isn't supposed to say MEGA is Nazis, they probably are not. But this doesn't mean you can't compare things which have similarity, like MEGA leaning propaganda using increasingly more dehumanizing language and brutal/rule by force arguments, and MEGA associated politicians mostly just going "thumps up seems fine" wrt. this propaganda, or even repeat it them self. And that should still have you very worried. You don't need to go to Nazi level bs to have a very bad situation. > Japan 1-to-1 translating words out of context tends to not work, as it loses suitability. Like you could translate "Fremder" to "alien" and then claim German is using that language, too. But it still would be wrong as in the given context the right translation would be "stranger" or "foreigner", and alien as close to never the right translation. > Maxico inmigrante ilegal, extraño, extranjero. And yes extranjero can be translated as alien _or foreigner_, but this again is where subtilities of languages and languages in general not having a perfectly 1-to-1 mapping words come in. Also the translation of illegal immigrant is still inmigrante ilegal, not extranjero ilegal. Also putting all that aside when was the last time mass murder wasn't quite frequent in Mexico? Like there is a good reason why people flee this country and try to immigrate into the US even today even if it's illegal and means being abused for cheap labor for the rest of your live. Anyway in English Alien has a VERY different connotation then foreigner, immigrant etc. and administration pretending to not know that and that it's just a normal word for people-not-from-here is just hypocrisy.

jigguit 1y ago

[dead]

grimblee 1y ago
It's funny how fascistic people want to destabilize and exploit other countries but not bear the consequence of having the now poor and desperate population migrating to the country they see as responsible for their misery. We have the same in Europe with african immigration, we exploited these people for hundreds years, become rich on their backs and now some people want everyone out ? That's hypocrisy if I've ever seen any.
- dathinab 1y ago
  it's not that simple I mean for the refuges coming to the EU it often is that simple. But most of the refuges of countries systematic destabilized by the US for greed (often with the help of EU-countries, not always knowingly tho) end up in the EU not the US. And the relationship between the US and many of the countries where most illegal immigrants in the US come from are a bit more complex. That doesn't change that they (the politicians, not necessary the voter) have for years no only been quite fine with it (and publicly, too) but in some cases (e.g. stereotype Indian IT workers) outright goaded people to come to the US temporary and now are surprised that some staid longer then allowed and brought friends (which is pretty much the expected outcome when you consult history). So IMHO they should take responsibility for it, and kicking everyone out by force at the cost of even hurting your own citizens isn't really a good way to solve that.
dathinab 1y ago
but this doesn't require to: - de-humanize people - use over the top violence - persecute people which have integrated well and are hard working - tear apart family without care for the child - severely undermine the US constitution and put _supposed_ "organized crime" criminals basically into life long forced labor prison without trial in some far way country outside of the eyes/oversight of US citizens (the constitutional right for a fair trail says _anyone accused_, not just US citizens!!) There is also the whole thing that the situation of illegal immigrants was for a long time tolerated and even wanted by politicians of _both side_ (but not voters of both sides). And funnily it matches the "American Dream", i.e. you come to the us and will have a shit live by being abused for labor no one else will do without being able to call in any labor rights BUT int turn you children can have a better future. And how is that so different to the initial US settlers which came to America knowing their live will be shit but in turn they can create a better future for their children, which also technically where illegal immigrants in many situations. So what did change outside of a very very far right fraction in the republican party taking over, and more populism and more fear mongering? 1. the new US citizens (e.g. children of immigrants) tend to not vote republican anymore with increasingly little chance to convince many of them 2. the left tries to extend worker rights to illegal immigrants 3. for quite a while having lost nearly every presidential election, if they where concluded by majority vote (which they aren't, but it still sets a clear trend for your party and yes, except for the elections Trump won), it shows shitty stuff like biased Gerry meandering will be increasingly not enough anymore to reliably secure future wins so in other words the right wing realized that they where losing power badly; realized that one group they could push all the blame (IMHO mostly undeserved) and villainify (also IMHO mostly undeserved) and also act ruthless/inhuman against to show they do something (even if it isn't fixing issues) are illegal immigrants. And the best tool to archive this turned out to be a populist named Trump, problematically for them that populist also took over their party/camp and now not falling out of line with him might risk their carrier more then the Democratic party ever had or would. And that's where we are today and that's why it's dangerous. Gaining election through populism and fear mongering and blaming most issues on a minority(1) which might be tangentially related to some of the issues but isn't the root cause and claiming you fix it by ruling with a iron fist i.e. fear (of retaliation), violence(of law enforcement) and disregard (of the actual meaning of laws and the humanity of whoever you victim is) instead of ruling by law and order has in history very seldomly ended well. (1) This is slightly oversimplified, modern media allows quite a flexible multi prong propaganda warfare where you can use information overload and targeted advertisement and information bubbles to victim blame the right group for every recipient in a automatized scaling way where you don't need to manually target any individuals (so it scales to US population size and beyond). You are jobless -> it's the immigrants, you have a job but children and are religious -> the evil LGBTQ people want to brain wash them, etc. etc. > This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified. A lot of the action taken are NOT the law. They often are incompatible with the law, sometimes even the constitution. And often based on a pretty despotic reinterpretation of law and abusing some very old very badly written laws meant for other situations. Its a pretty common opinion of lawyers that, when it comes to civil rights, the US is no longer a state of law and order but one, not half a step, but half a pinky toe away from being fully despotic and autocratic if you tolerated illegal immigrants for decades and even incorporated them into you economy then you have to take responsibility for that, And taking a baseball bat and hitting your problem until it stops twitching seems to be pretty much the worst possible solution. Its not that there aren't human solutions to the problem, it's just that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, because they don't really fix _their_ problem (the one I listed at the beginning). Problem is that this a problem of a small circle of politicians, not the people as a whole. But the side-effects of their approach to fix it has long eclipsed just being a problem for illegal immigrants. And now causes suffering for many US Citizens too in all kinds of way. So it's very egoistic, egocentric and short sighted to a point I personally would call it evil, some others wouldn't. The philosopher who created the quote "the end justifies the means" made it very clear that this is only true if you act selfless for the grater good and all other solutions will lead to far more suffering. So even under the standard of the "end justifies the means" the current means aren't justified (as the actions aren't done selfless and there are alternatives).