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Companies that employ undocumented workers at scale have significant political power and deporting them en-masse would shock many industries, so this won’t happ

Companies that employ undocumented workers at scale have significant political power and deporting them en-masse would shock many industries, so this won’t happen. The recent ICE shenanigans (which don’t get me wrong - are awful and badly executed) are just performative bullshit to please the voter base. In fact I’d argue they are intentionally executed badly to attract media attention so they can all say they are being tough on immigrants.

mattmaroon 1y ago
I think it’s more to scare immigrants with pleasing the base being icing on the cake. Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. And anecdotally, it is working. Ask any flight attendant on an international route. They want people to stop coming here, and the threat of being sent to some torture camp in the third world won’t deter a Haitian (whose daily life already meets that description) but it will deter people from less atrocious locations.
- istajeer242 1y ago
  > Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. I don't know much about him but aren't his grand parents Belarusians who came over to the US?
  - pengaru 1y ago
    As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants... I don't think it's worth pointing out. Most anti-immigration americans obviously aren't native americans. pulling up the ladder behind you isn't a new concept
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      In my ancestor's defense, they didn't get much choice on emmigrating here. It'd be truly poetic if they tried to forcefully deport me because they can no longer use me as free labor on the fields.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
      >As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants. How'd that work out for those native americans again? Maybe I'm a little reluctant to let things play out the way it did for them.
    - snickerbockers 1y ago
      Ive always been ashamed of all the genocidal massacres and forced relocations we did to the native americans but its not in any way accurate to compare establishing a colony to immigration; they came here to create a new society not to live amongst the existing civilizations. The way they did so at the expense of the civilizations already living here is abhorrent and shameful but its also in no way comparable to illegal immigration. To the extent that it is comparable we would be absolutely justified in regulating immigration because the implication would be that the same thing that we did to the native americans is going to happen to us. Its also not in any way reasonable to use the sins of the distant ancestor to delegitimize the nation's right to self-determination. Even if i accept your premise that my ancestors are comparable to immigrants i myself am not. If the argument is that the nation has no rights to control its own borders because that would constitute some sort of "generational hypocrisy" that would also mean we have an obligation to accommodate slavery and genocide because our ancestors committed and benefitted from both of those.
    - wahnfrieden 1y ago
      As Vincent Gallo put it recently re: federal debt: > The USA can tolerate one of these two things. A system of no welfare, no social services, no socialized medicine, food or housing with open borders. OR. No open boarders and highly limited, highly controlled, assimilating immigration policy. We cannot have both. When the USA had unlimited immigration over 100 years ago, we did not have Government supporting immigrants with welfare, medical services, housing, food etc. I don't agree with Mr. Gallo here - I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this.
      - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
        > I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this. The policy in my red state is to spend public funds to treat unliked immigrants as harshly as possible, deny social welfare to citizens in need and prioritize gov resources for admin loyalists. At least it is now that courts are sufficiently captured.
      - tbossanova 1y ago
        What does “no open borders” mean here? I’ve seen this term used but I don’t quite get it. Surely it can’t mean completely closing the borders? I.e. literally nobody can enter the country, ever.
        wmil 1y ago
        No tolerance for people trying to live in the country without going through the legal process. Public policy discussions always get boiled down to some simple wording that isn't strictly accurate.
        wahnfrieden 1y ago
        Legal immigration is also under heavy scrutiny with the "no open borders" folks. It is not as simple and law-abiding as you make it out to be.
        tbossanova 1y ago
        Literally no tolerance? I always figured that like everything else, there’s a cost/benefit analysis to be done, and you try and tweak enforcement levels to the point where it gives decent results without costing the earth. No law is enforced with literally no tolerance in practice.
    - decremental 1y ago
      [dead]
  - Geezus_42 1y ago
    Hey now, we don't need no fancy logic 'round here. /s
  - ryan_lane 1y ago
