Any time I see people say "I don't see why I should care about my privacy, I've got nothing to hide" I think about how badly things can go if the wrong people end up in positions of power.
The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
This ICE stuff is that scaled up to a multi-billion dollar federal agency with, apparently, no accountability for following the law at all.
Also always keep in mind that what is legal today might be illegal tomorrow. This includes things like your ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and much more.
You don't know today on which side of legality you will be in 10 years, even if your intentions are harmless.
The reaction from the masses: "But that isn't true today, anything could happen in the future, and why should I invest so much work on something that's only a possibility?"
People do not have justifications for most choices. We watch YouTube when we would benefit more from teaching ourselves skills. We eat too much of food we know is junk. We stay up too late and either let others walk over us at work to avoid overt conflict or start fights and make enemies to protect our own emotions. If you want to know why Americans are allowing themselves to be gradually reduced to slavery, do not ask why.
It's disingenuous to say Americans are "allowing" themselves to do anything in the face of countless, relentless, multi-billion corporate campaigns, designed by teams of educated individuals, to make them think and act in specific ways.
It is not you who plants weeds in the garden but the wind, but the wind won't weed them back out again.
This. As much as I would like to say 'individual responsibility' and all that, the sheer amount of information that is designed to make one follow a specific path, react in specific way or offer opinion X is crazy. I am not entirely certain what the solution is, but I am saying this as a person, who likes to think I am somewhat aware of attempts to subvert my judgment and I still catch myself learning ( usually later after the fact ) that I am not as immune as I would like to think.
Privacy itself can become illegal just as easily as religion, etc. if we follow your argument.
What point do you think you're making?
> The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
Which has literally happened already for anyone who thinks “there’s controls in place for that sort of thing”. That’s with (generally) good faith actors in power. What do you think can and will happen when people who think democracy and the constitution are unnecessary end up in control…
> I've got nothing to hide.
Some retorts for people swayed by that argument:
"Can we put a camera in your bathroom?"
"Let's send your mom all your text messages."
"Ain't nothin' in my pockets, but I'd rather you didn't check."
"Shall we live-stream your next doctor's appointment?"
"May I watch you enter your PIN at the ATM?"
"How about you post your credit card number on reddit?"
"Care to read your high-school diary on open mic night?"
I think the "nothing to hide" argument is made for a different reason.
People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them. The NSA knowing your search history is no big deal (as long as you're not looking for anything illegal), but your church knowing your search history would absolutely be a big deal.
> People are unafraid of the government knowing certain things because they believe it will not have any real repercussions for them.
A very famous quote: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Many people - particularly white people, but let's not ignore that a bunch of Black and Latino folks are/have been Trump supporters - believe that they are part of the in-group. And inevitably, they find out that the government doesn't care, as evidenced by ICE and their infamous quota of 3000 arrests a day... which has hit a ton of these people, memefied as "leopards ate my face".
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/29/trump-ice-ar...
> Some retorts for people swayed by that argument
Do any of these actually prompt someone to reconsider their position? They strike me as more of argument through being annoying than a good-faith attempt to connect with the other side.
It doesn't even need malicious intent. If nobody rational is monitoring it, all it will take is a bad datapoint or hallucination for your door to get kicked in by mistake.
Plus there is inherent biases in datasets. Folks who have interactions with Medicaid will be more vulnerable by definition.
To quote the standard observability conference line "what gets measured gets managed".
This is the moment for Europe to show that you can do gov and business differently. If they get their s** together and actually present a viable alternative.
They are doing it differently alright.
You're saying a proposed bill which hasn't passed is comparative to recent events in the US or am I reading too much between the lines?
You're saying EU is any different to USA?
Palantir clients: Europol, Danish POL-INTEL, NHS UK, UK Ministry of Defence, German Police (states), NATO, Ukraine, ASML, Siemens, Airbus, Credit Suisse, UBS, BP, Merck, ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#Customer...
Europe can't do business differently. Or at least it doesn't seem to be able to. China can.
Last I checked millions of europeans are living in a functioning civilization. I've lived in Europe. It is ok.
Don't confuse "GDP not as big as ours" with "totally non-functional."
I didn't say it was totally nonfunctional, I said they can't do business differently than they are currently doing.
China can
Yes, things are different in totalitarian states.
How is it not viable now?
"Best I can do is Chat Control 3.0"
The true problem is that it happens no matter who is in charge. It's like that old phrase about weapons that are invented are going to be used at some point. The same thing has turned out to be true for intelligence tools. And the worst part is that the tools have become so capable, that malicious intent isn't even required anymore for privacy to be infringed.
From everything we are seeing, the tools are not actually that capable. Their main function is not their stated function of spying/knowing a lot about people. Their main function is to dehumanize people.
When you use a computer to tell you who to target, it makes it easy for your brain to never consider that person as a human being at all. They are a target. An object.
Their stated capabilities are lies, marketing, and a smokescreen for their true purpose.
