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As a non-American this is something I don't understand, so maybe someone with more context can explain. Why is this app even needed/desired? As far as I can se

As a non-American this is something I don't understand, so maybe someone with more context can explain. Why is this app even needed/desired? As far as I can see there are two possibilities here: 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported, or 2) ICE is deporting illegal immigrants which don't have permission to be in the country so they shouldn't be in the country. In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason, and surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law like in so many corrupt countries around the world? Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US?

SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago
It's (1) but ICE is making their job to intimidate people so they don't face consequences.
pjmlp 1y ago
You're missing the point courts are useless with current administration, for all practical purposes they are turning into a authoritarian regime, and many still think there is going to exist some magical elections to turn this around. I see all the signs of Portuguese dictorship that ended in 1974, and I as first generation being raised in freedom got to hear and learn plenty of stories on how everything used to be. Sadly also back home people have forgotten what it meant to live under authoritarian regime.
thinkharderdev 1y ago
> (1) can't they be taken to court? Yes, they can be and are being but it's not much comfort to know that the courts will decide a deportation was unlawful after you've already spent 6 months being tortured in an El Salvadoran prison.
- fuckyah 1y ago
  [dead]
moduspol 1y ago
It’s #2, and the status quo for quite some time is that immigration laws were just not enforced, or administratively bypassed. That’s why there’s a lot of pushback.
- skizm 1y ago
  Obama deported 3 million illegals. Trump has deported 60,000 so far.
  - antonymoose 1y ago
    Obama artfully redefined “turned away at the border” into “deportation,” which most people imagine as ICE agents detaining and removing a person from the interior of the United States.
    - r_lee 1y ago
      I love politics
- 010101010101 1y ago
  That’s absolutely not why there’s a lot of pushback. There’s a lot of pushback because of: - a general sense of authoritarian policy degrading American democracy - inhumane treatment of detainees - illegal deportations happening with no due process (see option 1) - humanitarian concerns over people being deported to states they’re seeking asylum from for valid and good reasons - hyperbolic claims of every immigrant being a “rapist criminal” degrading public discourse leading to further profiling of anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant I could come up with more but you get the point - the pushback is about _far more_ than whatever you’re toeing the line about here.
hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
Imagine being continually aggressively questioned and detained just because you ‘might’ be an illegal immigrant based on the color of your skin, by power-hungry maga supporters.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Also, bodyslammed and your car crashed into / windows smashed. Well ooopsie. Who did it? Masked dude with no number. Rinse, repeat.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    Well then you shouldn’t have resisted then, ‘citizen’.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Ah, driving while citizen.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
        I don’t like your tone, citizen.
diggan 1y ago
> In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason Sure, everything ultimately exist for some reason, but that doesn't mean everyone agrees with the reasoning :) I don't know what the answer is (also an outsider), but I think there is a third possibility of people just disagreeing with the move of "Lets forcible check every single potentially illegal immigrant, so we can get rid of the illegal ones" from a purely humanitarian perspective, regardless if ICE might be abusing their power or if they're only removing illegal immigrants. Edit: I'm wondering if positing two options like that is actually engagement bait of sorts, already we have two confident commentators saying "It's N of course" where N is both 1 and 2, and I myself fell into the trap of thinking of the third missing one :)
- kouteiheika 1y ago
  > I think there is a third possibility of people just disagreeing with the move of "Lets forcible check every single potentially illegal immigrant, so we can get rid of the illegal ones" from a purely humanitarian perspective, regardless if ICE might be abusing their power or if they're only removing illegal immigrants. Okay, so bear with me, what does "forcibly" entail here? I'm an immigrant too, I also get "forcibly" (as in: I can't refuse) checked whether I'm legal or not based on how I look, which essentially boils down to spending a minute of my time taking my immigrant card (which shows that I'm legal) out of my wallet, showing it to the police officer (or whatever other government official is asking), and then going my way. This is totally not a problem. Doesn't the US have a way for immigrants to easily and unambiguously identify themselves as legal immigrants?
  - crooked-v 1y ago
    'Forcibly' entails a bunch of guys jumping out of a van to kidnap brown people from a Home Depot parking lot because they're brown (https://lamag.com/news/new-lawsuit-says-ice-agents-are-racially-profiling-american-citizens/ https://lamag.com/news/new-lawsuit-says-ice-agents-are-racia...).
  - darkwater 1y ago
    > I also get "forcibly" (as in: I can't refuse) checked whether I'm legal or not based on how I look, which essentially boils down to spending a minute of my time taking my immigrant card (which shows that I'm legal) out of my wallet, showing it to the police officer (or whatever other government official is asking), and then going my way. This is totally not a problem. Sounds like you have a mild case of Stockholm syndrome, if you happily accept that you get more attention from law enforcement due to your physical traits.
fuckyah 1y ago
They are enforcing the law. But left wingers don’t get this.
Spooky23 1y ago
Both things are happening. One of the bigger grey areas are people in the process of adjudicating asylum requests. The cases aren’t finalized, and in many circumstances they are grabbing people as they leave their hearings. They are also targeting other people with visas for violations both significant and trivial. Trivial meaning misspellings or typos on one of the dozens or hundreds of forms filled out at some point in the past. Rule of law is being undermined, basically under the guise of whatever state of emergency is in place, they look to act quickly where any ambiguity exists and before courts get to weigh in.
awoimbee 1y ago
This can't be reduced to a boolean (as always). The issue is that ICE is doing #2 via #1.
nxobject 1y ago
There is significant evidence for (1), although the two aren't mutually inconsistent: – There is evidence that there is a quota on arrests, [1], rather than deportations, although the administration has inconsistently denied that quotas exist (because it would help legal cases against their strategies.) [2] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ices-tactics-draw-criticism-it-triples-daily-arrest-targets-2025-06-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ices-tactics-draw-criticism... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/trump-administration-daily-quota-immigration-arrests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/trump-admini... – Therefore, there have been incidents, especially in targeted cities like LA, where citizens [1] and lawful permanent residents have arrested before being released after multiple days of detention [2], although this data is not systematically gathered, e.g.: [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-08/how-many-citizens-have-been-arrested-in-immigration-crackdown https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-08/how-many... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/jemmy-jimenez-rosa-immigration-detainment-2120389 https://www.newsweek.com/jemmy-jimenez-rosa-immigration-deta... – Recourse to the courts in a meaningful, practical way is ineffective. The administration has ignored lawsuits where judges have issued injunctions against ICE dragnets due to plausible evidence that ICE dragnets target individuals who look Latin American, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/ice-border-patrol-home-depot-los-angeles https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/ice-border-p... The suspicion (although I need to look up a legal source) is that the administration intends to drag on legal cases as long as possible through appeals, perhaps even up to the Supreme Court, which will take months.
sgnelson 1y ago
>Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? Not so much these days...
Waterluvian 1y ago
I think (2) is understandable logic, but is incomplete. “People who don’t have permission to be there shouldn’t be there” equates law == what’s right. I think past administrations have recognized that while they are there illegally, they also have economic value. Some past government actions may have even gone so far as to recognize humanitarian reasons, beyond their economic value. However, the greater evil isn’t that ICE is enforcing the law. It’s that they’re doing it in a reckless way that reeks of violating any sort of due process.
- mcny 1y ago
  I think details also matter here. Should ICE be allowed to come to a Home Depot, a Walmart, elementary schools, and "randomly" interrogate people? Who are they picking? How is it possible to do this without discriminating people based on ethnicity etc while also avoiding the ridiculous cost of interrogating everyone every day or the futility of pure randomness? The real fear in my mind is not what this circus of an administration does for the next three - four years but that the next administrations will continue these practices just by sheer inertia (same with tariffs).
- gadders 1y ago
  >>that while they are there illegally, they also have economic value that while they are there illegally, they can also vote illegally for one particular party (the same party that doesn't like voter ID laws). Fixed it for you. >>It’s that they’re doing it in a reckless way that reeks of violating any sort of due process. Due to the massive volume of uncontrolled immigration under Biden, "due process" as envisaged by activists would take 10's of years to complete which is obviously not practical.
  - Waterluvian 1y ago
    I think these are intellectually weak arguments. The first is weak because it is driven by fear, not facts. Does that actually happen in any meaningful volume at all, or would any answer just be a link in a "it's a big conspiracy chain!" The second is weak because it exposes an ignorance, to one's own peril, of a system fundamentally designed to protect them. It's embarrassingly un-American to believe that due process is optional when it's too inconvenient. It begs the question, who gets to judge when that is? The Executive branch? That betrays one's lack of basic understanding of their own governmental system. But I think that's why this kind of thinking appears to be so sticky. It's not something one can be reasoned out of because it's not founded in rational thought. If someone possessed the capacity to be disabused of this idea, without having to first experience the leopards eating their face, they would have been by now.
gwd 1y ago
