[HN Gopher] Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century
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       Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century
        
       Author : em3rgent0rdr
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2022-05-13 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (americandragnet.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (americandragnet.org)
        
       | ceeplusplus wrote:
       | Seems quite biased, considering they call for "Congress [to]
       | significantly reduce the number of people subject to deportation
       | by--for example--creating a pathway to citizenship for
       | undocumented people, dramatically [reduce] the grounds of
       | removability that are based on criminal legal involvement, and
       | [enact] a statute of limitations on deportations"
       | 
       | Some people might argue that we should be dedicating our scarce
       | housing resources towards expanding the number of legal
       | immigrants with high value skills, not uneducated illegal
       | immigrants, and that illegal immigrants deserve to be deported
       | for entering the country illegally.
        
         | trasz wrote:
         | Housing is scarce because of investors buying it and then
         | effectively wasting it, not because there are too many people.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | RHSeeger wrote:
           | You're oversimplifying with that statement. There are many
           | reasons why housing is scarce, and that is only one of them.
           | 
           | - Existing homeowners trying to prevent denser/more housing
           | 
           | - Regulations and codes that make building much more
           | expensive
           | 
           | - (As you noted) existing housing being wasted as an
           | investment
           | 
           | and I'm sure there's much more.
        
         | turtledove wrote:
         | This is a false dichotomy, how we allocate housing is the wrong
         | framing. The problem is that that housing is in any way a
         | scarce resource. Solve that problem instead.
        
           | ceeplusplus wrote:
           | Those are two separate issues which both can be solved
           | independently. We can simultaneously overturn SFH zoning and
           | also aggressively deport illegal immigrants.
        
             | ixtli wrote:
             | The amount of money made by owners off of the labor of
             | those undocumented people is strong evidence that we're
             | throwing out a very valuable resource if we aggressively
             | deport people.
        
             | turtledove wrote:
             | We could, or we could not deport humans and solve housing
             | and probably be even better off...
        
               | ceeplusplus wrote:
               | Those illegal immigrants are here at the cost of the
               | wages of legal citizens. If no legal citizens wanted to
               | work for farmers, two things would happen, wages would go
               | up (a lot), and investment in automation would go up.
               | Both of those things are positives for the US economy and
               | average unskilled US citizen. Food prices will go up, but
               | I don't think they'll go up as much as you think as labor
               | has never been the biggest component of farming costs.
               | 
               | People don't have a right to live in the US just because
               | they decided to walk across the border illegally.
        
               | turtledove wrote:
               | > Those illegal immigrants are here at the cost of the
               | wages of legal citizens.
               | 
               | No they aren't. This is xenophobic claptrap.
               | 
               | Or at least it isn't self evident they are, and you've
               | failed to provide any evidence they are.
        
               | teakettle42 wrote:
               | From your other comments, it seems like you believe that
               | housing prices are subject to supply and demand; is that
               | accurate?
               | 
               | As in, failure to build enough supply for demand has
               | driven up prices?
               | 
               | Do you also believe that labor is subject to the same
               | forces of supply and demand?
        
               | BitwiseFool wrote:
               | >" We could, or we could not deport humans and solve
               | housing and probably be even better off... "
               | 
               | This feels good to say, but it assumes there are no
               | downsides whatsoever with no longer having deportation as
               | an option and that we can 'solve' housing.
               | 
               | I personally think we can make housing _better_ but
               | housing issues have existed in every civilization
               | throughout recorded history. I can 't help but think it's
               | an emergent phenomenon when you get plenty of people
               | living together in a world where land is limited and two
               | pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same
               | time. Not that we shouldn't try to help, but the issue
               | will never truly go away. And, letting _anyone_ who steps
               | foot into your country stay for as long as they like
               | seems like a recipe for creating housing demand that can
               | never keep up with supply.
        
         | tomjakubowski wrote:
         | Undocumented immigrants provide a significant and grossly
         | disproportionate chunk of construction labor in the United
         | States. If you kick them out, the housing shortage only gets
         | worse.
        
           | bruceb wrote:
           | Or to but it another way, wages would rise for Americans and
           | legal immigrants in construction, especially those who have
           | been involved with the justice system and have a record.
        
             | WalterGR wrote:
             | Why would they rise?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | lelandbatey wrote:
         | You're ignoring the very next line which states "why" they make
         | this particular recommendation, a recommendation that they're
         | pretty consistent about making throughout the rest of the
         | document:
         | 
         | > "While those reforms do not address surveillance itself, they
         | are the most direct way to undercut ICE surveillance
         | authority."
         | 
         | This website, https://americandragnet.org/ , seems dedicated to
         | curtailing dragnet surveillance in the USA. The facts around
         | that surveillance are so disturbing that I'm amazed we can sit
         | around and talk about deportation when it's a just a side show
         | compared to the surveillance. The facts that they're laying
         | out:
         | 
         | - ICE is tracking your address, your home moves, and your
         | driving habits (or at least, they're doing so for ~75% of
         | people in the USA)
         | 
         | - ICE is hijacking government functions like our DMVs and our
         | utility companies _without oversight_ in order to find out who
         | you are, where you live, who you live near, etc. in order to
         | detain and deport... well, I 'll leave the who up to you, but
         | if you're not uneasy with the start of that sentence, I doubt
         | any way of ending it will either.
         | 
         | It's not the deportations that are concerning; it's the paths
         | we're taking to get there.
        