This is Lavender v2, and I’m sure others could name additional predecessors. Systems rife with errors but the validity isn’t the point; the system is.
> The classic example here is what happens when someone is being stalked by an abusive ex-partner who works in law enforcement and has access to those databases.
There’s a world of difference between a government using legally collected data for multiple purposes and an individual abusing their position purely for personal reasons.
The parent's example is of an individual using that "legal" state collected data for nefarious purposes. Once it's collected, anyone who accesses it is a threat vector. Also, governments (including/especially the US) have historically killed, imprisoned and tortured millions and millions of people. There's nothing to be gained by an individual for allowing government access to their data.
That difference is looking very thin right now.
Is this legal though?
& effectively if there is no checks on this is there actually a difference? There only difference is that the threat is to an entire cohort rather than an individual.
When did legality make something right?
The whole social battle is a constant attempt to align our laws and values as a society. It's why we create new laws. It's why we overturn old laws. You can't just abdicate your morals and let the law decide for you. That's not a system of democracy, that's a system of tyranny.
The privacy focused crowd often mentions "turnkey tyranny" as a major motivation. A tyrant who comes to power and changes the laws. A tyrant who comes to power and uses the existing tooling beyond what that tooling was ever intended for.
The law isn't what makes something right or wrong. I can't tell you what is, you'll have to use your brain and heart to figure that one out.
At this moment, the primary difference appears to be scale.
Musk and his flying monkeys came in with hard drives and sucked up all the data from all the agencies they had access to and installed software of some kind, likely containing backdoors. Even though each agency had remit for the data it maintained, they had been intentionally firewalled to prevent exactly what Palantir is doing.
There is also a world of difference between a government using data to carry out its various roles in service of the nation and a government using data to terrorize communities for the sadistic whims of its leadership.
Think I'm being hyperbolic? In Trump's first term fewer than 1M were deported. In Obama's eight years as president, 3.1M people were deported without the "techniques" we are witnessing.
The simple response to that line of thinking is: "you don't choose what the government uses against you"
For any piece of data that exists, the government effectively has access to it through court orders or backdoors. Either way, it can and will be used against you.
For me, the angle is a bit different. I want privacy, but I also sense that the people who are really good at this (like Plantir) have so much proxy information available that individual steps to protect privacy are pretty much worthless.
To me, this is a problem that can only be solved at the government/regulatory level.
In principle, I agree with your point; in practice, I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-driving that still can't take a vehicle all the way across the USA without supervision in response to a phone summons.
The evidence I have that causes me to believe them to be overstated, is how even Facebook has frequently shown me ads that inherently make errors about my gender, nationality, the country I live in, and the languages I speak, and those are things they should've been able to figure out with my name, GeoIP, and the occasional message I write.
> I think the claims made my these surveillance/advertising companies are likely as overstated as Musk's last decade of self-driving
They are not overstated, and they are far worse.
I don’t agree. I’m fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight back for their misuse.
Problem today is ICE has no accountability of misuse data/violence, not they have means to data/violence.
> I’m fine ICE can see my data, as long as there are process enforced to track those usage and I have a right to fight back for their misuse
I agree with this in theory, but its a fantasy to think they have this restriction at this point. ICE seems to be taking all comers, the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile, giving them "47 days of training," and sending them off armed into the populace. I have seen no evidence they believe they have any restriction on anything. It's basically DOGE but with guns instead of keyboards.
I was referring to principle, not ICE in its current state.
since you can’t turn ICE around overnight, I don’t think Americans should authorize ICE more data and power NOW.
There has been no point post Patriot Act where there has been accountability for data misuse. You need to update your priors.
Respect, thank you for using your voice.
The same people saying that will also defend police wearing masks, hiding badges, and shutting off body cameras. They are not participating in discussions with the same values (truth, integrity) that you have. Logic does not work on people who believe Calvinistic predestination is the right model for society.
Anyone on the right who implicates Pretti for carrying a licensed firearm is a good litmus test for bad faith.
It's amazing how quickly the party of small government, states rights, and the 2nd amendment quickly turned against all their principles. It really shows how many people care more about party than principle.
> shows how many people care more about party than principle
"Trump’s net approval rating on immigration has declined by about 4 points since the day before Good’s death until today. Meanwhile, his overall approval rating has declined by 2 points and is near its second-term lows" [1].
I'd encourage anyone watching to actually pay attention to "how many people care more about party than principle." I suspect it's fewer than MAGA high command thinks.
[1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-is-losing-normies-on-immi...
Wait. Is calvinistic predestination the majority view of republicans? I thought most of them are some form of (tv) evangelism, or secularism
I am not American and genuinely curious on this.
A lot of American Christians aren't hyper committed to the specific theology of whichever flavor of Christianity they belong to, and will often sort of mix and match their own personal beliefs with what is orthodoxy.
That said, I'm ex-Catholic, so I don't feel super qualified to make a statement on the specific popularity of predestination among American evangelicals at the moment.
