>When the average person says "illegal immigrant" they mean someone that broke immigration law. [...] So if you start rounding up "illegal immigrants" and deporting them right away, that's a big problem, because not all of them had due process and you'll inevitably grab innocent people.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? How can you break immigration law but be innocent?
Immigration is pretty binary, you either have valid visa to be here or you don't, so you either broke the law or you didn't. What's there to argue about here? Yeah, we can say immigration laws suck sometimes, but that's an argument for changing the laws, not for removing the enforcement of the law.
> Aren't you contradicting yourself here? How can you break immigration law but be innocent?
If you try to round up everyone that committed a crime, you're going to make mistakes. You'll get people that did not commit that crime. So no, there's no contradiction in that sentence.
> Immigration is pretty binary, you either have valid visa to be here or you don't, so you either broke the law or you didn't. What's there to argue about here?
The way you check, properly, is with due process.
It's pretty easy to do due process on immigration. It can be done efficiently. But you still have to do it.
>If you try to round up everyone that committed a crime, you're going to make mistakes. You'll get people that did not commit that crime. So no, there's no contradiction in that sentence.
Yeah there is contradiction. They either committed the crime or they did not. Which is it? Do they have valid immigration papers or not. That IS the due process. Where do you see the potential mistakes? It's very binary. When you enter the movie theater, you either have a ticket or you don't.
And mistakes happen with all the due process in the world. Jails everywhere have people who are there even if they did not commit the crime simply because the prosecution was stronger than the defense.
Not everyone who’s in the country illegally committed a crime – for example if you overstayed a visa you might be deportable, but you haven’t committed a crime.
Then there is a lot of law around asylum seekers. Some of the people who entered the country illegally still might have rights to stay here.
The current laws aren’t as simple as “if you don’t have a paper we can send you outside tomorrow” right now.
And on top of it ones deportation order might have conditions (I.e don’t deport this guy to El Salvador since it’s unsafe for him there) which also can make deportation of illegal illegal. And this one, as you might know, already happened.
The whole El Salvador thing with first two planes having people without final order of removal is illegal.
That’s to answer how deporting illegals can be illegal.
On top of it what’s called deportation might be not exactly deportation in my opinion – it’s unclear why US can send people to foreign prison for entering country illegally.
I, for one, also want people who's unlawful in the US to leave / be deported.
But I also want this to happen according to the law. And this is more important to me than having these people in the US. Person who entered the country illegally, or, for example, overstayed their visas, might have rights to stay here according to our laws (again, look at asylum seekers). And I want those laws to be followed (or changed).
I also realize that what's really complicated is to find illegal immigrants. And ultimately it's a trade off between how efficiently we find them and how much we turn into police state. And for me it's much more important not to turn into police state, rather than get rid of unlawful immigrants.
Hate towards unlawful immigrants scares me, government induced hate - terrifies me (see https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1919552538447097970), that's where comparison to fascism comes into conversation. Under the pretense of hate towards particular group of people the worst things are happening. Hate and dehumanization are tools for such regimes.
Most of the unlawful immigrants aren't criminals (at least in the way you apply this word to your fellow Americans), and they came here because it was bad for them back home and they wanted better life. The life they're pretty much ready to work a lot for.
I can't help but notice how much this is the story of America itself. Your ancestors probably were this kind of people. It is part of the American DNA.
As of being bigot and hateful: "kick them out" and your insistence on them being criminals pretty much uncovers your feelings toward these people.
I am not wrong - you can be imprisoned and you are breaking the law for being an illegal inmigrant trying to enter the US illegally. Illegal immigrants or asylum seekers are not fellow citizens
It’s not hateful to be a law abiding citizen. Please stop using hyperbole and using those words because it’s wrong and you have no evidence. It’s an ad hominem attack which isn’t allowed on HN
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? How can you break immigration law but be innocent?
Immigration is pretty binary, you either have valid visa to be here or you don't, so you either broke the law or you didn't. What's there to argue about here? Yeah, we can say immigration laws suck sometimes, but that's an argument for changing the laws, not for removing the enforcement of the law.