You apparently haven't been keeping track of all the madness. First of all, the immigration laws aren't rational. The states aren't "legal" and "illegal", but "documented" and "undocumented". It's often the case that The Official Way To Do Things can cause you to transition from a "documented" state to an "undocumented" state and back again while in the country. Part of what people like the author are trying to do is to help people who made the documented -> undocumented transition to complete their undocumented -> documented transition before ICE an export them somewhere. Secondly, ICE has basically been given a target of 500k people to expel. They've always had a reputation for being more on the "bully / asshole" side than normal, and now those people have been given a blank check to crank it up to 11. Finally, there are clear, documented cases of ICE breaking the law and then trying to play games to get around it. Go look up the Abrego-Garcia case: 1. He came in legally, and was documented -- he had a court order forbidding him from being extradited to El Salvador, and was checking in regularly. 2. They swept him up, erroneously identified him as a gang member, and shipped him out to El Salvador before anyone had a chance to do anything to protest 3. They admitted in court that extraditing him was a mistake; but then said, "Well, he's out of our jurisdiction now, we can't do anything to get him back." 4. When, after months of wrangling, they finally did bring him back, they decided to charge him with a crime for something he did years ago (even though they didn't decide to charge him with anything back then, and had plenty of opportunities to do so earlier). So basically, 1) The immigration laws are broken: not just and not really follow-able 2) ICE often don't follow the law unless browbeaten by the courts to do so 3) they often try to entirely avoid the courts by playing jurisdictional games. There's a good reason that large numbers of intelligent, dedicated patriots are organizing to oppose ICE.
- mothballed 1y ago
  By doing (4) they reset the asylum clock and now he can reapply, with a pretty rock solid evidence of torture in el salvador at cecot.
- mikevm 1y ago
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  - 1y ago
gortok 1y ago
> Why is this app even needed/desired? The methods ICE is using currently to detain people for deportation look a lot like secret police tactics for disappearing folks and resemble kidnapping, when a van full of armed men with face masks jump out and remove you from your vehicle, zip-tie you, and transport you to a secret facility. There have also been reported situations of ICE officers breaking windows of cars and pulling folks out, when all they had was an administrative warrant. And that doesn’t include the recently reported and videoed situation of an ICE agent firing at a vehicle that was stopped by ICE agents. All of these tactics increase fear among the populace, and that fear is what drives apps like these. Whether you’re here legally or not, no one deserves the secret police tactics that fly in the face of the principles of limited government and freedom of movement.
- philipallstar 1y ago
  > Whether you’re here legally or not, no one deserves the secret police tactics that fly in the face of the principles of limited government and freedom of movement. Committing a crime might well result in your movement being curtailed, and addressing crime is definitely within the remit of limited government.
  - footy 1y ago
    Immigration violations are a civil matter in the United States,though, not a criminal one. You know. Back when "the rule of law" was a thing.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Also consider ICE pretends they have no choice, when in fact congress grants them unilateral power of parole. They can just make someone legal with a magic wand, but pretend like it's all out of their hands.
    - 9991 1y ago
      What does that mean in practical terms? You can ask illegal immigrants politely to leave, and if they don't then that's it?
kingkawn 1y ago
Maybe you haven’t been watching the news for the last ten years with regards to this administration and its fealty to legal precedent
- this15testingg 1y ago
  right? like what universe are these people in
  - aniforprez 1y ago
    They could just not be an American
qcnguy 1y ago
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- faku812 1y ago
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- dachworker 1y ago
  You constructed a narrative and overlaid it over the facts. The facts are that for many decades past, it was possible for hopeful economic immigrants to abuse asylum laws, or the back then less protected border, to gain entry to the US. Neither red nor blue administrations handled this properly and lots of people benefited from the status quo, and your focus on, "the left" is quite conspicuous, because one does not tend to think of farm owners, meat processing plants and construction contracting businesses as "the left". And rightfully past administrations should shoulder the blame for not dealing with immigration in a lawful manner back then. If there was a need for immigrant labor they should have handed temporary VISAs or whatever, instead of ignoring illegal immigration.
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    How did past administrations ignore it? Trump 1.0 tried to build his Big Beautiful Wall and implement many other policies to get a grip on abuse of the immigration rules. Obama ran a relatively normal immigration policy with "deportations" (incl border turnarounds) increasing until wokeness emerged in 2012, after which number of deportations went into sharp decline. George W Bush more than doubled border spending, ended catch and release, created the Secure Border Initiative, sent 6000 National Guard members to the southern border, and called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration enforcement upgrades: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/immigration.html https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/... Bill Clinton did a crackdown against illegal immigration, passing the 1996 IIRAIRA act that made it easier to deport illegals and increased border security. This has been a live issue for a long time and was a bipartisan issue up until 2012, when wokeness took off (https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vVtE!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4101ad17-8372-46c8-a8bd-4a3ce12fc1e9_2393x1843.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vVtE!,f_auto,q_auto:...). After that the Republicans stuck to the prior position and the Democrats moved FAR to the left. Bill Clinton would be a "fascist" to them. The fact that Bill Clinton had nothing in common with Hitler or Mussolini doesn't register with them at all.
atoav 1y ago
Or (3) what ICE does is illegal AND you can't legally challenge their action until AFTER you have been deported to a torture prison in a 3rd world country you've never been to. The reason people want to avoid ICE is the same reason you have a smoke detector: Even if you do everything right, a fire can still happen and when it does you're happy you had it. The US constitution guarantees certain rights to any person on their soil, without them having to be citizens. These rights are currently being violated with approval of at least two branches of government.
pizza234 1y ago
There's a report by John Oliver: https://youtu.be/DfTBhrkae74 https://youtu.be/DfTBhrkae74. > can't they be taken to court? It costs money, and the low hanging fruits of deportation are low-income families/individuals. > In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason Police, courts and administration work until they don't. There have been cases of people arrested just because of racial profiling, which fits into Trump's racial vision. The emblematic case IMO, has been the high-profile instance of an American citized deported because of an administrative mistake (!!); Trump has openly refused to apologize or take corrective action (!!!). The real problem, if one accepts Oliver’s criticisms, is that this is not about law, it's about racial cleansing.
ekidd 1y ago
The concern here is (1). ICE officers have no badges. They wear masks. Sometimes they have no uniforms. They grab people off the streets, and stuff them into white vans. They may send those people to foreign prisons, even if a judge tells them not to. Some of the people they take are natural-born citizens. Taking them to court works sometimes. But ICE will often attempt to move people out of state quickly, and they won't always say where those people went. And as I mentioned above, the administration has just straight-up ignored multiple court orders. Courts are a cute legal fiction that only works if the people with guns agree to listen to them.
- api 1y ago
  Tangent but: I am shocked none of these guys have been gunned down yet. Where I live, which is the suburbs in Ohio and only mildly gun happy by US standards, I’d estimate that if you went house to house busting in doors with masks and no ID you’d make it less than ten houses before you’d get a face full of buck shot. Some of the border states where they’re doing this like Texas and Arizona I’d say no more than three houses.
  - ohdeargodno 1y ago
    ICE blew up a family's door with explosives, geared like tacticool nerds equipped to capture Bin Laden because one guy blocked them with his van. The whole point of this was to show the consequences of not complying with the brownshirts. Shoot one of them down, you might well discover they have the budget to buy F35s now. >Some of the border states where they’re doing this like Texas and Arizona I’d say no more than three houses. Great news: they've been doing this to thousands of houses in the very states you mention. Just not the white ones.
    - api 1y ago
      Only whites have guns? Of course I would guess that undocumented immigrants are less likely to have guns since they tend to avoid anything that could get them in trouble. I lived in SoCal for a while and had several neighbors who I suspect were but of course never asked. BTW they were the nicest people. One of their daughters taught our oldest daughter to ride a bike. The scapegoating and persecution of these people is gross. If we don’t want them here we should go after the employers who create the incentive for them to come, but that would mean going after white people.
deleted 1y ago
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watwut 1y ago
I kinda feel like it pays off to do a quick search before asking hyper broad questions with hypothetical that betray that you did not spent 10 seconds on Google.
philipallstar 1y ago
The problem is (2) has been pushed recently by the left in America (unlike 20 years ago when it was the right that liked illegal immigration) as a racist stance, and "open borders" was a big policy idea. So many, many thousands of illegal immigrants (renamed 1984-style to "undocumented" by the media outlets who operate in lockstep with the Democrat party) have been allowed in, and have been sheltered by businesses who like below-minimum wage labour, and by democrat cities in general. This means there's not much left to do when left-wing activists violently defend illegal immigrants from ICE removal other than escalating ICE activities to compensate.
- pjc50 1y ago
  > 20 years ago when it was the right that liked illegal immigration I don't think that was ever the case? The South Park "they took our jobs!" episode was 2004. The right has been against immigration since the Chinese Exclusion Act.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  > it was the right that liked illegal immigration they still like illegal immigration, because it's good for businesses (the primary concern of the right) its Trump/MAGA's xenophobic popularism that is reflected in ICE's thuggery (which is clearly designed to instill fear; the same way that S.Miller's plans to separate children from parents at the border was overtly designed to instill fear). It is not reflective of the traditional GOP. In fact, GOP senators have pressed Trump into making "exceptions" -- you'll notice how ICE is primarily operating in "blue" cities, and not raiding farms and chicken processing plants in the Midwest or the CA central valley -- this is not a coincidence.
lazide 1y ago
Welcome to the party pal. Didn’t you see what has been done against Abrego Garcia, and how intent the administration is to ship him off to random other countries (and how they succeeded once!) even though the courts insist he should stay? That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
mapt 1y ago