That said, in a less theological and more metaphorical sense, it does seem that many of them do believe in some sort of "good people" and "bad people", where the "bad people" are not particularly redeemable. It feels a little unfalsifiable though.
I don't believe there is any sort of conservative intellectual movement at this point. The right believes they have captured certain institutions (law enforcement, military), in the same way they believe the left has captured others (education/universities, media), and will use them to wage war against whichever group the big finger pointing men in charge tell them to.
What a dumb comment. You genuinely think there’s no intellectuals or intellectual movement on the right? Good lord this site is as bad as Reddit these days
Writing papers is not the same as being an intellectual.
The Heritage Foundation certainly publishes, but they don't have a coherent ideology.
Project 2025 is not an work of political philosophy, it's just a roadmap for seizing power at all costs.
"What are we to infer from Oakeshott's favoured 'cook' metaphor?First, that conservatism is about doing, and about understandingwhat one is doing, not about thinking in the sense of planningwhat to do.12 Second, that conservatism is unreflective to the extent that it does not deal with packages of coherent ideas abouthuman beings and their societies, but is a method of recognizingreality through experiencing it, intellectually unintelligible for nonparticipants. Third, and consequently, that it is non-transmittable,unless this be done by direct instruction in its practices. Fourth,and not least, that it is futile to conceptualize about human conduct, political or otherwise, in manners typical of Western politicalthought. Philosophy is simply 'experience without reservation orpresupposition'.13 The world of the conservative—the world ofpractice—is unsystematic and contingent, though there is withinexperience an inner, self-contained, coherent world." (Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory)
"To conclude: the law of conservative structure, and the key toidentifying the common components of its variants, consists offour central features. Two of those are substantive core concepts,though not always identified as such: (1) a resistance to change,however unavoidable, unless it is perceived as organic and natural;(2) an attempt to subordinate change to the belief that the lawsand forces guiding human behaviour have extra-human origins andtherefore cannot and ought not to be subject to human wills andwhims. Unlike other major ideologies, conservatism then intriguingly produces two underlying morphological attributes, instead of "additional substantive identifying features. One of these attributesis (3) the fashioning of relatively stable (though never inherentlypermanent) conservative beliefs and values out of reactions toprogressive ideational cores. This allows all substantive conceptsin the employ of conservatism, other than the two enumeratedabove, to become contingent. They are subjected to a complexswivel mirror-image technique, superimposed on a retrospectivediachronie justification of the current beliefs held by conservatives. In each instance, the consistent aim is to provide a securestructure of political beliefs and concepts that protects the firstcore concept of conservatism, and does so by utilizing its secondcore component. Finally (4) the process is abetted by substantiveflexibility in the deployment of decontested concepts, so as tomaximize under varying conditions the protection of that conception of change. Such flexibility of meaning permits a considerablefirmness of conservatism's fundamental structure when confrontedwith very different concrete historical and spatial circumstances.What may superficially appear to be intellectual lightweightedness or be mistaken as opportunism is rather the performance ofa crucial stabilizing function by means of the adroit manoeuvringof political concepts in positions adjacent to the ideational core.The morphological unity of conservatism is preserved by an identical grammar of response, but expressed through differentiatedlanguages of response." (Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory)
Some, probably; not all (and certainly not the current president, who in his more senile moments muses about how his works have probably earned him hell [0]).
But the same observation applies to lots of other attitudes, too—like “might makes right” and “nature is red in tooth and claw” or whatever else the dark princelings evince these days. I feel like “logic matters” mainly pertains to a liberal-enlightenment political context that might be in the past now…
Does reality always find a way to assert itself in the face of illogic? Sure! But if Our Side is righteous and infallible, the bad outcomes surely must be the fault of Those Scapegoats’ malfeasance—ipso facto we should punish them harder…
https://time.com/7311354/donald-trump-heaven-hell-afterlife-...
No, none of that is true.
Remember, Republicans represent half the country, not some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.
> Republicans represent half the country
This statement isn't necessarily wrong because about half of elected government officials are Republican, but I want to point out that less than 60% of eligible Americans voted in 2024, so we're talking about <30% of Americans who vote Republican.
>some isolated sect living in small town Appalachia.
Calvinists or Evangelicals?
I don't think that holds water either way.
Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and even though Calvinism, or its branches, may not be the religion a majority of Republicans “exercise”, predetermination is a convenient explanation of why the world is what it is, and why no action should be taken - so it gets used a lot by right wing media, etc.
Calvinistic predestination is a TULIP sense (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints) is an extreme minority position, like 7% to 5% of the American Church (Reformed Camp)
It's something they say in sociology 101 at colleges in the US and some people occasionally believe it.
Are you against income tax?
Are you against business registration?
All of these are subject to the similar issues with the stalker ex abusing a position of power?
> All of these are subject to the similar issues with the stalker ex abusing a position of power?
You seem to be asking a question. The answer is no.