    Japan now has Kimi Onoda as Minister in Charge of Foreign Nationals and Immigration, and she's an immigrant herself, but her stance on immigrants is pretty hardline. These people aren't anti-immigrant because of issues with immigration. They're anti-immigrant because they're hateful.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      Japan is truly impressive on taking an anti-immigration stance because they have numbers already that would be the dream of other countries pushing such perspectives. Off the top of my head there's 0.3% immigration. It's truly saddening that such a stance can still work when it's likely the average citizen will not encounter an immigrant in their day to day life. a million immigrants is not threatening the jobs of 300m Japanese people.
      - goykasi 1y ago
        That is mostly correct; immigrants account for about 3% of a total 123mil population. Your point does stand, but we are quite visible in Japan -- especially in Tokyo. You are correct that we do not threaten jobs either. A large majority of the foreign population is working low/unskilled jobs. Generally, the native population is not wanting those jobs.
        wahnfrieden 1y ago
        Those undesirable jobs can also be highly visible. Maybe the most frequent place Japanese notice visible minority immigrants is at convenience stores. So maybe it makes the population feel overrepresented. I see RWers post frequently about convenience store workers at least.
      - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
        In Japan, the popular sentiment on immigration tends to be grouped together with tourists and temporary foreign workers as a single category: foreigners. This is perhaps understandable but unfortunate, because tourists often are very visible and tend to make a bad impression, as most haven't studied the language or learned the numerous behaviour expectations. Bad experiences with tourists creates hostility towards immigrants, who are few and mostly do work hard to integrate and behave well.
  - js2 1y ago
    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-m...
blurbleblurble 1y ago
You're telling yourself what you want to hear. I guarantee you these guys are dead serious, and they've recently gotten a huge flush of cash.
- dpkirchner 1y ago
  The grunts are surely dead serious, but the bosses? Nah. If they were they'd be sending execs to prison. Anything less is pointless if you truly want to solve the problem.
  - clipsy 1y ago
    You're assuming that the thing they're "serious" about is ending illegal immigration.
    - blurbleblurble 1y ago
      The bosses are serious about making the US an authoritarian ethno state.
      - deaux 1y ago
        A MAGA state first and foremost. The hierarchy is "white MAGA > non-white MAGA > white silent > non-white silent > white anti-MAGA > non-white anti-MAGA". Will they eventually come for everyone but the first group? Very likely, but there's always a priority ordering. I'll leave it to the proper historians to decide how similar this is to the state they're using as their main inspiration.
    - naijaboiler 1y ago
      The thing they are series about is racism, and having power to terrorize anyone they deem “undesirable”, a group which may one day include you
  - blurbleblurble 1y ago
    "truly solve the problem" ???
aprilthird2021 1y ago
It's also an enormous waste of money, which this admin loves to do. Billions to Israel, $40B to Argentina, $1T+ to bomb boats in the Gulf of Mexico, waste waste waste everywhere and send the bill to the average American, whose economic prospects haven't improved
- foxglacier 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - scarecrowbob 1y ago
    How about "stuff that is internally logically inconsistent"?
  - dpkirchner 1y ago
    How about spending on things that will have no benefit to the average US citizen, and in fact might just make things worse without solving the stated problem?
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    > I dare you to define what you mean by waste. I'll just go with the dictionary: >to allow to be used inefficiently or become dissipated So, why are we bailing out Argentina, or bombing the South American gulfs? We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning. I've heard very little reasoning from the administration. The best I heard was "we're hitting drug dealers". Even if I believed that, pending hundreds of billions to attack boats with drugs on them sounds horribly inefficient. Drugs are not an immediate threat to people and we have many methods through negotiation to simply limit/stop such imports. I've heard zero justifications anywhere on the Argentina issue. It seems even many republicans do not like this approach.
    - foxglacier 1y ago
      > We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning You're confusing transparency with efficiency. Military and international politics decisions often need public lies or omissions for political reasons but that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose. If you word it more honestly as "The government can't be efficient if it doesn't explain its reasoning to the public", then it obviously doesn't follow from the definition of waste.
jonway 1y ago
normalize adversarial face paint, make up, and apparel. Silver linings…
