I agree that ICE’s enforcement practices have been too harsh. What I’m still missing is something I consider morally obligatory for those actively protesting ICE in the streets of our cities—a concrete proposal for how we can enforce present immigration law in the context of “sancturary” states and cities.
Failing that it seems to me that Occam’s Razor suggests that they want open borders.
Open borders are unworkable and would be harmful to poor citizens and taxpayers alike.
They want open borders. They’re quit clear about that
Also, post-Floyd, a lot of the Minneapolis radical core is quite thoroughly convinced that street action is always successful. Obviously it will lead their righteous cause to fast and inevitable victory, so why bother with talking?
This whole mess may be a case of “fight them to a protracted draw first, so that talking becomes possible.” Dent their vaunted invulnerability, in order to sow doubt, in order to make space for negotiations.
I might be totally wrong! But at least my explanation accounts for the overly theatrical ICE tactics.
(Trump fights like a leftist, and boy do they ever hate him for it, because fighting against leftist tactics is deeply unsettling)
1) Pass clear laws and rules around immigration, asylum and refugees. Lawyers from both tribes claim the laws are perfectly clear but they both have different interpretations.
2) ICE agents should meet the standards of other police. They are getting 8 weeks training while national averages for police is about 21 weeks and the US is low by international standards. Have them take off the masks and wear ID like everyone else. Require accountability like with regular police.
3) Provide due process. The large majority of people they are taking have not committed crimes. They are taking them and then not allowing contact with family or letting them have legal representation. The latest count is that they have grabbed about 170 American citizens. (They actually seem, some, to be seeking confrontation. I dont really understand the need for 4 grown men to throw a 5 foot skinny woman on the ground and handcuff her because they ran their car into hers. She was absolutely no threat to them. Just arrest them like a normal cop would do. Put cuffs on them and put them in a car. I think much/most of this is due to lack of training plus knowing they are anonymous and will be unaccountable.)
4) If you arrest people in their homes at least let them get dressed before taking them. I cant believe they are that time pressed. If they have young kids maybe hold off on taking them unless you have a decent place to take them. Dont unnecessarily separate families.
5) Last, concentrate on actually finding illegals and not trying to create a spectacle and/or using it to try to make some political points. Along with this, Noel should not be allowed to do press conferences which really just end up being political rants anyway.
As an aside I do think a percentage of protestors want open borders but by my reading I think most just want people to be treated decently. I also dont think wanting your neighbor, employee or employer who has been here for 30 years and been a good contributing member of the community to not be deported or at least to be treated with decency and compassion does not necessarily equate to wanting open borders.
Steve
I’ll respond to a couple of your list.
1) The INA is quite clear and there were relatively few problems following and enforcing it until Biden issued his blanket invitation as a candidate. The real problem is enforcing the law in our cities especially when they pronounce themselves “sanctuaries”. That is prima facie nullification. Interpreting the law is up to SCOTUS.
2) No argument.
3) Most people don’t understand what “due process” in this case is. When a deportation order has been issued due process has been satisfied.
4) No argument.
5) No argument. In the age of smartphones and everyone having video cameras in their pockets there’s a fine line between ordinary law enforcement and spectacle. DHS is going for spectacle too frequently for my taste. A fish stinks from the head down.
ICE agents frequently do not have deportation orders when they grab people. They are grabbing people who look foreign and taking them in without deportation orders just based upon their appearance and where they live.
Before 2016 if someone requested asylum the norm was that they were allowed to enter the country while waiting for a deportation hearing. What Biden did was the long term norm. If we dont want them to enter the country while they wait we need a clear law and we probably need to abrogate some international agreements. As far as sanctuary cities go we have seen ICE grab many, many people to deport in those cities. In a sanctuary city police just dont offer much help. Personally I would rather have my local police do local police jobs. I guess you dont have much crime in Chicago so you would rather the police help ICE?