The IRS does not need to know my sexual orientation or circumcision status. Medicaid, on the other hand, may. (Though I'd contest even that.)
"I've got nothing to hide" is another way of saying "I don't have friends that trust me," which is another way of saying" I don't have friends."
> how badly things can go if the wrong people end up in positions of power
This is why there shouldn’t be any organization that has that much power.
Full stop.
What you described is the whole raison dêtre of Anarchism; irrespective of whether you think there’s an alternative or not*
“No gods No Masters” isn’t just a slogan it’s a demand
*my personal view is that there is no possible stable human organization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#No_gods,_n...
Have you read Graeber & Wengrow?
Glad to see this post didn't get flagged like the one that was posted yesterday on a similar topic about ICE data mining and user tracking.
It likely will. There’s major impact on literally everyone in tech, there’s huge data privacy concerns, and it has less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery. The US gov could fall but that would count as politics here so clearly irrelevant.
> less coverage or discussion than a new version of jQuery
Pretty sure this is a feature not a bug. Most people aren’t here for political topics.
In a corrupt and authoritarian country, it is common to have officials busted on "corruption" or "embezzlement" charges. And yet most people know they are actually not jailed for the crimes they got charged for, because there are more than enough people to fill all the prisons for breaking the exact same laws they are accused of breaking. They knew the only reason these people got jailed is because they lost some kind of power struggle within the administration, and corruption is just a convenient lie those who prevailed tell you to keep you comfortable.
You never see the "no politics please thk u" crowd when it is about protests in Iran, Chinese oppression in Hong Kong, Russian aggression on Europe or hell, when people were literally running a political campaign the EU to stop killing games. You only see people flagging political submissions when it is a particular kind of politics - just like you only see corrupt officials jailed when they are a certain kind of officials.
Connect the dots, make your own conclusions.
They should be aware of how tech is being used in political games though...
Comments like this remind me of those guys who wouldn't stop working, in the twin towers. Just didn't want to get out of their zone.
There is always going to be an intersection between tech and politics. This convo is no different than talking about Section 230, H1B visas or using vision models to sexualize people or distort the truth.
It gets down to the definition of political which is basically anything that might have a human cost, including to the people here. I have many coworkers having to upend their lives, some can’t currently leave the country. This is not worthy of discussion, but an esoteric library update is. Paul Graham posts are not political topics for some reason, but H1B people is.
Technology, technology leaders, and technology companies are literally driving politics, buying elections, driving the whole US economy.
Saying what “political” topics are IS political - and it’s decidedly a right wing position. Only those with the powers protecting them get to avoid politics.
Yep. They’re here to bury their head in the sand and keep up to date with the latest tech trends like the good little worker bees they are.
I don't think that's fair. I follow politics closely but prefer HN to stay technical. It shouldn't be offensive.
The "hide" link is right next to the "flag" link. Using flag instead of hide puts more strain on the mods, and is not the right thing to do for "this topic doesn't apply to my interests."
It is really disheartening and sad to see this community burying its head in the sand and ignoring what’s happening to our country
Give it a few minutes
Yes just wait until the topic changes from databases to the political side where the root of the problem lies.
Damn near everything on HN gets flagged eventually. Either get everyone to drop their biases as Silicon Valley tech VCs or make it so that flags can ONLY be used to remove clear abuse. Sick of it
Why would Medicaid have the data of anyone who is at risk of immigration enforcement? The reported connection seems tenuous:
> The tool – dubbed Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) – receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes Medicaid) and other sources, 404 Media reports based on court testimony in Oregon by law enforcement agents, among other sources.
So, they have a tool that sucks up data from a bunch of different sources, including Medicaid. But there's no actual nexus between Medicaid and illegal immigrants in this reporting.
Edit: In the link to their earlier filings, EFF claims that some states enroll illegal immigrants in Medicaid: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/eff-court-protect-our-...
Medicaid-receiving immigrants could have their immigration status change, legal violations, emergency medicaid use, sometimes there's state funded coverage that immigrants are offered, etc. There's lots of reasons where Medicaid will have information on immigrants.
Probably because states like mine (Minnesota) and cities like NYC love to vote for free healthcare to illegal immigrants and recent immigrants despite clearly not having the budget for it.
ICE has been harassing and following legal observers to their houses. They've shot and executed at least two people who were exercising their legal right to record their activity.
The FBI has been showing up at the door of some people who dare to organize protests against ICE.
Stingrays have been deployed to protests, ICE is collecting photos of protestors for their database, and has been querying YCombinator funded Flock to pull automated license plate camera data from around the country. Trump, Vance, Noem and Miller are calling anyone who protests them domestic terrorists.
It's pretty clear this isn't just about immigration, that this is about pooling data for a surveillance state that can quash the constitutional rights of anyone who dares to oppose the current regime. We've seen this story before.