- Klaster_1 1y ago
  Only works until that's no longer legal, see face coverage laws in various countries.
wsatb 1y ago
Their reasoning for deploying the Texas National Guard to Chicago was because they claim a rebellion has started. They are consistently provoking citizens and lying about it. The courts have dismissed this due to the ridiculousness of it, but they continue to agitate. I don't think it's all for show, they're seeking a violent response so they can deploy the military.
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  Note that the courts have split on the deployment of national guard troops so the issue is destined for the Supreme Court.
drivingmenuts 1y ago
That performance may backfire, since some of the big supporters are agriculture businesses that rely on illegal immigrants to survive. Mass deportations of the type ICE seems to want will put a lot of those businesses out of business. I'm sure someone up in Washington thinks that poor Americans will step in to fill the gaps, but when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. I've seen some conspiracy theories that RFK, Jr, et al, want to start labor camps for autistic kids and just about anyone else his bunch can get tagged as defective or deficient or whatever, but I don't think that's going to work out like someone hopes it will.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  >when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. Turns out Americans don't want to move out to rural areas to be paid minimum wage to do hard farm labor. Who knew? That's the only real upside to this gig economy. Their competition isn't just flipping burgers, but anyone who has a car that can sign up to an app to make some quick cash.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    Sub-minimum wage, agricultural work is exempt from minimum wage. It makes me so mad.
- intended 1y ago
  Nothing will backfire. A Reuters poll on the White House demolitions had a 63% approval for one question and a 40% approval rating for another question - from Republican voters. As long as there exists a content economy on the right that does’t have to pay their dues to reality, you will not stop a political machine which is based upon fantasy. The only thing that will cut through the noise is a recession, because that cannot be spun. Even then - that would just be a speed bump; eventually the recession will pass.
  - dboreham 1y ago
    Short term pain for long term gain. Locker room economics.
sieidj184 1y ago
The deeper purpose is to create another state-sanctioned security force that is highly associated and politically enabled to deal with ‘undesirables’ outside of normal legal process. Then include whoever is needed under the label ‘undesirable’ — see other comment about a journalist being detained and questioned
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Yes - ICE is filling a similar role to what Wagner did in Russia and the brownshirts in Germany. A parallel structure which can be deployed anywhere against anyone. The concentration camp building industry is looking great.
rukuu001 1y ago
The theatre is also there for the immigrants (or whatever undesirable that's being targeted). It has a chilling effect on what people say and do. You'll notice the same effect in other states that have armed people who turn up unexpectedly to make people disappear.
enieslobby 1y ago
Which companies employ undocumented workers at scale?
- grumio 1y ago
  Uline https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-mega-donors-underpaid-mexican-workers https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-...
isolay 1y ago
Not to forget they can use the performative bullshit to lay grounds for a paramilitary GeStaPo. ICE as it is already attracts all the wrong character types.
array_key_first 1y ago
ICE is not just performative bullshit. It's a display of authoritarian power and yet another branch of our government mobilized against the US people. As this article highlights, it's an excuse for surveillance. Of citizens, mind you.
cool_man_bob 1y ago
I’ve seen Trumps buddy’s (the inhuman lawnmower) big company appear on jobs.now posting for general midlevel dev positions. These people are liars and it’s so painfully obvious. I’ve seen more people realize this since his Trump started beefing with Massie, but they still glaze him so hard as to not offend, that it’s basically meaningless.
potato3732842 1y ago
This. It's like the environmental people going off half cocked screeching about how random petty developments needs more green space in their site plans (while invariably screeching out the other side of their mouth about how the decreased density of stuff makes it less walkable) all while the DuPont or the .gov or some university or whoever has got their engineers and lawyers and whatever to lay out exactly why the thing they're doing is "fine" even if it's worse than whatever the little guys are being prevented from doing. You can't solve the problem at the "just regulate the employers" level because it invariably turns into a tighter regulatory capture further enriching the incumbents. Any reform will necessarily increase the competitive advantage of the current winners because they are the ones in a position to shape it.