Steve
Clear laws, attorneys are paid advocates for their client, if the client wants it to read one way they do the dazzle/baffle dance. After all what is the the meaning of is?
I don’t know that and I doubt you do, either. That’s the problem with how politically fraught the issue is and journalists viewing themselves as activists.
Keep in mind that you cannot just take the word of an attorney who represents illegal aliens (that’s the term used in the legislation). Maybe it’s true; maybe it isn’t.
What do people mean by “due process”? We don’t really know that, either because people either don’t say or prevaricate. I suspect that most mean “an individual trial by jury” which is not the due process in this case.
So you are contending that they had deportation orders for the 170 Americans they have grabbed and jailed for hours to days? That seems unlikely. The same would go for immigrants who are here legally that they are jailing and sometimes deporting. Also, here is what CHAT-GPT describes due process. Other than for expedited removal a judge must grant one based on the merits and have a hearing.
“Rights of Non-Citizens
Constitutional Protections: The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process rights to all persons in the U.S., including non-citizens, regardless of their immigration status.
Right to a Hearing: Generally, individuals facing deportation have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge. This allows them to contest their removal and present their case.
Expedited Removal Process
Limited Protections: In certain situations, such as expedited removal, individuals may be deported quickly without a hearing. This typically applies to undocumented immigrants apprehended shortly after entering the U.S. and who cannot prove they have been in the country for at least two years.
Exceptions for Asylum Seekers: If an individual expresses fear of returning to their home country, they may undergo a credible fear interview, which can allow them to seek asylum and avoid expedited removal.
Legal Representation
Access to Counsel: While individuals have the right to legal representation, the government does not provide attorneys for those in immigration proceedings. Having a lawyer can significantly impact the outcome of a case.”
Steve
The people on the street are for open borders, that’s just the nature of the type of people who protest, plus the protests are mainly happening in strongly left-leaning amnesty communities to begin with. On top of that, many probably have friends or family that are at risk of immigration enforcement which makes it personal. I wouldn’t expect any moderate position from this group.
I think Matt Yglesias is mostly right in pointing out that unless you believe Trump’s claims that all of these illegal immigrants are terrorist and rapists, enforcing immigration law means deporting nice people. He thinks that conservatives have an operational advantage in feeling comfortable being @$$holes while liberals are comfortable being naive softies. (I can think of some areas where progressives are jerks, but for immigration, agree that the conservative argument basically begins and ends with “they’re illegal”) He also thinks Democrats have a problem in that the only Democrats with knowledge about the immigration system are immigration lawyers, not people who know about immigration enforcement.
Yglesias’ fear is that the Democrats will repeat the mistakes of the Biden administration by having a vague sense that Trump I was unfair and reflexively end various enforcement measures and recreate the incentives to rush the border. I don’t know that he has a solution though his long-term preference is to move towards the Australian model which is quite open to legal immigration but has some of the harshest policies against amnesty.
I think the problem is a little worse than that. You either enforce the law or you don’t. If you only enforce the law for people you don’t like but don’t enforce it for people you do, that’s practically the definition of a police state.
Note carefully what MY’s suggestion is. Opinion polls already suggest that Republicans approve of legal immigration. What would harsh policies against amnesty look like? How would it differ from what’s happening now?
As I’ve said repeatedly I think we should have more legal immigration than we do at present accompanied by bipartisan support for enforcement of the laws and IMO lax enforcement poisons the well on legal immigration.
Oops, I meant ASYLUM, not amnesty. I was a little surprised that MY mentioned Australia, but he said it punches above weight in terms of percentage of legal immigrants and attributed that to directing those coming by sea to an offshore extraterritorial prison. During the Clinton Presidency, GITMO served that purpose when Haitians took to the sea. Remain in Mexico served that function later. In the UK, the Tories tried the Rwanda plan, which was stopped by Labour, while the EU has moved towards designating safe countries to send migrants.
