But the sorts of ICE actions that are causing this controversy only have political support because the US immigration laws have been flouted for 30+ years. Regardless of what you or I think of it it’s the reality that lots of the electorate wants deportations and lots of them and that likely isn’t true in a world where the laws on the books were more strictly enforced in the past.
What political support? Is there evidence to back that claim? The most recent polls I've seen about this are Gallup's polls from July and they suggest that 62% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration. This includes a majority of Dems and Independents. The trend is more and more people disapprove of Trump on this topic as time moves forward.
I don't have any data to back this up, but it is conceivable the people that want to deport en masse often understand that the perception of such policy is ugly, and simultaneously support it while not wanting to publicly broadcast it.
If I supported mass deportations, I would simply vote for it and never tell anyone so that I could get what I want without getting any of the flack from the associates of the people who are deported. There's not a lot to gain from telling others you want to harm a bunch of your neighbors, but there is a lot to gain if you can give them the boot and not being perceived as having anything to do with their misfortune.
I mean that is basically the entire basis of the shy Trump voter phenomenon. Even after 8 years of trying to correct for it it showed up last year enough to tip the election from one which the polls said was a dead heat in the Electoral College to a clear Trump and Republican popular vote victory.
You missed the point: they were referring to the sentiment that lead to Trump’s election. Many of those voters , I would guess, feel that the way Trump is doing it is cruel and chaotic.
This obviously doesn’t imply that those who voted for Trump on this basis want to go back to the open border Biden days.
They don't have majority political support. Even many Trump voters are against it. Also Trump has repeatedly violated immigration law, hell Trump tower wouldn't exist without the work of unauthorized Polish workers
No, there are many reasons people want deportations, but mainly people don't think others should get the benefits of being part of a country while flaunting its rules.
In short: "if you want to join our group, you should like our group and add to our group".
Stories like these are what turned people away:
- New York giving free debit cards to migrants to buy their ethnic food because they don't like free American food.
Hm, I’m not saying it is good for America, but it seems to me that there are plausible senses of “good for America” for which it is plausible that illegal immigration is “good for America” in those senses.
Now, I generally dislike laws being broken. If there’s a situation where breaking a law is the right thing to do, then typically that indicates some problem (perhaps with the law, perhaps with something else).
So, I would hope that if illegal immigration is or were acting as a good thing right now, that there is or would be a better long-term solution for whatever situation than “a long term pattern of illegal immigration”.
Oh, I somehow misinterpreted “In no way is” as “There is no way that”. Oops.
Ask JD Vance, who repeatedly said that people legally in this country are illegal immigrants - and those screaming the loudest about illegal immigration walk stridently behind his banner.
Implying democrats use of executive power is the problem in the current situation is laughable at best and genuinely bizarre given the current administration's actions across so many avenues.
Red herring. Political support is due to mass media narrative campaigns, in this day and age groundswell politics is simply infeasible with the power that narrative has in today's culture.
Hence the importance of controlling the narrative by spinning unchecked stories about immigrants eating cats, disproportionate rates of murder and crime, ignoring revenue from immigrants paying taxes, etc.
The fact that sufficient people will vote on immigration as an issue is orthogonal to the realities of laws and enforcement rates and entirely predicated upon perception of such issues.
Your comment was flagged by several members of the community who all have a solid track record for flagging things due to being in breach of the guidelines (rather than due to disagreement, spite etc). So I'm not out of step with community standards here.
> Leaving one sided statements up like the GP is not a discussion.
Other comments in the subthread have also been flagged and killed, and I may reply to them also. I replied to yours because I saw it before the others and because its's clearly a party-political, inflammatory comment, and you are a repeat offender when it comes to guidelines breaches. In just the past 18 months, dang or I have asked you five times now to improve your conduct on HN.
> It's a political discussion, either allow it fully or don't.
> Referencing the morals of the same justification for slavery is a valid point.
The validity of an argument is a separate matter to whether it is expressed in an inflammatory way. We want to be able to discuss difficult topics on HN, and that can only happen if people are going to respect the guidelines and make the effort to discuss things with sensitivity and curiosity, rather than combativeness.
If you are only able to discuss difficult political topics in a combative style, HN is not the right place for you to participate.
OK, I can accept that you didn't know, and that you don't intend to cross the line, but that just indicates you're not aware of what's expected here and you need to learn, and to make an ongoing effort to stay well inside the bounds.
A line like “Whether it's slaves or illegals, it's still wrong” will always be classed as an inflammatory statement on HN.
> I never attack a person directly
That style of rhetoric in the reply is hostile to the parent; we often don't know how hostile our words can seem to the person on the receiving end of them; they don't seem so bad when they're just thoughts in our own mind.
> even though I have witnessed it being done and others have done it to me.
You should flag things or report them to us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate and act where needed.