When your whole system works by giving absolutely ridiculous amount of power to a single individual who has nobody above or at least on the side capable of interfering and changing things, this is what you eventually get. Crossing fingers and praying given person isn't a complete psycho or worse is not going to cut it forever, is it. Especially when >50% of population welcomes such person with open arms, knowing well who is coming.
Given what kind of garbage from human gene pool gets and thrives in high politics its more surprising the show lasted as long as it did.
Now the question shouldn't be 'how much outraged we should be' since we get this situation for a year at this point, but rather what to do next, how we can shape future to avoid this. If there will be the time for such correction, which is a huge IF.
I don't disagree with where you're coming from. But to be fair, our system did have separation of powers and legal accountability for most of the time it was accruing so much power. The fascists just managed to get enough of the Supreme Council on board to sweep these away under the guises of unitary executive theory and blanket immunity for the new president-king.
Excuse me discussing the fact that Jack booted fascist brown shirt thugs murdering people is a political statement and needs to be censored here
They hold both that people whose citizenship depends on birthright citizenship are not in fact citizens and that naturalized citizens can be denaturalized either for disloyalty or based on some sham pretext. They also see people getting benefits as leaches worthy of targeting.
Also naturalized and birthright citizens are far more likely than others to associate or live with others of less legal status.
Naturalized and birthright citizens quality for benefits and they and their families are at risk.
If they are allowed to detain and deport without any due process as they have asserted anyone not white is at risk.
The DHS official social media presence shared a picture of an island paradise with the caption America after 100 million deportations.
This is the number of non-whites not the number of immigrants in even the most ridiculous estimates.
Do you actually think ICE cares about your legal citizenship status?
They are targeting a variety of people beyond legal immigration status. Immigration status is the public-facing pretext for their power and operations.
Do explain
“If it was up to Stephen [Miller], there would only be 100 million people in this country, and they would all look like him.”
To accomplish things like that, a lot of us are going to be removed. I don't think these are jokes, it's a pattern of statements to condition and normalize. A thing he has done over and over.
What are you quoting? I mean, that sounds like what Stephen miller believes, but who said it?
Trump
Darker skin, trans, gays, and opposition to them are all valid targets.
Once upon a time this was such a shocking accusation that people just believed it, as who would lie about it?
But when people say this for ten years at the drop of a hat, you have to forgive everyone else for not just automatically believing it any more.
Wishful thinking but it would be real great if a future leader destroyed this infrastructure.
I'm sure they'll run on not using it but when systems like this exist they tend to find applications
Wishful thinking but it would be real great if an engineer poisoned these datasets with bait entries
It’s not gonna happen. The people who work at Palantir, if they’re not just there for the money, think they’re doing the right thing, they see themselves as keeping the country safe and improving government efficiency (and who could be against that?)
Nobody thinks that. They are there for money.
That’s just not true. There are plenty of people in defense tech that clearly believe they are doing the right thing. Same with those in the military. Their version of “right” is just different than yours. To them, ensuring American hegemony is more right than whatever your definition is.
Even Peter Thiel?
Especially Peter Thiel. Now we are not saying he doesn't internally agree with many things that are happening (I don't mean this specific topic but rather overall direction of US society), we know he does.
Palantir is interesting. Founded by a closeted German, run by an Israeli operative, and a 3rd arm of the federal gov. I wish we could prosecute it in my lifetime for the numerous violations of privacy it undertakes, but the world does not work that way. The rich enjoy private jets subsidized by our hard-earned taxes, while violating ideals held by our Founding fathers (for what would Thiel or the current CEO know about our morals, when they have none and are American by name only.. their loyalties lie elsewhere)
pretty awesome that the new yc website touts gary tan's work at palantir as a positive
"he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo"
This current administration and their policies have definitely influenced my opinion on the 2018 debate around citizenship questions on the US census.
(For more context: https://www.tbf.org/blog/2018/march/understanding-the-census...)
Undocumented immigrants/illegal immigrants are not generally eligible for federally funded Medicaid coverage in the United States, as federal law restricts such benefits to U.S. citizens and certain qualified immigrants with lawful status.
They are eligible for Emergency Medicaid, which covers emergency medical needs like labor and delivery or life-threatening conditions; hospitals that accept federal dollars for medicare/medicaid are required under federal law (EMTALA) to provide stabilizing emergency care regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
"ICE Budget Now Bigger Than Most of the World’s Militaries" - https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456
Post anonymously first hand footage at http://icemap.app
... but I'm sure they'd never target "undesirably unhealthy" citizens with this data to harass.....
If you work on this kind of tech, please, quit your job.
I'm waiting to hear about the alternatives, which still involve deporting illegal immigrants. It seems the people against ICE, don't want illegal immigrants deported at all.
How about this: no masks, no weapons (if they feel they are in danger they can call the cops who already have more weapons than they possibly need). Every time a citizen is detained in jail, detaining agent and their manager lose their paycheck for that period. Family with kids jailed and separated? No paycheck. You know, do it in the Christian compassionate way, not in the shooting single moms way.