That would require a sensible immigration regulation. What we have instead is a regulation that almost prohibits immigration, but which has a whole bunch of grey areas, exceptions to the rule that qualify you for some special status, and courts that are overloaded by a factor of ~100 relative to what they would need to do their job, or overloaded by a factor of ~10 relative to what they would need to do a terrible pro forma job. While waiting for a court date (let's say you walk in and claim asylum) you are granted a special status by administrative custom which says that nobody is coming after you until after your status is adjudicated. Deportation is "deferred", and can be rescinded after the fact based on adjudication. Previous administrations have "prioritized violent crimes" for deportation, leaving about 20 million people at a time outside the system of legal permanent residency, and another 40 million of their family members who rely on them with legal status but precarious. Being custom rather than law, when Stephen Miller and his white supremacist posse comes in they can suspend that, and work at odds with the court and the process. They literally wait until these people check in with the courts and black bag them on their way out of the courtroom. The US agricultural, construction, and food service sectors have come to almost completely rely on this system permitting either nominally illegal cash-under-the-table work, or "I can't actually prove he's illegal" work, or work performed under a green card sought after the delays and deferred prosecutions in that court date permit the immigrant to start a family and see their kids through college.
- api 1y ago
  It’s broken by design because certain key US industries, like construction, hospitality, restaurants, cleaning, and agriculture, are dependent on a supply of under the table below minimum wage and tax and benefit free labor.
  - mapt 1y ago
    That begs the question of why not just fix it. It's broken because of intersection of demand for labor with three other things: American society has always had a somewhat racist, xenophobia character Right-wing oligarchical power sees exploiting this character as their path to lower tax rates and a regulation-free corpo state, and has poured tens of billions of dollars into media to set the terms of the conversation The system for proposing and passing laws has been fundamentally dysfunctional and irrational for a long time. A system with a filibuter-containing Senate and strong partisan infrastructure after the campaign finance system and media circus has matured, evidently just cannot make decisions on sensitive subjects like this.
faku812 1y ago
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- jagrsw 1y ago
  From the perspective of Native Americans, the predominantly European immigration was also generally unwelcome. How do you argue that the behavior of your predecessors is acceptable (and your presumed right to reside in what's currently known as United States) while those who now attempt to enter the territory suddenly become dangerous criminals? Would your argument be more understandable to the reader than “might is right” or “if it is against me, it is unfair and abuse, if I do it to others, it is a sacred law”?
  - faku812 1y ago
    I would first like to clarify that I am not a citizen of USA, but I still support their right to have and enforce borders - same as I support it for every other country in the world. I don't think what happened hundreds of years ago was right, but no person that is alive today had anything to do with it. I am not sure if I correctly understand your position. Do you believe that anyone from anywhere in the world should be able to come and live in the USA, and also receive benefits from taxes that were paid by citizens?
    - jagrsw 1y ago
      > Do you believe that anyone from anywhere in the world should be able to come > and live in the USA, and also receive benefits from taxes that were paid by citizens? I guess I'm generally in favor of an open-border policy (or at least immigration based on promises of work, verifiable by a work contract). Benefits are usually tax-based, and immigrants pay taxes (or, it's always possible to set it up that taxes are paid). > but no person that is alive today had anything to do with it They do. They're using land and resources taken from their former hosts which is a deep moral grey zone. Leaving home would be an option. If it's deemed too invasive, perhaps not penalizing people who want to do the same (minus stealing the land forcibly) would be a good first step.
MSFT_Edging 1y ago
> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). > (1) can't they be taken to court? Once arrested, ICE will ship people off to many states away(if you're european, imagine being arrested in the north of France and sent to a camp in southern Spain). Once you are arrested by ICE, it's very difficult to be found. There is no arrest announcement or ability to call family. Basically you disappear into this system and if you have someone hire a lawyer, the lawyer essentially has to search for you in various prisons. Sure they can be taken to court, but the arrestee wont see any restitution for the terrible conditions they were illegally forced into. If you do win in court( Kilmar Abrego), they'll send you somewhere even worse out of spite.
- mathiaspoint 1y ago
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- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  > ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). As far as I understand (correct me if I am wrong), if you have no valid status in the US then going to court does not mean that you are following the rules, no? I mean, why would anyone with a valid status have to go to immigration court?
  - btreecat 1y ago
    > > ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). > > As far as I understand (correct me if I am wrong), if you have no valid status in the US then going to court does not mean that you are following the rules, no? I mean, why would anyone with a valid status have to go to immigration court? One reason is legal check-ins, folks can be in the US on many different types of entry. Some require regular check ins with ICE or an immigration judge to continue being here. ICE told immigration judges to dismiss cases (based on a new memo being challenged) and enable immediate arrests. Additionally some folks who had continuing cases were getting arrested before the case concluded (e.g. asylum cases)) https://missouriindependent.com/2025/08/13/ice-has-a-new-courthouse-tactic-get-immigrants-cases-tossed-then-arrest-them-outside/ https://missouriindependent.com/2025/08/13/ice-has-a-new-cou... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna226866 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna226866
egorfine 1y ago
As a Ukrainian who have used similar apps in the past to avoid conscription gangs on the streets of Kiev, I can tell you that legality doesn't really matter much in situations where you are the prey and they play hunters. Especially if the current law (or the practical implementation of the law) supports their actions. It's just fear and one of the practical solutions to avoid being kidnapped on the streets with no due process and no legal way out whatsoever. You just wanna survive.
mattigames 1y ago
As a non-american I find this too naive of a view, the third possibility is that is already pretty selective application of the law, Elon Musk brother publicly admitted being illegal immigrants for a few years (right next to Elon, in a recorded presentation), but rich people college frats are never where the raids happen, this already selective use of the law it's one of the infuriating things about it, not to mention all the other laws this administration is already breaking that will never be prosecuted.
- walthamstow 1y ago
  Melania Trump also worked illegally on a tourist visa
abtinf 1y ago
There are between 8-14 million such individuals in the US. Many of them have lived here for decades, work peacefully, and have built lives. Many of them have married citizen spouses, and also have children who are citizens. They are friends, neighbors, and colleagues. They are often the best and most ambitious among us. It would be an ethical, moral, and humanitarian catastrophe to suddenly expel all of them. It would also be an economic disaster, as this population forms a disproportionate fraction of the labor force. The price of goods and services would skyrocket if not outright be lost from the market forever. Inflation would obliterate savings. The US immigration system is wildly irrational and violates the rights of American citizens. It must be radically reformed.
- Gabriel54 1y ago
  There cannot be a comprehensive system of worker's rights when millions of workers are present without documentation. We cannot support a higher minimum wage and, at the same time, take in millions of workers who will work for less. It is a violation of the rights of Americans not to have a real and effective border, and for immigration laws not to be enforced.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Sounds like the more humane way to deal with the problem is documenting them. Nah, let's send them to CECOT because they didn't have their paperwork right.
    - Gabriel54 1y ago
      It is not a natural born right of every person born in North and South America to come to the United States. It is not a natural right of every person already inside the USA to remain in the USA.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        So indefinite stays in prison camps for people who were otherwise productive members of society because they didn't have the right paperwork. Makes sense. I agree it's probably not a right, but we've made it so obtusely difficult to do. Even people doing the process legally have stints where they'll probably quietly overstay visas because the gaps in processing things messes up their status. Having such a messed up system only leads to more people being undocumented and our society in a worse place. Make it easier to be documented and obvious that not having documentation means you're probably doing something really bad, and we'll be in a far better place. Add in some carrots to encourage cyclical migration while we're at it. Make it really illegal (read: executives/owners in prison) for hiring undocumented workers. This will do a lot to prevent undocumented workers.
RHSeeger 1y ago
> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported... can't they be taken to court? They are doing this. And, as other have noted, taking them to court is almost impossible. In at least one case, the government has shipped people off to another country after being told clearly by the courts that they are absolutely not allowed to do so. The current government is ignoring the laws, and the checks and balances that are supposed to prevent that are proving completely inadequate; mostly because the people that would enforce that have chosen to support these illegal activities. > 2) ICE is deporting illegal immigrants which don't have permission to be in the country... aren't immigration laws there for a reason Yes, but it's more complicated than that. Specifically, the immigration laws are not up to the task. The US relies on undocumented/illegal workers for a significant portion of it's economy (farming being of particular note). Running rampant and arresting everyone that's here illegally has a huge negative impact. > surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law We do, unfortunately. The laws in the US are very frequently written to be of the variety that give broad (unnecessary) powers, and then say "well, they won't use them in a bad way". It's bad, and it should be pushed back against, but it is what it is. And the enforcement of those laws needs to be balanced against the well being of both individuals and society as a whole. If it helps, consider that every US citizen breaks many laws every day. There's a writeup somewhere of how US citizens commit an average of 3 felonies per day. The sheer number of laws in the US, and the absolute ridiculousness of many of them, make it almost impossible _not_ to break laws. Plus, undocumented immigrants are far less likely to break _other_ laws than the average US citizen. So "we must enforce the law" sounds good, but you'd need to arrest literally _everyone_ if you wanted to use it as a valid argument.
jonstewart 1y ago
