alt Hacker NewsImmigration laws, like any other laws, need to be enforced, right?
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Have you actually read immigration laws? They are not as Manichean or prescriptive as many commenters make them out to be. Enforcement-first proponents often seem unaware of or indifferent to the difference between civil and riminal violations and the lack of mandatory remedies. I've also noticed a distinct tendency to hyperbolize and outsize lie about past policy choices in order to justify their position.
No, just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be ruthlessly enforced with dangerous and deadly action or even enforced at all when the majority of the public doesn't support them. Do you believe the feds should go into marijuana legal states and start arresting everybody for breaking the law? Marijuana is illegal after all.
Yes, with humanity and with respect for due process. And laws should not be applied selectively against people you don't like while turning a blind eye to violations by people on 'your side'.
A lot of people who support the current US government do not want the laws to be enforced, they just want to see people who look brown or foreigners to be deported, regardless of if they are in the US legally or illegally.
The immigration laws are saying that we should stop illegal immigration, but respect the legal immigration. And because of that, it means that each case should be carefully treated to discover if the person is illegal or not.
But a majority of people supporting the crack-down on immigration are more than happy to see 10 innocents being deported if it means 1 illegal being deported, and they will wave around the illegal being deported to explain that before the crack-down, the law was not respected, forgetting that the current situation is breaking the law way more than the previous one (before: 1 illegal not deported, 1 error. after: 10 innocents being deported, 10 errors).
In other words: if you care about the law, you cannot "pick and choose" and say "the laws are not respected because 1 illegal is not deported" but also "10 innocents are being deported, this breaks the law, but this does not count".