We would have to pass a more general law that said children cannot be separated from their parents based on any crime the parents have committed, as there's no reason to special-case illegal immigration.
They sold us on a lie about the extent of the illegal immigrant "problem". It's numerically impossible to make the promises they made and not deport people who it's hard to argue should be deported.
Immigrants also commit crimes at fewer rates than US born people and crime is at all time lows. Yet they sold us for years on a crime moral panic and phantom "migrant crime".
So you said, propose a solution that also involves deporting people, and I will say NO. You are wanting to target a mostly fake problem.
That is literally not true in any way. Let’s see your immigrant crime stats.
Crime is at an all time low because liberal DAs like the one here in Minneapolis let repeat offenders off constantly because locking them up (enforcing the law fairly) would be racist.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/09/17/hennepin-county-to-...
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/courts-news/hennep...
Literally their arguments are that these people are from a disadvantaged background so they should be allowed to run around harming innocents, repeatedly. These crimes are never fully prosecuted, so the police department and local governments can count them as “not crimes” meaning the crime rate they report stays low. Crime is visibly terrible here in Minneapolis - whole blocks of decent neighborhoods having their cars broken into, regularly shootings and violent crime even in commercial areas, the complete destruction of uptown, I could go on - and yet our police chief and mayor are out there touting historically low crime. On top of large scale fraud taking place that liberal female judges are throwing out after unanimous guilty verdicts.
Things like this
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1pconlj/hennepin...
are a literal lie. I’ve lived here my whole life. There is absolutely Somalian gang activity both in the twin cities metro and in St. Cloud.
If they don’t even look into Somali crime, or claim it doesn’t exist (lol) they can of course claim the crime rate is historically low.
> Let’s see your immigrant crime stats.
https://www.google.com/search?q=immigrants+less+likely+to+co...
> Crime is at an all time low because liberal DAs
If you take out the outlier years of 2020-2022 caused by the pandemic, crime has been declining for more than 30 years. I don't know what kind of conspiracy theories about "liberal DAs" you're on about, this only became a topic of discussion maybe 6 years ago.
Speaking of propaganda, do you have a link to the data behind those claims? It feels like “complete destruction” should make the news.
Yeah I'm against ICE and I don't want any immigrants deported.
Why? Deportation is a reasonable response when a person violates a country’s immigration laws. That is the standard around the world.
Alternatively, you have an essentially open border, which obviously can lead to unmanageable waves of immigration that strain a country’s housing, healthcare, schools, welfare, and other resources, among other effects.
Disruption to peoples’ lives happens when we have administrations who arbitrarily decide not to enforce the immigration law (e.g. the previous administration). It sends mixed signals to potential immigrants, and leads to the outcomes we have today when we decide to resume enforcing our laws.
> obviously can lead to unmanageable waves of immigration that strain a country’s housing, healthcare, schools, welfare, and other resources, among other effects.
I don't agree that this is "obvious". Immigrants bring important social and cultural capital. Who do you think is building a lot of the infrastructure in the US? The people putting a strain on the system are actually the aging baby boomer generation.
I have many other reasons for supporting open immigration that are less transactional, but the suggestions that immigrants "strain" our infrastructure is incorrect.
Immigrants do bring important social and cultural capital. But nobody here is arguing in favor of no immigration.
The standard among countries all over the world is to regulate the flow of immigration via immigration law and deportation of people who violate that law.
How could a massive influx of people happening faster than a system can react not strain the system? I saw this firsthand in schools and hospitals where I grew up, and there are numerous examples throughout history from around the world of the disruption it can cause.
The US is not like many countries in that it was formed by illegal immigrants, and not just immigration, literal genocide and land theft of the indigenous people.
That being said, all immigration policy is out of date. The world is connected now and the policies are an anachronism.
> How could a massive influx of people happening faster than a system can react
I don't agree that this is reality. Our system is not under strain from immigration. It's under strain because we spend our money on the military instead of improving infrastructure. It's also under strain due to wealth inequality and corporate friendly policy. None of which has anything to do with immigration.
Do you think immigration laws should exist? If you don't want to enforce them, why have them? If 400 million people from sub-Saharan Africa moved here and some slept in your backyard, how would you feel about that?
No, I do not think immigration laws should exist. There is zero chance of 400 million people sleeping in my backyard.
What if they came here on boats, planes, or via the borders? How many uneducated, non-English speaking, low measurable IQ people are acceptable to you to clog up all the public services on everyone else's tax dollars?
/s?
Otherwise you're proving his point, which is that there's no middle ground, only "ICE raids terrorizing people" and "sanctuary cities/states where local governments refuse to do any sort of immigration enforcement and specifically turn a blind eye to immigration status".
Yes, well I don't think we should deport people and I think immigrants improve the US, so I would be in the latter category. He's "waiting to hear of alternatives that don't involve deporting illegal immigrants", and I have one: don't deport anyone.
>Yes, well I don't think we should deport people and I think immigrants improve the US, so I would be in the latter category
Which would put you in the minority (16%).
