Comment by Terr_
6 hours ago
> the story happens to gloss over the facts about the legal status and focuses on the hardship
Suppose you have a "civil infraction" against you, like an unpaid parking ticket, running across the road in an unsafe way, or overstaying a visa. It's terms of US law categories, it's less than graffiti on a fence. In this case you were "indeed in violation" of it.
However, what happens next is some recently hired weirdos in mismatched camo-gear claiming to be police (with no ID) surround you on the the sidewalk, drag you into a van, and imprison you for months without trial. You are purposefully shuffled between different prisons in different states to prevent your own lawyer from being able to find you.
Meanwhile, some internet dude nicknamed 0x40 comes along and says: "Ugh, why do you guys keep glossing over the facts about their parking tickets to focus on the hardship? Yes, it's a hardship to be split from your family, I can't deny that, but..."
In short, one of the several problems right now is the that even for victims that actually did something wrong, the "hardship" is frequently illegal and disproportional. The truthfulness of the cause does not justify the effect.
> It's terms of US law categories, it's less than graffiti on a fence
The 'level' of the crime is only one aspect determining the treatment.
Some crimes are inherently more prone to absconders, immigration infractions being one of them.
Now, you could just say "oh well, that means we should just not try so hard to get perfect enforcement". Which is fine. But that's obviously not the view of everyone.
I'm not even sure that's the view of everyone when it comes to grafitti. Plenty of people would like to be zero tolerance on that too, it just doesn't have the political momentum right now that immigration issues do. And immgrants as a class are vulnerable in a way that random natives spraying fences aren't.
Also, I'm not sure this really addresses the question(s) of the thread which were more along the lines of "when compared to other countries, does the US: (a) have a higher false positive rate; and/or (b) a harsher regime of treatment".
On that, I'm still not convinced the answer is yes. The UK, for example, has been up to almost exactly the same things. Many European and Asian countries are much worse.