mattmaroon 1y ago

I think it’s more to scare immigrants with pleasing the base being icing on the cake. Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. And anecdotally, it is working. Ask any flight attendant on an international route. They want people to stop coming here, and the threat of being sent to some torture camp in the third world won’t deter a Haitian (whose daily life already meets that description) but it will deter people from less atrocious locations.

istajeer242 1y ago
> Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. I don't know much about him but aren't his grand parents Belarusians who came over to the US?
- pengaru 1y ago
  As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants... I don't think it's worth pointing out. Most anti-immigration americans obviously aren't native americans. pulling up the ladder behind you isn't a new concept
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    In my ancestor's defense, they didn't get much choice on emmigrating here. It'd be truly poetic if they tried to forcefully deport me because they can no longer use me as free labor on the fields.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    >As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants. How'd that work out for those native americans again? Maybe I'm a little reluctant to let things play out the way it did for them.
  - snickerbockers 1y ago
    Ive always been ashamed of all the genocidal massacres and forced relocations we did to the native americans but its not in any way accurate to compare establishing a colony to immigration; they came here to create a new society not to live amongst the existing civilizations. The way they did so at the expense of the civilizations already living here is abhorrent and shameful but its also in no way comparable to illegal immigration. To the extent that it is comparable we would be absolutely justified in regulating immigration because the implication would be that the same thing that we did to the native americans is going to happen to us. Its also not in any way reasonable to use the sins of the distant ancestor to delegitimize the nation's right to self-determination. Even if i accept your premise that my ancestors are comparable to immigrants i myself am not. If the argument is that the nation has no rights to control its own borders because that would constitute some sort of "generational hypocrisy" that would also mean we have an obligation to accommodate slavery and genocide because our ancestors committed and benefitted from both of those.
  - wahnfrieden 1y ago
    As Vincent Gallo put it recently re: federal debt: > The USA can tolerate one of these two things. A system of no welfare, no social services, no socialized medicine, food or housing with open borders. OR. No open boarders and highly limited, highly controlled, assimilating immigration policy. We cannot have both. When the USA had unlimited immigration over 100 years ago, we did not have Government supporting immigrants with welfare, medical services, housing, food etc. I don't agree with Mr. Gallo here - I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this.
    - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
      > I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this. The policy in my red state is to spend public funds to treat unliked immigrants as harshly as possible, deny social welfare to citizens in need and prioritize gov resources for admin loyalists. At least it is now that courts are sufficiently captured.
    - tbossanova 1y ago
      What does “no open borders” mean here? I’ve seen this term used but I don’t quite get it. Surely it can’t mean completely closing the borders? I.e. literally nobody can enter the country, ever.
      - wmil 1y ago
        No tolerance for people trying to live in the country without going through the legal process. Public policy discussions always get boiled down to some simple wording that isn't strictly accurate.
        wahnfrieden 1y ago
        Legal immigration is also under heavy scrutiny with the "no open borders" folks. It is not as simple and law-abiding as you make it out to be.
        tbossanova 1y ago
        Literally no tolerance? I always figured that like everything else, there’s a cost/benefit analysis to be done, and you try and tweak enforcement levels to the point where it gives decent results without costing the earth. No law is enforced with literally no tolerance in practice.
  - decremental 1y ago
    [dead]
- Geezus_42 1y ago
  Hey now, we don't need no fancy logic 'round here. /s
- ryan_lane 1y ago
  Japan now has Kimi Onoda as Minister in Charge of Foreign Nationals and Immigration, and she's an immigrant herself, but her stance on immigrants is pretty hardline. These people aren't anti-immigrant because of issues with immigration. They're anti-immigrant because they're hateful.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Japan is truly impressive on taking an anti-immigration stance because they have numbers already that would be the dream of other countries pushing such perspectives. Off the top of my head there's 0.3% immigration. It's truly saddening that such a stance can still work when it's likely the average citizen will not encounter an immigrant in their day to day life. a million immigrants is not threatening the jobs of 300m Japanese people.
    - goykasi 1y ago
      That is mostly correct; immigrants account for about 3% of a total 123mil population. Your point does stand, but we are quite visible in Japan -- especially in Tokyo. You are correct that we do not threaten jobs either. A large majority of the foreign population is working low/unskilled jobs. Generally, the native population is not wanting those jobs.
      - wahnfrieden 1y ago
        Those undesirable jobs can also be highly visible. Maybe the most frequent place Japanese notice visible minority immigrants is at convenience stores. So maybe it makes the population feel overrepresented. I see RWers post frequently about convenience store workers at least.
    - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
      In Japan, the popular sentiment on immigration tends to be grouped together with tourists and temporary foreign workers as a single category: foreigners. This is perhaps understandable but unfortunate, because tourists often are very visible and tend to make a bad impression, as most haven't studied the language or learned the numerous behaviour expectations. Bad experiences with tourists creates hostility towards immigrants, who are few and mostly do work hard to integrate and behave well.
- js2 1y ago
  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-m...