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/03/26/am...
Even without getting into a debate of whether we should do immigration enforcement at all (a sibling reply goes into it in better detail), there's the practical effect that most people do, and if Democrats don't oblige, people like Trump will get in power instead.
I think the Democrats are also culpable for supporting anti-immigrant policy and sentiment. I absolutely believe that I'm in the minority, as this country has a deep history in racial bias (in fact, it was founded on that).
What actual, concrete benefit do you see from deporting immigrants?
The question is about deporting illegal immigrants specifically, i.e. people who are in a country in violated of its immigration laws.
I think the main benefit is the same as with any law: if you have a law with no consequences for the people who break it, you don’t really have a law. If we don’t have immigration laws, we have an open border and with an open border, we can’t regulate the rate at which people enter the country. This rate can easily exceed the amount that the country reasonably accommodate, which negative impact on housing, healthcare, welfare, transportation, civic cohesion, and education systems.
Immigration law is standard around the world, with deportation being the standard response to people who violate that law. The more interesting question here is how you think a modern country will function and continue serving the needs of its citizens when it stops enforcing its immigration laws.
What if a law only has consequences for the people it's intended for?
Let's say you have a requirement that all TVs should be registered, so you can make sure every TV owner has a TV licence. You find an unregistered TV, but the owner has a TV licence. Does it make sense to confiscate the TV? What purpose would that serve?
Let's say you have a law that all people entering a country must be scrutinized to ensure no serial killers get in. You find a guy who hasn't been scrutinized, but he's not a serial killer. Does it make sense to confiscate the guy? What purpose would that serve?
> I think the main benefit is the same as with any law: if you have a law with no consequences for the people who break it, you don’t really have a law.
How do you feel about ICE raiding citizens homes without warrants? How about door to door raids?
If ICE cannot even follow the 4th and 5th amendments then they should be jailed themselves.
They currently use administrative warrants but I’d be in favor of requiring judicial warrants.
>you see from deporting immigrants?
Nice job sneakily changing "immigration enforcement" to "deporting immigrants".
It's a false dilemma either way. "You are with ICE or you are pro-illegal immigration".
...and that's best case scenario, giving the benefit of the doubt.
The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration, illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US needs more people because we’re under the replacement rate.
For the line must always go up crowd, they feel a need. Not everyone is in the line must always go up crowd.
But why are we under the replacement rate? Seems relevant
It all comes back to women being treated as full people. Having a child is dangerous, expensive, and a major time commitment which mean that women who have other options are going to have fewer children later in life when they have the resources to support them. We also have much less demand for unskilled workers so even women who really want children are getting educated and establishing careers first rather than getting married at 18.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-decli...
That leaves really only two choices: pull a Ceaușescu and try to remove the choice, or improve all of the things which make people feel now is not the right time to have kids. Since the former choice is both immoral and self-defeating, that really flips the discussion to why the people who claim to want more children oppose universal healthcare, childcare, making housing more affordable, banning negative career impacts for mothers, addressing climate change, etc. There are many things which factor into an expensive multi-decade bet and you have to improve all of them to substantially shift the outcome.
Because of eroding worker rights and raise cost of living.
You need free time for kids and if the salaries are too low for a single income household a lot of people will end up opting out of having kids.
This isn't unique the the US. Basically every country with a whack work life balance is looking at population replacement problems.
I think this is an oversimplification. History has shown that as soon as a country is developed enough that children start increasing the family expenses rather than decrease them (I.e. helping out with the farm, or whatever the sustaining family business is, but in developing countries this is overwhelmingly agriculture) the pressure to have children slacks off to a large degree and becomes more of a luxury. So it’s just a byproduct of industrialization.
The US is actually better off with replacement rate than a lot of countries that have industrialized since them because of the way it happened and the wars that were fought. More rapidly-industrializing countries (China, Japan, a few other Asian and SA countries) have way shorter runways despite industrializing much later than the US. And those with one child policies really just made things worse for themselves. A very large part of what the future is going to look like in my opinion is how different countries are able to grapple with this issue and come up with solutions to the problem of a large aging population and a service, hospitality and medical industry with not enough bodies.
The alternative is better trained officers with more accountability.
Bovino says "the officer [who killed Pretti] has extensive training as a range safety officer and less lethal officer,” and had served for eight years.
Experienced police officers have also infrequently and unfortunately shot people. Is the conclusion we should halt all law enforcement? Or we just enforce laws you like?
The goal is to minimize such outcomes as much as humanly possible while also maintaining the law.
We could also save lives if we stopped politicizing the act of law enforcement. The left didn’t mobilize ordinary people to harass armed ICE officers when Obama was in office and deporting illegal immigrants, and naturally this preserved lives. The difference isn’t in the act of law enforcement then and now, which is essentially the same, but in its politicization from both the right and left.
You can’t fix this by giving them more money for training. This is how they’re trained to act.