As a non-American, one thing that may be hard for you to understand is that immigration is a core principle. Now, with each wave, immigration has also had a popular reaction to it, but this reaction is not universal—many Americans understand their ancestors were once the same hated immigrants. So, the feelings in the country about immigration are mixed. It is also a FACT that immigration is a huge driver of the economy, spurring population growth, providing cheap labor, and contributing delicious ethnic restaurants. Most illegal/undocumented immigrants in the US are otherwise productive and law-abiding. They have a job, they pay taxes. When they have kids here, their kids are citizens. What happens to that family when ICE deports a parent? I live in DC. ICE has detained people in my neighborhood every day this week. Kids at my child’s school are now missing their parents. It seems to be the case that ICE is mostly pulling over drivers of work trucks and vans, and detaining anyone who’s brown-skinned and doesn’t have immigration papers on them (I’m white and was born here; I do not walk around with my birth certificate). So, yes, both #1 and #2 are in play, but I would encourage you to question the underlying assumption that deporting illegal immigrants constitutes an unalloyed good. As a citizen, I don’t think it does and oppose these actions. I would happily provide a path to citizenship for any immigrant that had a good track record of living here peacefully and contributing.
- kouteiheika 1y ago
  > but I would encourage you to question the underlying assumption that deporting illegal immigrants constitutes an unalloyed good I don't necessarily think it's a good thing, especially when the illegal immigrant is otherwise law abiding, pays their taxes and positively contributes to the society, but the whole point of rule of law is that, well, laws are applied consistently and equally to everyone (or at least that's the unattainable ideal we strive for). We can't be like "hey, let's not enforce the law here in this case" just because we don't like the law, because then the next guy in charge might not enforce whatever he thinks is a bad law, or worse - only enforce it on his enemies (like we see in so many totalitarian countries, and apparently what's starting to happen in the US if I am to believe the news/some of the comments here?).
  - jonstewart 1y ago
Tadpole9181 1y ago
Republicans as a party now claim that non-citizens have no constitutional rights, including due process. On top of that, they claim they have a right to deport them however way they feel like, even: - A country they know is not on the same continent they came from. - Directly into the death camp prison of a dictatorship. - Unaccompanied minors without any coordination to have them picked up by any government officials on the other side. Woken up at 2AM and performed intentionally without the knowledge of the judicial system. No, I'm serious, this happened this morning in what they called "Operation Silent Harvest" The gestapo here is whisking away people into black vans wearing ski masks without presenting warrants to anybody, taking them to secret camps and refusing them access to lawyers or the ability to inform family before just... sending them wherever before legal proceedings can confirm their status. We've already seen them not only nab citizens or legal immigrants, but know a few have been attempted to or actually flown out of the country. > Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? No, the "unitary executive" has clearly decided Trump is out king and may do whatever he wants. Including a secret police.
Hilift 1y ago
The app isn't needed. It is a flex response by lefties that are being trolled. There is theater and history on both sides. Lookup videos on YouTube of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Donated in the 1880's, it used to be 35 acre urban park oasis. Now it is a rodent infested drug haven. Between 4 PM and sunrise, the area is taken over by unlicensed street vendors and drug dealers, all of whom are controlled by Mexican cartel gangs using sidewalk landlords. You can purchase fentanyl in bulk, and walk one mile down the street and sell it for three times profit. The surrounding area is mostly apartments, with no positive tax revenue base, residential or commercial. It has a population density four times Manhattan, New York, 50,000 in one square mile. 67% of residents in the community are unauthorized immigrants. 67% of children don't have a father. Most apartments are shared by two families. Only 20% of residents vote. 90% of fire department calls are overdose and illegal open bonfires set by homeless. 49% of street lights are disabled, the city estimates three years to fix. Building owners have to paint their exterior walls every day to remove gang signs. The Home Depot most profitable product is paint, even though it is id-restricted and locked up. Most of the people in the park long term are repeat criminal offenders. The city has converted the area into a de facto dumping ground for people released from jail. Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass lives nearby. A few weeks ago ICE made a cameo walk through trolling appearance for a few minutes, and everyone freaked out. Of course they didn't really do anything. How could they? It would require at least 500 police to sweep an area that large. Many in the park have weapons. Bonus fact: The Tijuana River is actually in the US. It exits into the San Diego Bay watershed at Imperial Beach. 70 million gallons per day of untreated sewage, and several hundred million gallons of treated effluent per day. Even with the one water treatment plant in Tijuana Mexico, (population 2.3 million) funded by the US, and a second that the US had agreed to fund, this will not reduce the illegal sewage discharge, which is estimated to increase to 200 million? Oddly, it hasn't affected home prices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park How MacArthur Park Became LA's Most Dangerous Spot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odHsJvSHZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odHsJvSHZE What Happened to MacArthur Park? The Rise and Fall of LA's Urban Oasis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssU3tdAAH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssU3tdAAH4 El Tijuana River National Estuarine "Research" Reserve https://maps.app.goo.gl/9gouGc9ge4ikYfgZA https://maps.app.goo.gl/9gouGc9ge4ikYfgZA
- 1y ago
uyzstvqs 1y ago
I'll try to explain this in a nuanced manner, as someone who dislikes both sides of the narrative. The Democrats are sort of pro-immigration. Though for some reason, they strongly support illegal immigration, and seek to decriminalize it through so-called "sanctuary cities", rather than starting serious efforts at making permanent legal immigration liberal and approachable for most people. Illegal immigration comes with major problems. It's an avenue for organized crime, and a recipe for a major humanitarian crisis. It's a driving factor in the Opioid Epidemic. Most people are aware of this, which is part of why the Democrats lost. So now the Republicans are in charge. They are anti-immigration, and want permanent immigration to be unreachable for 99% of people. They are now running mass-deportations of illegal immigrants. The grievance which opponents have with this is that they're actively looking for illegal immigrants who are otherwise doing nothing wrong, using military-style police, in a system which doesn't allow for easy legal immigration. Most people are somewhere in the middle, but they have to pick between two extremes. A) unsecured borders which get taken advantage of by criminal gangs, or B) your local contractor Juan getting deported by military police.
- NoGravitas 1y ago
  > The Democrats are sort of pro-immigration. Though for some reason, they strongly support illegal immigration, and seek to decriminalize it through so-called "sanctuary cities", rather than starting serious efforts at making permanent legal immigration liberal and approachable for most people. I think the reason for this is that illegal immigration is more beneficial to Democrats' donors than broadening legal immigration. Illegal immigrants are easy for employers to exploit beyond the limits allowed by labor law, because they are unable to turn to the police or courts for protection. The Democrats are fundamentally a business-owners party, despite their usually symbolic gestures to the left, so this is typical for them: implement anti-worker policies with a veneer of human rights. The Republican policy is actually somewhat worse than your description. Besides using militarized policing to pick up illegal immigrants that are otherwise doing nothing wrong, they are also cutting out many of the systems of due process that would allow illegal immigrants access to the courts to appeal their deportation. As a result, ICE is also sweeping up refugees, asylum seekers, legal immigrants, and even citizens, without any real oversight.
- 1y ago
RickJWagner 1y ago
That’s a good way to look at it. ICE must act within the bounds of the legal system. If you are unhappy with their actions, an election is the remedy. Actions like this app are not the right way to ‘fix’ things and are probably unproductive.
captainmuon 1y ago
Or 3) there are illegal immigrants and ICE is deporting them according to the law, BUT some people think this is unjust and want to do something against it. The democratic process to change laws is too slow or doesn't work properly, or there is no majority to change the law. Remember there is a difference between legal and legitimate. You don't have to do something just because it is the law (well, you could define "have to" to mean what the law says, but then it becomes pretty circular). Historically, often behavior changes before the applicable laws change. Think about the acceptance of gay relationships, or the use of cannabis. If people don't sometimes break the law, society can't evolve. That doesn't mean the rule of law has to break down. I think the rule of law is very important and would uphold it in most cases, but there are certain cases where conscience might order one to break or circumvent a law.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported, [...] > In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? Well, no, that’s not something people think is an adequate remedy for the abuse, for a number of reasons, most notably that a high profile aspect of the abuse of power has been the Administration removing people in violation of court orders, publicly mocking the courts while doing so, and then using the fact that the people were no longer within the control of the US government as an excuse to argue that they were immune to further court orders with respect to those people. (Also the fact that people detained have at times been held incommunicado without access to attorneys and without the ability to notify people that and where they are held makes either the detained individual or anyone else challenging their detention in court difficult.) > and surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law like in so many corrupt countries around the world? We have that. That’s the problem the app is responding to. > Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? Not particularly, in this area, no.
brennyb 1y ago
Independent of what you think about illegal immigration, there is a core problem in that they are not following and not being held to follow due process guaranteed by the US constitution. Without due process, ICE is a de facto personal army for the president to harm whoever he wants, including arbitrary citizens, without real recourse.
carbonbioxide 1y ago
> aren't immigration laws there for a reason Right, the problem is you're assuming immigration agents are following the law. You need to alert people of where they are to protect them. People who are actually here legally are being arrested, waiting for them outside courtrooms. There have been several cases of actual American citizens detained illegally based on racial profiling. There's no proper due process. Additionally, the treatment of those who are detained is very inhumane, using tactics to induce fear.
jjav 1y ago
> As far as I can see there are two possibilities here Most of it is (1), but even in the case of (2) the problem is that this is an outlaw organization which is not following any established law or process. Legally, deporting people who are here out of status is fine. But to do that properly, you'd have to establish proof of who they are and why they are out of status, in front of an immigration court. ICE bypasses all that and just sends masked unidentified thugs to the street to grab people left and right and disappear them into secret detention centers with no access to lawyers. About as illegal behavior as it gets.
SnuffBox 1y ago
Americans are so divided they'll defend illegal immigrants rather than side with anything Trump has said.