blurbleblurble 1y ago

You're telling yourself what you want to hear. I guarantee you these guys are dead serious, and they've recently gotten a huge flush of cash.

dpkirchner 1y ago
The grunts are surely dead serious, but the bosses? Nah. If they were they'd be sending execs to prison. Anything less is pointless if you truly want to solve the problem.
- clipsy 1y ago
  You're assuming that the thing they're "serious" about is ending illegal immigration.
  - blurbleblurble 1y ago
    The bosses are serious about making the US an authoritarian ethno state.
    - deaux 1y ago
      A MAGA state first and foremost. The hierarchy is "white MAGA > non-white MAGA > white silent > non-white silent > white anti-MAGA > non-white anti-MAGA". Will they eventually come for everyone but the first group? Very likely, but there's always a priority ordering. I'll leave it to the proper historians to decide how similar this is to the state they're using as their main inspiration.
  - naijaboiler 1y ago
    The thing they are series about is racism, and having power to terrorize anyone they deem “undesirable”, a group which may one day include you
- blurbleblurble 1y ago
  "truly solve the problem" ???

aprilthird2021 1y ago

It's also an enormous waste of money, which this admin loves to do. Billions to Israel, $40B to Argentina, $1T+ to bomb boats in the Gulf of Mexico, waste waste waste everywhere and send the bill to the average American, whose economic prospects haven't improved

foxglacier 1y ago
[flagged]
- scarecrowbob 1y ago
  How about "stuff that is internally logically inconsistent"?
- dpkirchner 1y ago
  How about spending on things that will have no benefit to the average US citizen, and in fact might just make things worse without solving the stated problem?
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  > I dare you to define what you mean by waste. I'll just go with the dictionary: >to allow to be used inefficiently or become dissipated So, why are we bailing out Argentina, or bombing the South American gulfs? We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning. I've heard very little reasoning from the administration. The best I heard was "we're hitting drug dealers". Even if I believed that, pending hundreds of billions to attack boats with drugs on them sounds horribly inefficient. Drugs are not an immediate threat to people and we have many methods through negotiation to simply limit/stop such imports. I've heard zero justifications anywhere on the Argentina issue. It seems even many republicans do not like this approach.
  - foxglacier 1y ago
    > We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning You're confusing transparency with efficiency. Military and international politics decisions often need public lies or omissions for political reasons but that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose. If you word it more honestly as "The government can't be efficient if it doesn't explain its reasoning to the public", then it obviously doesn't follow from the definition of waste.

jonway 1y ago

normalize adversarial face paint, make up, and apparel. Silver linings…

Klaster_1 1y ago
Only works until that's no longer legal, see face coverage laws in various countries.

