Comment by Amezarak
9 days ago
You're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.
9 days ago
You're going to have to explain to me why it's a bad thing or immoral for the government to be aware of where immigrants who legally need to be deported live.
You were arguing that the use of Microsoft office vs the bespoke Palantir app were equivelent, and I'm simply pointing out that they are very different.
I'm a stranger on the internet, if you don't already think that the USA's immigration raids and camps are a bad thing, I'm probably not going to be the one to convince you otherwise.
There's a lot of good journalism and commentary on the topic, so if you want to have your mind changed, do a web search and read from people much smarter and more knowledgable than me.
IBM made custom software and hardware to process Jews that legally needed to be in camps. I'm sure that was equally not a 'bad thing' or 'immoral'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
That’s not an answer. Please explain why it’s a bad thing that Palantir had produced an application that shows ICE agents the probable addresses of people they’re supposed to deport along with information about them.
If the answer is “I don’t believe in immigration law and the government should not enforce it regardless of what people vote for”, that’s a completely acceptable answer.
Because these systems are not only used on illegal immigrants. To give you a very clear example: a US citizen was murdered without any due process a few days ago by ICE.
Because surveilling people -- PEOPLE, not citizens -- without probable cause is a violation of the US constitution?
It is a bad thing because it leads to innocent people being brutalized, it's a violation of the constitution, it's very clearly the primary tool of an increasingly authoritarian government?
14 replies →
I wasn't answering you. I was calling out the vicious sleight of hand where you reduce what ICE is doing to the innocently-sounding "immigrants who legally need to be deported".
1 reply →
I'll engage.
First: I do not believe immigration laws should be enforced in their entirety vis-a-vis mass deportation. Decades of flawed immigration laws, flawed employment laws and flawed enforcement have led to the current situation where millions of people are in this country undocumented, who are otherwise law-abiding, decent people who contribute to their communities and love the US. The rhetoric about immigrants being a drain on society are flawed at best, and hatefully wrong and bad faith at worst.
Second: If we want to get a handle on immigration volume and change the system so fewer people are undocumented, the correct response logistically and morally is to create a path to legal status (not citizenship) for those currently here, who have been here for a long time, who have families and who have not committed violent crime.
Third: If someone wanted to maximize the effectiveness of immigration enforcement resources for the purpose of safety using deportation, they would still be doing targeting of violent offenders. They clearly are not. Stephen Miller wants all undocumented people out of this country because he is a white supremacist. When "moderating forces" in the administration tried to push back on raids at farms and factories, Miller angrily protested and got Trump to change his mind back to indiscriminate mass deportation.
Third, pt 2: If Republicans were serious about measured but effective reforms to reduce immigration, they would have accepted the 2024 legislative package that capped asylum volume and vastly increased border patrol and border judiciary resources to expedite cases and get people back out of the country in a fraction of the time the current system requires. Instead, they wanted to win the 2024 election with immigration as a wedge issue, and they want to pursue a maximalist position of fear and mass removal.
Fourth: The US federal government is a semi-democracy. We have a single-choice, no-runoff election system in most of the country that forces an extremist-friendly two party system, and the presidential election is further removed from popular choice by the electoral college. The president is the least "democratic" elected position in the nation. I do not think most people support the extent of the violence and maximalism of the administration.
Fifth: The surveillance technology being adopted by the government is not being used solely on undocumented citizens.
Finally: If I were in charge and wanted to take a stance on immigration, I would do largely what was in the 2024 bill, I would set up a work visa program for industries that heavily utilize undocumented labor, and I would target recent arrivals and criminals for deportation - not all undocumented residents.
---
TLDR: We're arresting and deporting veterans, PhD students critical of US policy, and people who have lived here for decades as part of the "American Dream" who have done no harm to our country. What is being done is not in the name of safety nor does it even indirectly improve the lives of Americans. Surveillance and tracking tools are being deployed against all citizens. In the broader context of the behavior and statements of Miller/Trump/Vance et al, this is part of a multi-pronged attack on democracy and the freedom of citizens from government intrusion.
Edit: and all of this debate is without the context of an administration that has declared itself above the law domestically and internationally, that has invaded a country for oil and is currently preparing to invade a treaty member of our strongest military alliance to steal their natural resources. So if the parent wonders why some people are hostile at debating this, it's because to debate the point at all is to ignore obvious truths.
2 replies →