In any event, my comments about MY came from this podcast:
https://www.centralairpodcast.com/p/immigration-with-matt-yglesias
Without having listened to the podcast, once upon a time “asylum” was pretty strictly defined here. It meant a) personal b) jeopardy c) due to ethnicity, race, religion, or politics. It didn’t include people who were poor or who feared violence from an abusive husband, for example. Is that “harsh”? I would call it “statutory”.
PD- Why do ICE agents need to a**holes while regular police do not?** I disagree that everyone who is protesting supports open borders. Several members of my church are socially active and go to protests. I have talked with them and they do not support open borders but they do want people to be treated humanely. (This was the core group who ran our soup kitchen for years.) I know that they are particularly concerned that people who have been here for 20-30 years are being deported and that families are being separated.
On the issue of who is correct on immigration law I noted above that how it is interpreted now is largely tribal. However, I would also note that how it was actually enforced in the past, by Dems and Republicans, was much different than it is now. That it is Republicans under Trump who have decided to interpret and act on existing laws differently than in the past.
** I think this comes down to a few factors and I dont know how to weight them. It’s clear that they have minimal, inadequate training. They are all anonymous and that means little accountability and it’s nearly universal that unaccountable LEO/mlitary behave badly. Adding to that they have complete support from the very top of government who suggest a little violence and abuse is good. Are they recruiting people of low quality or people who are hoping to rough up a few illegals.
Steve
Steve:
Define “humanely”. My definition is kindly and with attention to their human rights. My definition of “humanely” does not include “being allowed to remain in this country”. There is no generalized right to immigration.
If, for example, someone says they do not support open borders but they support someone being allowed to remain in this country once they’ve crossed the border that is de facto open borders.
I also think that the militarization of the police contributes to bad behavior and that treating military service, for example, as a qualification for becoming a LEO promotes the militarization of the police. Anthropologically, when a group creates artificial identities for themselves through uniforms, esprit de corps, and training exercises it tends to promote group loyalty at the expense of others, allowing them to behave inhumanely towards them.
The group I am talking about understands that people are going to be deported. That’s fine. They oppose dragging people out of their homes undressed. These arent mass murderers so at least let them put clothes on. They oppose separating families. They oppose not allowing legal counsel to meet with someone when the government claims are in doubt. (You do realize that by opposing this you are supporting idea that the govt is always correct, a belief i know you would not agree with with in any other context.) They oppose the unnecessary use of force both upon the illegals and on those people ICE agents choose to use to create a spectacle.
“someone says they do not support open borders but they support someone being allowed to remain in this country once they’ve crossed the border that is de facto open borders.”
I disagree. They do not oppose someone who has been here for a short time being deported. They support increasing the number of judges so cases can be ruled upon faster, meaning a lot of people would be deported sooner. So they support deporting large numbers of people, hardly a support of open borders. They simply believe that if someone has been here for 30 years and become an integral part of their community the loss to the community far outweighs any potentially claims of benefits to deporting them.
I do think they support a more expansive definition of asylum. For example if you were living in Venezuela or one of several Central American countries where the govt is corrupt and if local gangs were threatening you and you knew you had no recourse from your govt.
Also, just out of curiosity I asked Chat-GPT about the 4th amendment and illegal immigrants. It suggests based upon current rulings it’s not really clear if ICE can just claim they have the power to do what they want under the claim illegals dont have rights. As I noted before this is a new claim, different than believed or practiced by prior admins, both D and R.
Steve
You can disagree as much as you care to but that’s the definition of de facto open borders. Amnesty once you’ve crossed the border and stayed hidden for some period of time.
That’s why I said it was up to the courts. As I understand it the claim is not that “illegals dont have rights” but that illegal aliens don’t have the same rights as those here legally. I don’t know whether that’s true or not—it’s up to the courts.
Your argument makes no sense. So if a million people cross illegally and we catch and deport 999,999 but decide to let one stay we have open borders. You are making up your own definition of open borders.
Steve