Most of these people didn't protest ICE under Biden and Obama, who both deported more than Trump 1. That's because we see a difference in how illegal migrants were prioritized (violent offenders first) and treated (more humanely) then compared to now. And how citizen protests were handled then and now.
And as you're waiting with closed eyes, plugged ears, and a mind gummed up with simplistic fascist nonsense, you're going to be waiting for a loooooong time.
You're wrong, simple as that.
For me, it's the summary execution of US citizens that gives me pause.
Who needs to care about the Constitution, Individual Liberty, or limited government when there are iMmIgrAnTs around?!
It's like these people never got past their childhood phase worrying about the monster in the closet. In fact I do have to wonder how much of the non-Boomer+ support for this regime is just from naive kids who have zero life experience.
Tons of young people either voted for Trump or didn't vote at all this time around.
Undoubtedly influenced by social media, they're now realizing that what they voted for was their own future's destruction and are now abandoning him in droves.
We'll see if it's too late or not.
Delete your social media, shit is poison.
Exactly.
Forced movement is cringe, actually
You’re right. We should throw away the constitution so we can deport.. (checks notes) 600,000 undocumented immigrants, only 5% of which have committed a violent crime.
I don't have a horse in this race, but I do have a question. If you don't deport illegal immigrants, why not just open the border to everyone to come in? (let's ignore criminal records, etc for this exercise). What's the point of not letting people in but then if they manage to come in illegally, assume it's all good and they can stay?
That's the question, isn't it? Why not just do that? Who are you trying to keep out of the country, and for what end, and is that end best attained by removing people from the country who aren't the ones you are trying to keep out?
For instance, if you believe the border should be strict to keep out serial killers, what does that have to do with removing Korean car factory workers who aren't serial killers?
Because once they come in sufficient numbers they will turn your country into the country they fled from - and then you are in trouble.
I don't understand. Can you elaborate?
“It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible.”
This is a slippery slope argument at best and jingoist rhetoric at worst.
Which river is it in Ireland that they dye green every year for St Patrick’s day like they do in Chicago?
Well, if a Korean car factory worker live and work illegally in the country, then it makes total sense to remove them, regardless if they are serial killers or not. A company shouldn't even hire anyone who is not eligible to work legally in the country. There are laws that need to be followed like everything else.
It sounds like you're saying that you want the country to have open borders so that everyone can come live and work here given they pass some basic checks (no criminal history for example). I am not saying that is wrong, but that's not how pretty much every country in the world operates.
> then it makes total sense to remove them, regardless if they are serial killers or not.
Why?
> A company shouldn't even hire anyone who is not eligible to work legally in the country.
Apart from the legal punishments themselves, why not? What goal is achieved by this?
No horse either but here is an attempt (ignoring criminal record as you say): Opening the border and letting her rip is clearly not sustainable in the medium term. So you try to make it (reasonably) hard to get in incl. turning people away at the border.
Once they are in (incl illegally so) you concede you have lost on this instance. Now you admit that forcefully removing immigrants carries too high a cost (literally + damage in the communities you remove the immigrants from + your humanitarian image). So you don't.
Somehow that balance seems really hard to get right and edge cases (criminal record) matter.
Because we like second-class citizens because its easier to exploit their labor.
Buying into the framework that any of this is about illegal immigrants is a red herring. Immigration is merely a pretext for enabling an unaccountable fascist police state using big data from the consumer surveillance industry to both keep enough people believing the regime's abject reality-insulting lies (the carrot), while extralegally punishing anybody who might be too effective at speaking out (the stick).
I mean, I don't like CCP tech or public executions of disarmed citizens but saying only 5% is a bit nuts.
Another way to look at it: the native born are twice as likely to be arrested for violence and drug crimes.
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG...
What percentage of illegal immigrants have committed violent crimes?
The stats are pretty clear. Based on DHS own numbers
https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/number-deported-im...
I'll read it for them.
This basically states that the figures are based on self reported ICE data and are unreliable at best.
The figure is within a rounding error, and regardless does nothing to change the CCP tech and public executions of citizens in the street in broad daylight in front of dozens of cameras.
You're right, maybe calling people "illegal" is just shitty and we should be the welcoming county we were taught about on history class.
And I used to roll my eyes at the homeless guy who ranted about the mark of the beast
I hope that we can agree that blowing off the 10A and allowing all of this federal bloat has not been a swift call.
Social services left at the State level would be subject to a smaller pool of votes for approval and are more likely to be funded by actual tax revenue instead of debt.
That is: sustainably.
Furthermore, the lack of One True Database is a safety feature in the face of the inevitable bad actors.
In naval architecture, this is called compartmentalization.
There are good arguments against this, sure, but the current disaster before you would seem a refutation.
Some states are too poor to effectively fund and maintain their own safety nets. It's common for folks laid off in these states to get a dubious mental health diagnosis to justify SSDI, because doctors know they have no prospects and could well become homeless without it.
So we mug other States rather than address the problem?