SomeoneOnTheWeb 1y ago

It's (1) but ICE is making their job to intimidate people so they don't face consequences.

pjmlp 1y ago

You're missing the point courts are useless with current administration, for all practical purposes they are turning into a authoritarian regime, and many still think there is going to exist some magical elections to turn this around. I see all the signs of Portuguese dictorship that ended in 1974, and I as first generation being raised in freedom got to hear and learn plenty of stories on how everything used to be. Sadly also back home people have forgotten what it meant to live under authoritarian regime.

thinkharderdev 1y ago

> (1) can't they be taken to court? Yes, they can be and are being but it's not much comfort to know that the courts will decide a deportation was unlawful after you've already spent 6 months being tortured in an El Salvadoran prison.

fuckyah 1y ago
[dead]

moduspol 1y ago

It’s #2, and the status quo for quite some time is that immigration laws were just not enforced, or administratively bypassed. That’s why there’s a lot of pushback.

skizm 1y ago
Obama deported 3 million illegals. Trump has deported 60,000 so far.
- antonymoose 1y ago
  Obama artfully redefined “turned away at the border” into “deportation,” which most people imagine as ICE agents detaining and removing a person from the interior of the United States.
  - r_lee 1y ago
    I love politics
010101010101 1y ago
That’s absolutely not why there’s a lot of pushback. There’s a lot of pushback because of: - a general sense of authoritarian policy degrading American democracy - inhumane treatment of detainees - illegal deportations happening with no due process (see option 1) - humanitarian concerns over people being deported to states they’re seeking asylum from for valid and good reasons - hyperbolic claims of every immigrant being a “rapist criminal” degrading public discourse leading to further profiling of anyone who looks like they might be an immigrant I could come up with more but you get the point - the pushback is about _far more_ than whatever you’re toeing the line about here.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago

Imagine being continually aggressively questioned and detained just because you ‘might’ be an illegal immigrant based on the color of your skin, by power-hungry maga supporters.

actionfromafar 1y ago
Also, bodyslammed and your car crashed into / windows smashed. Well ooopsie. Who did it? Masked dude with no number. Rinse, repeat.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  Well then you shouldn’t have resisted then, ‘citizen’.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Ah, driving while citizen.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
      I don’t like your tone, citizen.

diggan 1y ago

> In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason Sure, everything ultimately exist for some reason, but that doesn't mean everyone agrees with the reasoning :) I don't know what the answer is (also an outsider), but I think there is a third possibility of people just disagreeing with the move of "Lets forcible check every single potentially illegal immigrant, so we can get rid of the illegal ones" from a purely humanitarian perspective, regardless if ICE might be abusing their power or if they're only removing illegal immigrants. Edit: I'm wondering if positing two options like that is actually engagement bait of sorts, already we have two confident commentators saying "It's N of course" where N is both 1 and 2, and I myself fell into the trap of thinking of the third missing one :)

kouteiheika 1y ago
> I think there is a third possibility of people just disagreeing with the move of "Lets forcible check every single potentially illegal immigrant, so we can get rid of the illegal ones" from a purely humanitarian perspective, regardless if ICE might be abusing their power or if they're only removing illegal immigrants. Okay, so bear with me, what does "forcibly" entail here? I'm an immigrant too, I also get "forcibly" (as in: I can't refuse) checked whether I'm legal or not based on how I look, which essentially boils down to spending a minute of my time taking my immigrant card (which shows that I'm legal) out of my wallet, showing it to the police officer (or whatever other government official is asking), and then going my way. This is totally not a problem. Doesn't the US have a way for immigrants to easily and unambiguously identify themselves as legal immigrants?
- crooked-v 1y ago
  'Forcibly' entails a bunch of guys jumping out of a van to kidnap brown people from a Home Depot parking lot because they're brown (https://lamag.com/news/new-lawsuit-says-ice-agents-are-racially-profiling-american-citizens/ https://lamag.com/news/new-lawsuit-says-ice-agents-are-racia...).
- darkwater 1y ago
  > I also get "forcibly" (as in: I can't refuse) checked whether I'm legal or not based on how I look, which essentially boils down to spending a minute of my time taking my immigrant card (which shows that I'm legal) out of my wallet, showing it to the police officer (or whatever other government official is asking), and then going my way. This is totally not a problem. Sounds like you have a mild case of Stockholm syndrome, if you happily accept that you get more attention from law enforcement due to your physical traits.

fuckyah 1y ago

They are enforcing the law. But left wingers don’t get this.

Spooky23 1y ago

Both things are happening. One of the bigger grey areas are people in the process of adjudicating asylum requests. The cases aren’t finalized, and in many circumstances they are grabbing people as they leave their hearings. They are also targeting other people with visas for violations both significant and trivial. Trivial meaning misspellings or typos on one of the dozens or hundreds of forms filled out at some point in the past. Rule of law is being undermined, basically under the guise of whatever state of emergency is in place, they look to act quickly where any ambiguity exists and before courts get to weigh in.

awoimbee 1y ago

This can't be reduced to a boolean (as always). The issue is that ICE is doing #2 via #1.

nxobject 1y ago

There is significant evidence for (1), although the two aren't mutually inconsistent: – There is evidence that there is a quota on arrests, [1], rather than deportations, although the administration has inconsistently denied that quotas exist (because it would help legal cases against their strategies.) [2] [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ices-tactics-draw-criticism-it-triples-daily-arrest-targets-2025-06-10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ices-tactics-draw-criticism... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/trump-administration-daily-quota-immigration-arrests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/03/trump-admini... – Therefore, there have been incidents, especially in targeted cities like LA, where citizens [1] and lawful permanent residents have arrested before being released after multiple days of detention [2], although this data is not systematically gathered, e.g.: [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-08/how-many-citizens-have-been-arrested-in-immigration-crackdown https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-08/how-many... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/jemmy-jimenez-rosa-immigration-detainment-2120389 https://www.newsweek.com/jemmy-jimenez-rosa-immigration-deta... – Recourse to the courts in a meaningful, practical way is ineffective. The administration has ignored lawsuits where judges have issued injunctions against ICE dragnets due to plausible evidence that ICE dragnets target individuals who look Latin American, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/ice-border-patrol-home-depot-los-angeles https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/06/ice-border-p... The suspicion (although I need to look up a legal source) is that the administration intends to drag on legal cases as long as possible through appeals, perhaps even up to the Supreme Court, which will take months.

sgnelson 1y ago

>Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? Not so much these days...

Waterluvian 1y ago

I think (2) is understandable logic, but is incomplete. “People who don’t have permission to be there shouldn’t be there” equates law == what’s right. I think past administrations have recognized that while they are there illegally, they also have economic value. Some past government actions may have even gone so far as to recognize humanitarian reasons, beyond their economic value. However, the greater evil isn’t that ICE is enforcing the law. It’s that they’re doing it in a reckless way that reeks of violating any sort of due process.

mcny 1y ago
I think details also matter here. Should ICE be allowed to come to a Home Depot, a Walmart, elementary schools, and "randomly" interrogate people? Who are they picking? How is it possible to do this without discriminating people based on ethnicity etc while also avoiding the ridiculous cost of interrogating everyone every day or the futility of pure randomness? The real fear in my mind is not what this circus of an administration does for the next three - four years but that the next administrations will continue these practices just by sheer inertia (same with tariffs).
gadders 1y ago
>>that while they are there illegally, they also have economic value that while they are there illegally, they can also vote illegally for one particular party (the same party that doesn't like voter ID laws). Fixed it for you. >>It’s that they’re doing it in a reckless way that reeks of violating any sort of due process. Due to the massive volume of uncontrolled immigration under Biden, "due process" as envisaged by activists would take 10's of years to complete which is obviously not practical.
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  I think these are intellectually weak arguments. The first is weak because it is driven by fear, not facts. Does that actually happen in any meaningful volume at all, or would any answer just be a link in a "it's a big conspiracy chain!" The second is weak because it exposes an ignorance, to one's own peril, of a system fundamentally designed to protect them. It's embarrassingly un-American to believe that due process is optional when it's too inconvenient. It begs the question, who gets to judge when that is? The Executive branch? That betrays one's lack of basic understanding of their own governmental system. But I think that's why this kind of thinking appears to be so sticky. It's not something one can be reasoned out of because it's not founded in rational thought. If someone possessed the capacity to be disabused of this idea, without having to first experience the leopards eating their face, they would have been by now.

gwd 1y ago

You apparently haven't been keeping track of all the madness. First of all, the immigration laws aren't rational. The states aren't "legal" and "illegal", but "documented" and "undocumented". It's often the case that The Official Way To Do Things can cause you to transition from a "documented" state to an "undocumented" state and back again while in the country. Part of what people like the author are trying to do is to help people who made the documented -> undocumented transition to complete their undocumented -> documented transition before ICE an export them somewhere. Secondly, ICE has basically been given a target of 500k people to expel. They've always had a reputation for being more on the "bully / asshole" side than normal, and now those people have been given a blank check to crank it up to 11. Finally, there are clear, documented cases of ICE breaking the law and then trying to play games to get around it. Go look up the Abrego-Garcia case: 1. He came in legally, and was documented -- he had a court order forbidding him from being extradited to El Salvador, and was checking in regularly. 2. They swept him up, erroneously identified him as a gang member, and shipped him out to El Salvador before anyone had a chance to do anything to protest 3. They admitted in court that extraditing him was a mistake; but then said, "Well, he's out of our jurisdiction now, we can't do anything to get him back." 4. When, after months of wrangling, they finally did bring him back, they decided to charge him with a crime for something he did years ago (even though they didn't decide to charge him with anything back then, and had plenty of opportunities to do so earlier). So basically, 1) The immigration laws are broken: not just and not really follow-able 2) ICE often don't follow the law unless browbeaten by the courts to do so 3) they often try to entirely avoid the courts by playing jurisdictional games. There's a good reason that large numbers of intelligent, dedicated patriots are organizing to oppose ICE.