       | colemannugent wrote:
       | Keeping with ancient Solomonic tradition, I say we deport some
       | top ICE officials until they knock it off.
        
         | ixtli wrote:
         | They participate in the operation of concentration camps at the
         | southern border so I believe they are deserving of more harsh
         | judgement.
        
       | ixtli wrote:
       | It has always been conspicuous to me how vocal most Americans are
       | about wanting personal privacy AND about wanting "smaller"
       | government but at the same time not doing much of anything when
       | things like this, the Snowden leaks, and etc come out. We spend
       | very, very large amounts of money on this and if you listen to
       | pundits it's not doing anything because the "crisis" of "illegal"
       | immigration is always getting worse.
       | 
       | It reminds me very much of backscatter machines at the airport
       | and the insistence that we don't bring bottles larger than 3 or 4
       | oz on a flight.
        
         | turtledove wrote:
         | In general, folks who are asking for a small government aren't
         | actually asking for a small government. They are asking for the
         | government to reallocate to the things they care about and away
         | from the things they don't.
         | 
         | "Small government" is just a pleasing label that is more
         | marketable for their priorities.
        
           | ixtli wrote:
           | I generally agree that the people you're talking about are
           | unique in how they obfuscate their intentions when they talk
           | about this stuff. It's always parsing slogans and decoding
           | in-group concepts.
        
         | BitwiseFool wrote:
         | I think the truth is that the American political system is
         | structured in such a way that substantive policy change is
         | monumentally difficult and not correlated with how angry or how
         | vocal the citizenry is about any particular topic. Virtually
         | everyone I know was appalled by the Snowden leaks, yet I know
         | of no one that actually changed their vote. Or, if any
         | candidate ran on dismantling the surveillance state got elected
         | in the aftermath.
        
           | ixtli wrote:
           | I think this is best illustrated in the pathological US need
           | for every level of the entire infrastructure stack to be
           | revenue positive. The recent whinging about the post office
           | is a great example. Further, people asking "whos going to
           | pay" for trains demonstrates the lack of complex thinking. By
           | way of counter example: the Japanese have figured out how to
           | value the high speed train network by how much business it
           | enables every year as opposed to simply looking at how much
           | it costs vs ticket revenue. This isn't, of course, to imply
           | that somehow Japan is magically better. Just that countries
           | like France and China who have less decrepit, more complete
           | public infrastructure didnt get there by accident.
        
       | MarkMarine wrote:
       | Regardless of what you think about legal or illegal immigration,
       | the use of the drivers license data is seems like quite a
       | violation. The states that do this to setup all people in the
       | states with driver's licenses so that they are: 1. meeting the
       | minimum bar for being a safe driver. 2. driving a registered and
       | insured car that meets the laws of the state.
       | 
       | This is good for citizens, I've been hit by someone driving an
       | unregistered, uninsured car who was undocumented and it was a
       | nightmare to deal with. I had to eat the cost of fixing my bike,
       | and luckily I was covered by the military health insurance for my
       | injuries or that would have been exponentially worse.
       | 
       | Using this data for immigration enforcement pushes drivers back
       | to the illegal, unregistered, uninsured situation that existed
       | before. It puts a tax on regular citizens who are following the
       | rules.
        
       | sieabahlpark wrote:
       | It wouldn't need to if we just enforced the existing laws at the
       | border.
        
         | turtledove wrote:
         | Or repealed those laws.
        
         | nopenoperope wrote:
         | How so? Visa overstays have accounted for the majority of
         | illegal immigration for over a decade now (62% vs 38% for
         | border crossing as of 2019).
        
           | barbacoa wrote:
           | Those are 2019 numbers. There has been a massive upsurge in
           | illegal crossing starting in 2020. Many have attributed that
           | surge to the Biden administration new catch and release
           | policy. People who are caught at the border now are bussed to
           | the closest major city and told to go to immigration court
           | hearing -- which most just skip.
           | 
           | https://www.statista.com/chart/20326/mexicans-non-
           | mexcians-a...
        
         | michaelbrave wrote:
         | hardly anyone actually crosses a border illegally, almost all
         | illegal immigrants came via legal means and stayed beyond the
         | time limits. By almost all I mean literally almost all.
         | 
         | The real solution is to hit employers that employ them, as how
         | many people are in this counry illegally has very little to do
         | with actual border control(meaning watching the border).
        
           | AnimalMuppet wrote:
           | If nopenoperope can be believed, it was 62% overstays and 38%
           | illegal crossings in 2019. That's the majority, but it's not
           | "literally almost all".
        
           | ixtli wrote:
           | This simple reality gets overlooked all the time. A large
           | portion of labor in this country is undocumented. The
           | employers, whos existence depends on this and related labor
           | abuses, are rarely if ever held accountable and its the
           | people DOING the work who get abused.
        
         | doh wrote:
         | I'm sorry, but can you expand on this claim? Do you believe
         | that laws are not enforced at the border? Do the agents let
         | anyone in or what is your believe that is happening?
         | 
         | Just FYI I live close to the border and go often there and it's
         | swarming with officers, all cars are being checked even when on
         | the US side and crossing the border is quite an ordeal even if
         | you are a citizen forget being an immigrant.
        
           | barbacoa wrote:
           | >>Do the agents let anyone in or what is your believe that is
           | happening?
           | 
           | What happens is,
           | 
           | Immigrants will come to the border and claim asylum then once
           | they're in the country skip the asylum court hearing. The
           | judge issues a deportation order but by then there is no way
           | to find them.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-13 23:02 UTC)