Comment by Tycho
10 hours ago
If you take a step back, your position is basically that it is ok to let people break the law, ok to help them break the law even, and if you want to enforce the law, you should only do it to a degree that amounts to futility, not with any serious chance of preventing tens of millions of people getting away with illegally inhabiting the country.
I’m no anarchist, I simply acknowledge that civil disobedience exists. People are responsible for the risks they take in violating the laws they feel are unjust. Frankly, I have little reason to believe a city, state, or person would take that risk to protect people who would harm them so I don’t worry much about it. In my mind, the ones committing crimes will be caught committing those crimes and those aren’t the ones people are trying to protect.
I don’t support the wall for reasons I’ve already given but I do support border control as I think most of these people do, it’s just different with folks already here.
Even if I was worried about illegal immigrants more-so than other current issues, I’d still take issue with the cruelty in which it seems to be carried out such as in the story I posted. Surely you realize that stories like that promote civil disobedience because even if they committed a crime they aren’t all hardened criminals, some are just people looking for a better life. Not everyone believes they’re all murderers and gang members simply because Trump thinks so and especially not women and children.
In terms of the Alien Enemies act it is not the role of the executive branch to interpret the law and one could argue they are breaking the law by taking a non-literal reading of the words ”invasion” and “predatory incursion” to avoid due process for these individuals. They may argue and win in court that the interpretation should change but that doesn’t excuse them from taking liberties in the first place.
All that said. I’m going to leave it here, you’re free to respond if you wish but I don’t think we’ll change each other’s minds. I do appreciate your civil discussion despite the controversy of the topic.