mothballed 1y ago
By doing (4) they reset the asylum clock and now he can reapply, with a pretty rock solid evidence of torture in el salvador at cecot.
mikevm 1y ago
[flagged]
- 1y ago

gortok 1y ago

> Why is this app even needed/desired? The methods ICE is using currently to detain people for deportation look a lot like secret police tactics for disappearing folks and resemble kidnapping, when a van full of armed men with face masks jump out and remove you from your vehicle, zip-tie you, and transport you to a secret facility. There have also been reported situations of ICE officers breaking windows of cars and pulling folks out, when all they had was an administrative warrant. And that doesn’t include the recently reported and videoed situation of an ICE agent firing at a vehicle that was stopped by ICE agents. All of these tactics increase fear among the populace, and that fear is what drives apps like these. Whether you’re here legally or not, no one deserves the secret police tactics that fly in the face of the principles of limited government and freedom of movement.

philipallstar 1y ago
> Whether you’re here legally or not, no one deserves the secret police tactics that fly in the face of the principles of limited government and freedom of movement. Committing a crime might well result in your movement being curtailed, and addressing crime is definitely within the remit of limited government.
- footy 1y ago
  Immigration violations are a civil matter in the United States,though, not a criminal one. You know. Back when "the rule of law" was a thing.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Also consider ICE pretends they have no choice, when in fact congress grants them unilateral power of parole. They can just make someone legal with a magic wand, but pretend like it's all out of their hands.
  - 9991 1y ago
    What does that mean in practical terms? You can ask illegal immigrants politely to leave, and if they don't then that's it?

kingkawn 1y ago

Maybe you haven’t been watching the news for the last ten years with regards to this administration and its fealty to legal precedent

this15testingg 1y ago
right? like what universe are these people in
- aniforprez 1y ago
  They could just not be an American

qcnguy 1y ago

[flagged]

faku812 1y ago
[flagged]
dachworker 1y ago
You constructed a narrative and overlaid it over the facts. The facts are that for many decades past, it was possible for hopeful economic immigrants to abuse asylum laws, or the back then less protected border, to gain entry to the US. Neither red nor blue administrations handled this properly and lots of people benefited from the status quo, and your focus on, "the left" is quite conspicuous, because one does not tend to think of farm owners, meat processing plants and construction contracting businesses as "the left". And rightfully past administrations should shoulder the blame for not dealing with immigration in a lawful manner back then. If there was a need for immigrant labor they should have handed temporary VISAs or whatever, instead of ignoring illegal immigration.
- qcnguy 1y ago
  How did past administrations ignore it? Trump 1.0 tried to build his Big Beautiful Wall and implement many other policies to get a grip on abuse of the immigration rules. Obama ran a relatively normal immigration policy with "deportations" (incl border turnarounds) increasing until wokeness emerged in 2012, after which number of deportations went into sharp decline. George W Bush more than doubled border spending, ended catch and release, created the Secure Border Initiative, sent 6000 National Guard members to the southern border, and called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration enforcement upgrades: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/immigration.html https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/... Bill Clinton did a crackdown against illegal immigration, passing the 1996 IIRAIRA act that made it easier to deport illegals and increased border security. This has been a live issue for a long time and was a bipartisan issue up until 2012, when wokeness took off (https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vVtE!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4101ad17-8372-46c8-a8bd-4a3ce12fc1e9_2393x1843.jpeg https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vVtE!,f_auto,q_auto:...). After that the Republicans stuck to the prior position and the Democrats moved FAR to the left. Bill Clinton would be a "fascist" to them. The fact that Bill Clinton had nothing in common with Hitler or Mussolini doesn't register with them at all.

atoav 1y ago

Or (3) what ICE does is illegal AND you can't legally challenge their action until AFTER you have been deported to a torture prison in a 3rd world country you've never been to. The reason people want to avoid ICE is the same reason you have a smoke detector: Even if you do everything right, a fire can still happen and when it does you're happy you had it. The US constitution guarantees certain rights to any person on their soil, without them having to be citizens. These rights are currently being violated with approval of at least two branches of government.

pizza234 1y ago

There's a report by John Oliver: https://youtu.be/DfTBhrkae74 https://youtu.be/DfTBhrkae74. > can't they be taken to court? It costs money, and the low hanging fruits of deportation are low-income families/individuals. > In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? In case of (2) aren't immigration laws there for a reason Police, courts and administration work until they don't. There have been cases of people arrested just because of racial profiling, which fits into Trump's racial vision. The emblematic case IMO, has been the high-profile instance of an American citized deported because of an administrative mistake (!!); Trump has openly refused to apologize or take corrective action (!!!). The real problem, if one accepts Oliver’s criticisms, is that this is not about law, it's about racial cleansing.

ekidd 1y ago

The concern here is (1). ICE officers have no badges. They wear masks. Sometimes they have no uniforms. They grab people off the streets, and stuff them into white vans. They may send those people to foreign prisons, even if a judge tells them not to. Some of the people they take are natural-born citizens. Taking them to court works sometimes. But ICE will often attempt to move people out of state quickly, and they won't always say where those people went. And as I mentioned above, the administration has just straight-up ignored multiple court orders. Courts are a cute legal fiction that only works if the people with guns agree to listen to them.

api 1y ago
Tangent but: I am shocked none of these guys have been gunned down yet. Where I live, which is the suburbs in Ohio and only mildly gun happy by US standards, I’d estimate that if you went house to house busting in doors with masks and no ID you’d make it less than ten houses before you’d get a face full of buck shot. Some of the border states where they’re doing this like Texas and Arizona I’d say no more than three houses.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  ICE blew up a family's door with explosives, geared like tacticool nerds equipped to capture Bin Laden because one guy blocked them with his van. The whole point of this was to show the consequences of not complying with the brownshirts. Shoot one of them down, you might well discover they have the budget to buy F35s now. >Some of the border states where they’re doing this like Texas and Arizona I’d say no more than three houses. Great news: they've been doing this to thousands of houses in the very states you mention. Just not the white ones.
  - api 1y ago
    Only whites have guns? Of course I would guess that undocumented immigrants are less likely to have guns since they tend to avoid anything that could get them in trouble. I lived in SoCal for a while and had several neighbors who I suspect were but of course never asked. BTW they were the nicest people. One of their daughters taught our oldest daughter to ride a bike. The scapegoating and persecution of these people is gross. If we don’t want them here we should go after the employers who create the incentive for them to come, but that would mean going after white people.

deleted 1y ago

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watwut 1y ago

I kinda feel like it pays off to do a quick search before asking hyper broad questions with hypothetical that betray that you did not spent 10 seconds on Google.

philipallstar 1y ago

The problem is (2) has been pushed recently by the left in America (unlike 20 years ago when it was the right that liked illegal immigration) as a racist stance, and "open borders" was a big policy idea. So many, many thousands of illegal immigrants (renamed 1984-style to "undocumented" by the media outlets who operate in lockstep with the Democrat party) have been allowed in, and have been sheltered by businesses who like below-minimum wage labour, and by democrat cities in general. This means there's not much left to do when left-wing activists violently defend illegal immigrants from ICE removal other than escalating ICE activities to compensate.

pjc50 1y ago
> 20 years ago when it was the right that liked illegal immigration I don't think that was ever the case? The South Park "they took our jobs!" episode was 2004. The right has been against immigration since the Chinese Exclusion Act.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
> it was the right that liked illegal immigration they still like illegal immigration, because it's good for businesses (the primary concern of the right) its Trump/MAGA's xenophobic popularism that is reflected in ICE's thuggery (which is clearly designed to instill fear; the same way that S.Miller's plans to separate children from parents at the border was overtly designed to instill fear). It is not reflective of the traditional GOP. In fact, GOP senators have pressed Trump into making "exceptions" -- you'll notice how ICE is primarily operating in "blue" cities, and not raiding farms and chicken processing plants in the Midwest or the CA central valley -- this is not a coincidence.

lazide 1y ago

Welcome to the party pal. Didn’t you see what has been done against Abrego Garcia, and how intent the administration is to ship him off to random other countries (and how they succeeded once!) even though the courts insist he should stay? That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

mapt 1y ago

That would require a sensible immigration regulation. What we have instead is a regulation that almost prohibits immigration, but which has a whole bunch of grey areas, exceptions to the rule that qualify you for some special status, and courts that are overloaded by a factor of ~100 relative to what they would need to do their job, or overloaded by a factor of ~10 relative to what they would need to do a terrible pro forma job. While waiting for a court date (let's say you walk in and claim asylum) you are granted a special status by administrative custom which says that nobody is coming after you until after your status is adjudicated. Deportation is "deferred", and can be rescinded after the fact based on adjudication. Previous administrations have "prioritized violent crimes" for deportation, leaving about 20 million people at a time outside the system of legal permanent residency, and another 40 million of their family members who rely on them with legal status but precarious. Being custom rather than law, when Stephen Miller and his white supremacist posse comes in they can suspend that, and work at odds with the court and the process. They literally wait until these people check in with the courts and black bag them on their way out of the courtroom. The US agricultural, construction, and food service sectors have come to almost completely rely on this system permitting either nominally illegal cash-under-the-table work, or "I can't actually prove he's illegal" work, or work performed under a green card sought after the delays and deferred prosecutions in that court date permit the immigrant to start a family and see their kids through college.