wsatb 1y ago

Their reasoning for deploying the Texas National Guard to Chicago was because they claim a rebellion has started. They are consistently provoking citizens and lying about it. The courts have dismissed this due to the ridiculousness of it, but they continue to agitate. I don't think it's all for show, they're seeking a violent response so they can deploy the military.

votepaunchy 1y ago
Note that the courts have split on the deployment of national guard troops so the issue is destined for the Supreme Court.

drivingmenuts 1y ago

That performance may backfire, since some of the big supporters are agriculture businesses that rely on illegal immigrants to survive. Mass deportations of the type ICE seems to want will put a lot of those businesses out of business. I'm sure someone up in Washington thinks that poor Americans will step in to fill the gaps, but when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. I've seen some conspiracy theories that RFK, Jr, et al, want to start labor camps for autistic kids and just about anyone else his bunch can get tagged as defective or deficient or whatever, but I don't think that's going to work out like someone hopes it will.

johnnyanmac 1y ago
>when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. Turns out Americans don't want to move out to rural areas to be paid minimum wage to do hard farm labor. Who knew? That's the only real upside to this gig economy. Their competition isn't just flipping burgers, but anyone who has a car that can sign up to an app to make some quick cash.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Sub-minimum wage, agricultural work is exempt from minimum wage. It makes me so mad.
intended 1y ago
Nothing will backfire. A Reuters poll on the White House demolitions had a 63% approval for one question and a 40% approval rating for another question - from Republican voters. As long as there exists a content economy on the right that does’t have to pay their dues to reality, you will not stop a political machine which is based upon fantasy. The only thing that will cut through the noise is a recession, because that cannot be spun. Even then - that would just be a speed bump; eventually the recession will pass.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Short term pain for long term gain. Locker room economics.

sieidj184 1y ago

The deeper purpose is to create another state-sanctioned security force that is highly associated and politically enabled to deal with ‘undesirables’ outside of normal legal process. Then include whoever is needed under the label ‘undesirable’ — see other comment about a journalist being detained and questioned

actionfromafar 1y ago
Yes - ICE is filling a similar role to what Wagner did in Russia and the brownshirts in Germany. A parallel structure which can be deployed anywhere against anyone. The concentration camp building industry is looking great.

rukuu001 1y ago

The theatre is also there for the immigrants (or whatever undesirable that's being targeted). It has a chilling effect on what people say and do. You'll notice the same effect in other states that have armed people who turn up unexpectedly to make people disappear.

enieslobby 1y ago

Which companies employ undocumented workers at scale?

grumio 1y ago
Uline https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-mega-donors-underpaid-mexican-workers https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-...

isolay 1y ago

Not to forget they can use the performative bullshit to lay grounds for a paramilitary GeStaPo. ICE as it is already attracts all the wrong character types.

array_key_first 1y ago

ICE is not just performative bullshit. It's a display of authoritarian power and yet another branch of our government mobilized against the US people. As this article highlights, it's an excuse for surveillance. Of citizens, mind you.

cool_man_bob 1y ago

I’ve seen Trumps buddy’s (the inhuman lawnmower) big company appear on jobs.now posting for general midlevel dev positions. These people are liars and it’s so painfully obvious. I’ve seen more people realize this since his Trump started beefing with Massie, but they still glaze him so hard as to not offend, that it’s basically meaningless.

potato3732842 1y ago

This. It's like the environmental people going off half cocked screeching about how random petty developments needs more green space in their site plans (while invariably screeching out the other side of their mouth about how the decreased density of stuff makes it less walkable) all while the DuPont or the .gov or some university or whoever has got their engineers and lawyers and whatever to lay out exactly why the thing they're doing is "fine" even if it's worse than whatever the little guys are being prevented from doing. You can't solve the problem at the "just regulate the employers" level because it invariably turns into a tighter regulatory capture further enriching the incumbents. Any reform will necessarily increase the competitive advantage of the current winners because they are the ones in a position to shape it.