api 1y ago
It’s broken by design because certain key US industries, like construction, hospitality, restaurants, cleaning, and agriculture, are dependent on a supply of under the table below minimum wage and tax and benefit free labor.
- mapt 1y ago
  That begs the question of why not just fix it. It's broken because of intersection of demand for labor with three other things: American society has always had a somewhat racist, xenophobia character Right-wing oligarchical power sees exploiting this character as their path to lower tax rates and a regulation-free corpo state, and has poured tens of billions of dollars into media to set the terms of the conversation The system for proposing and passing laws has been fundamentally dysfunctional and irrational for a long time. A system with a filibuter-containing Senate and strong partisan infrastructure after the campaign finance system and media circus has matured, evidently just cannot make decisions on sensitive subjects like this.

faku812 1y ago

[flagged]

jagrsw 1y ago
From the perspective of Native Americans, the predominantly European immigration was also generally unwelcome. How do you argue that the behavior of your predecessors is acceptable (and your presumed right to reside in what's currently known as United States) while those who now attempt to enter the territory suddenly become dangerous criminals? Would your argument be more understandable to the reader than “might is right” or “if it is against me, it is unfair and abuse, if I do it to others, it is a sacred law”?
- faku812 1y ago
  I would first like to clarify that I am not a citizen of USA, but I still support their right to have and enforce borders - same as I support it for every other country in the world. I don't think what happened hundreds of years ago was right, but no person that is alive today had anything to do with it. I am not sure if I correctly understand your position. Do you believe that anyone from anywhere in the world should be able to come and live in the USA, and also receive benefits from taxes that were paid by citizens?
  - jagrsw 1y ago
    > Do you believe that anyone from anywhere in the world should be able to come > and live in the USA, and also receive benefits from taxes that were paid by citizens? I guess I'm generally in favor of an open-border policy (or at least immigration based on promises of work, verifiable by a work contract). Benefits are usually tax-based, and immigrants pay taxes (or, it's always possible to set it up that taxes are paid). > but no person that is alive today had anything to do with it They do. They're using land and resources taken from their former hosts which is a deep moral grey zone. Leaving home would be an option. If it's deemed too invasive, perhaps not penalizing people who want to do the same (minus stealing the land forcibly) would be a good first step.

MSFT_Edging 1y ago

> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). > (1) can't they be taken to court? Once arrested, ICE will ship people off to many states away(if you're european, imagine being arrested in the north of France and sent to a camp in southern Spain). Once you are arrested by ICE, it's very difficult to be found. There is no arrest announcement or ability to call family. Basically you disappear into this system and if you have someone hire a lawyer, the lawyer essentially has to search for you in various prisons. Sure they can be taken to court, but the arrestee wont see any restitution for the terrible conditions they were illegally forced into. If you do win in court( Kilmar Abrego), they'll send you somewhere even worse out of spite.

mathiaspoint 1y ago
[flagged]
reliabilityguy 1y ago
> ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). As far as I understand (correct me if I am wrong), if you have no valid status in the US then going to court does not mean that you are following the rules, no? I mean, why would anyone with a valid status have to go to immigration court?
- btreecat 1y ago
  > > ICE has been going after low hanging fruit, ie arresting people when they go to their immigration court dates(aka following the rules). > > As far as I understand (correct me if I am wrong), if you have no valid status in the US then going to court does not mean that you are following the rules, no? I mean, why would anyone with a valid status have to go to immigration court? One reason is legal check-ins, folks can be in the US on many different types of entry. Some require regular check ins with ICE or an immigration judge to continue being here. ICE told immigration judges to dismiss cases (based on a new memo being challenged) and enable immediate arrests. Additionally some folks who had continuing cases were getting arrested before the case concluded (e.g. asylum cases)) https://missouriindependent.com/2025/08/13/ice-has-a-new-courthouse-tactic-get-immigrants-cases-tossed-then-arrest-them-outside/ https://missouriindependent.com/2025/08/13/ice-has-a-new-cou... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna226866 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna226866

egorfine 1y ago

As a Ukrainian who have used similar apps in the past to avoid conscription gangs on the streets of Kiev, I can tell you that legality doesn't really matter much in situations where you are the prey and they play hunters. Especially if the current law (or the practical implementation of the law) supports their actions. It's just fear and one of the practical solutions to avoid being kidnapped on the streets with no due process and no legal way out whatsoever. You just wanna survive.

mattigames 1y ago

As a non-american I find this too naive of a view, the third possibility is that is already pretty selective application of the law, Elon Musk brother publicly admitted being illegal immigrants for a few years (right next to Elon, in a recorded presentation), but rich people college frats are never where the raids happen, this already selective use of the law it's one of the infuriating things about it, not to mention all the other laws this administration is already breaking that will never be prosecuted.

walthamstow 1y ago
Melania Trump also worked illegally on a tourist visa

abtinf 1y ago

There are between 8-14 million such individuals in the US. Many of them have lived here for decades, work peacefully, and have built lives. Many of them have married citizen spouses, and also have children who are citizens. They are friends, neighbors, and colleagues. They are often the best and most ambitious among us. It would be an ethical, moral, and humanitarian catastrophe to suddenly expel all of them. It would also be an economic disaster, as this population forms a disproportionate fraction of the labor force. The price of goods and services would skyrocket if not outright be lost from the market forever. Inflation would obliterate savings. The US immigration system is wildly irrational and violates the rights of American citizens. It must be radically reformed.

Gabriel54 1y ago
There cannot be a comprehensive system of worker's rights when millions of workers are present without documentation. We cannot support a higher minimum wage and, at the same time, take in millions of workers who will work for less. It is a violation of the rights of Americans not to have a real and effective border, and for immigration laws not to be enforced.
- vel0city 1y ago
  Sounds like the more humane way to deal with the problem is documenting them. Nah, let's send them to CECOT because they didn't have their paperwork right.
  - Gabriel54 1y ago
    It is not a natural born right of every person born in North and South America to come to the United States. It is not a natural right of every person already inside the USA to remain in the USA.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      So indefinite stays in prison camps for people who were otherwise productive members of society because they didn't have the right paperwork. Makes sense. I agree it's probably not a right, but we've made it so obtusely difficult to do. Even people doing the process legally have stints where they'll probably quietly overstay visas because the gaps in processing things messes up their status. Having such a messed up system only leads to more people being undocumented and our society in a worse place. Make it easier to be documented and obvious that not having documentation means you're probably doing something really bad, and we'll be in a far better place. Add in some carrots to encourage cyclical migration while we're at it. Make it really illegal (read: executives/owners in prison) for hiring undocumented workers. This will do a lot to prevent undocumented workers.

RHSeeger 1y ago

> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported... can't they be taken to court? They are doing this. And, as other have noted, taking them to court is almost impossible. In at least one case, the government has shipped people off to another country after being told clearly by the courts that they are absolutely not allowed to do so. The current government is ignoring the laws, and the checks and balances that are supposed to prevent that are proving completely inadequate; mostly because the people that would enforce that have chosen to support these illegal activities. > 2) ICE is deporting illegal immigrants which don't have permission to be in the country... aren't immigration laws there for a reason Yes, but it's more complicated than that. Specifically, the immigration laws are not up to the task. The US relies on undocumented/illegal workers for a significant portion of it's economy (farming being of particular note). Running rampant and arresting everyone that's here illegally has a huge negative impact. > surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law We do, unfortunately. The laws in the US are very frequently written to be of the variety that give broad (unnecessary) powers, and then say "well, they won't use them in a bad way". It's bad, and it should be pushed back against, but it is what it is. And the enforcement of those laws needs to be balanced against the well being of both individuals and society as a whole. If it helps, consider that every US citizen breaks many laws every day. There's a writeup somewhere of how US citizens commit an average of 3 felonies per day. The sheer number of laws in the US, and the absolute ridiculousness of many of them, make it almost impossible _not_ to break laws. Plus, undocumented immigrants are far less likely to break _other_ laws than the average US citizen. So "we must enforce the law" sounds good, but you'd need to arrest literally _everyone_ if you wanted to use it as a valid argument.

jonstewart 1y ago

As a non-American, one thing that may be hard for you to understand is that immigration is a core principle. Now, with each wave, immigration has also had a popular reaction to it, but this reaction is not universal—many Americans understand their ancestors were once the same hated immigrants. So, the feelings in the country about immigration are mixed. It is also a FACT that immigration is a huge driver of the economy, spurring population growth, providing cheap labor, and contributing delicious ethnic restaurants. Most illegal/undocumented immigrants in the US are otherwise productive and law-abiding. They have a job, they pay taxes. When they have kids here, their kids are citizens. What happens to that family when ICE deports a parent? I live in DC. ICE has detained people in my neighborhood every day this week. Kids at my child’s school are now missing their parents. It seems to be the case that ICE is mostly pulling over drivers of work trucks and vans, and detaining anyone who’s brown-skinned and doesn’t have immigration papers on them (I’m white and was born here; I do not walk around with my birth certificate). So, yes, both #1 and #2 are in play, but I would encourage you to question the underlying assumption that deporting illegal immigrants constitutes an unalloyed good. As a citizen, I don’t think it does and oppose these actions. I would happily provide a path to citizenship for any immigrant that had a good track record of living here peacefully and contributing.

kouteiheika 1y ago
> but I would encourage you to question the underlying assumption that deporting illegal immigrants constitutes an unalloyed good I don't necessarily think it's a good thing, especially when the illegal immigrant is otherwise law abiding, pays their taxes and positively contributes to the society, but the whole point of rule of law is that, well, laws are applied consistently and equally to everyone (or at least that's the unattainable ideal we strive for). We can't be like "hey, let's not enforce the law here in this case" just because we don't like the law, because then the next guy in charge might not enforce whatever he thinks is a bad law, or worse - only enforce it on his enemies (like we see in so many totalitarian countries, and apparently what's starting to happen in the US if I am to believe the news/some of the comments here?).
- jonstewart 1y ago

Tadpole9181 1y ago

Republicans as a party now claim that non-citizens have no constitutional rights, including due process. On top of that, they claim they have a right to deport them however way they feel like, even: - A country they know is not on the same continent they came from. - Directly into the death camp prison of a dictatorship. - Unaccompanied minors without any coordination to have them picked up by any government officials on the other side. Woken up at 2AM and performed intentionally without the knowledge of the judicial system. No, I'm serious, this happened this morning in what they called "Operation Silent Harvest" The gestapo here is whisking away people into black vans wearing ski masks without presenting warrants to anybody, taking them to secret camps and refusing them access to lawyers or the ability to inform family before just... sending them wherever before legal proceedings can confirm their status. We've already seen them not only nab citizens or legal immigrants, but know a few have been attempted to or actually flown out of the country. > Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? No, the "unitary executive" has clearly decided Trump is out king and may do whatever he wants. Including a secret police.

Hilift 1y ago

The app isn't needed. It is a flex response by lefties that are being trolled. There is theater and history on both sides. Lookup videos on YouTube of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Donated in the 1880's, it used to be 35 acre urban park oasis. Now it is a rodent infested drug haven. Between 4 PM and sunrise, the area is taken over by unlicensed street vendors and drug dealers, all of whom are controlled by Mexican cartel gangs using sidewalk landlords. You can purchase fentanyl in bulk, and walk one mile down the street and sell it for three times profit. The surrounding area is mostly apartments, with no positive tax revenue base, residential or commercial. It has a population density four times Manhattan, New York, 50,000 in one square mile. 67% of residents in the community are unauthorized immigrants. 67% of children don't have a father. Most apartments are shared by two families. Only 20% of residents vote. 90% of fire department calls are overdose and illegal open bonfires set by homeless. 49% of street lights are disabled, the city estimates three years to fix. Building owners have to paint their exterior walls every day to remove gang signs. The Home Depot most profitable product is paint, even though it is id-restricted and locked up. Most of the people in the park long term are repeat criminal offenders. The city has converted the area into a de facto dumping ground for people released from jail. Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass lives nearby. A few weeks ago ICE made a cameo walk through trolling appearance for a few minutes, and everyone freaked out. Of course they didn't really do anything. How could they? It would require at least 500 police to sweep an area that large. Many in the park have weapons. Bonus fact: The Tijuana River is actually in the US. It exits into the San Diego Bay watershed at Imperial Beach. 70 million gallons per day of untreated sewage, and several hundred million gallons of treated effluent per day. Even with the one water treatment plant in Tijuana Mexico, (population 2.3 million) funded by the US, and a second that the US had agreed to fund, this will not reduce the illegal sewage discharge, which is estimated to increase to 200 million? Oddly, it hasn't affected home prices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Park How MacArthur Park Became LA's Most Dangerous Spot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odHsJvSHZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odHsJvSHZE What Happened to MacArthur Park? The Rise and Fall of LA's Urban Oasis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssU3tdAAH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ssU3tdAAH4 El Tijuana River National Estuarine "Research" Reserve https://maps.app.goo.gl/9gouGc9ge4ikYfgZA https://maps.app.goo.gl/9gouGc9ge4ikYfgZA

1y ago

uyzstvqs 1y ago

I'll try to explain this in a nuanced manner, as someone who dislikes both sides of the narrative. The Democrats are sort of pro-immigration. Though for some reason, they strongly support illegal immigration, and seek to decriminalize it through so-called "sanctuary cities", rather than starting serious efforts at making permanent legal immigration liberal and approachable for most people. Illegal immigration comes with major problems. It's an avenue for organized crime, and a recipe for a major humanitarian crisis. It's a driving factor in the Opioid Epidemic. Most people are aware of this, which is part of why the Democrats lost. So now the Republicans are in charge. They are anti-immigration, and want permanent immigration to be unreachable for 99% of people. They are now running mass-deportations of illegal immigrants. The grievance which opponents have with this is that they're actively looking for illegal immigrants who are otherwise doing nothing wrong, using military-style police, in a system which doesn't allow for easy legal immigration. Most people are somewhere in the middle, but they have to pick between two extremes. A) unsecured borders which get taken advantage of by criminal gangs, or B) your local contractor Juan getting deported by military police.

NoGravitas 1y ago
> The Democrats are sort of pro-immigration. Though for some reason, they strongly support illegal immigration, and seek to decriminalize it through so-called "sanctuary cities", rather than starting serious efforts at making permanent legal immigration liberal and approachable for most people. I think the reason for this is that illegal immigration is more beneficial to Democrats' donors than broadening legal immigration. Illegal immigrants are easy for employers to exploit beyond the limits allowed by labor law, because they are unable to turn to the police or courts for protection. The Democrats are fundamentally a business-owners party, despite their usually symbolic gestures to the left, so this is typical for them: implement anti-worker policies with a veneer of human rights. The Republican policy is actually somewhat worse than your description. Besides using militarized policing to pick up illegal immigrants that are otherwise doing nothing wrong, they are also cutting out many of the systems of due process that would allow illegal immigrants access to the courts to appeal their deportation. As a result, ICE is also sweeping up refugees, asylum seekers, legal immigrants, and even citizens, without any real oversight.
1y ago

RickJWagner 1y ago

That’s a good way to look at it. ICE must act within the bounds of the legal system. If you are unhappy with their actions, an election is the remedy. Actions like this app are not the right way to ‘fix’ things and are probably unproductive.

captainmuon 1y ago

Or 3) there are illegal immigrants and ICE is deporting them according to the law, BUT some people think this is unjust and want to do something against it. The democratic process to change laws is too slow or doesn't work properly, or there is no majority to change the law. Remember there is a difference between legal and legitimate. You don't have to do something just because it is the law (well, you could define "have to" to mean what the law says, but then it becomes pretty circular). Historically, often behavior changes before the applicable laws change. Think about the acceptance of gay relationships, or the use of cannabis. If people don't sometimes break the law, society can't evolve. That doesn't mean the rule of law has to break down. I think the rule of law is very important and would uphold it in most cases, but there are certain cases where conscience might order one to break or circumvent a law.

dragonwriter 1y ago

> 1) ICE is abusing their power and illegally detaining and deporting people who shouldn't be deported, [...] > In case of (1) can't they be taken to court? Well, no, that’s not something people think is an adequate remedy for the abuse, for a number of reasons, most notably that a high profile aspect of the abuse of power has been the Administration removing people in violation of court orders, publicly mocking the courts while doing so, and then using the fact that the people were no longer within the control of the US government as an excuse to argue that they were immune to further court orders with respect to those people. (Also the fact that people detained have at times been held incommunicado without access to attorneys and without the ability to notify people that and where they are held makes either the detained individual or anyone else challenging their detention in court difficult.) > and surely we don't want to normalize selective application of law like in so many corrupt countries around the world? We have that. That’s the problem the app is responding to. > Isn't the rule of law a thing in the US? Not particularly, in this area, no.

brennyb 1y ago

Independent of what you think about illegal immigration, there is a core problem in that they are not following and not being held to follow due process guaranteed by the US constitution. Without due process, ICE is a de facto personal army for the president to harm whoever he wants, including arbitrary citizens, without real recourse.

carbonbioxide 1y ago

> aren't immigration laws there for a reason Right, the problem is you're assuming immigration agents are following the law. You need to alert people of where they are to protect them. People who are actually here legally are being arrested, waiting for them outside courtrooms. There have been several cases of actual American citizens detained illegally based on racial profiling. There's no proper due process. Additionally, the treatment of those who are detained is very inhumane, using tactics to induce fear.

jjav 1y ago

> As far as I can see there are two possibilities here Most of it is (1), but even in the case of (2) the problem is that this is an outlaw organization which is not following any established law or process. Legally, deporting people who are here out of status is fine. But to do that properly, you'd have to establish proof of who they are and why they are out of status, in front of an immigration court. ICE bypasses all that and just sends masked unidentified thugs to the street to grab people left and right and disappear them into secret detention centers with no access to lawyers. About as illegal behavior as it gets.

SnuffBox 1y ago

Americans are so divided they'll defend illegal immigrants rather than side with anything Trump has said.