[dtjb]

Norms and goalposts aside, what’s the value in adopting a formal policy of harassment against non-criminal, non-violent workers?

Congress can debate immigration laws on the books, but this cultural shift seems to be something else entirely. Instead of measured enforcement, it appears to be the normalization of cruelty. We're punishing people who are part of the workforce contributing to our country's economic output.

Seems like the real question is, what do we get out of this? Because it doesn't appear to be aligned with security or prosperity. It's just needless suffering, bureaucracy, and wasted resources.

[gruez]

>Norms and goalposts aside, what’s the value in adopting a formal policy of harassment against non-criminal, non-violent workers?

Deterring irregular economic migration? If the government adopts a non-formal policy of not prosecuting non-criminal non-violent workers, it's implicitly saying it's fine to people to violate immigration laws and come here to work, as long as you don't cause trouble. You might think this is fine because free movement of labor is good or whatever, but that's not what most Americans want.

[dtjb]

Americans don’t want economic growth, or don’t want foreigners in the country?

I feel like we should be honest - Americans are perfectly comfortable picking and choosing when laws get enforced. We do it all the time. We don’t treat every law as sacred. Enforcement is selective in a million other areas, from antitrust to wage theft to pollution. Nobody insists those must be pursued to the letter every single time.

So why single out immigration as the one area where “the law is the law” trumps any rational or humane appeal? It starts to look less like a principled stand on legal consistency and more like a cultural preference. One that just happens to line up with race and class anxieties rather than some universal devotion to the rule of law.

[Larrikin]

Republican voters are not most Americans

[rayiner]

> Congress can debate immigration laws on the books, but this cultural shift seems to be something else entirely. Instead of measured enforcement, it appears to be the normalization of cruelty.

That's because Congress has been promising "measured enforcement" for 60 years, but in that time the foreign-born population has ballooned from 4.7% in 1970 to 15.6% in 2024--higher than it ever was in the 20th century. The goal is big, visible enforcement actions that will disincentivize people from immigrating above the limits set forth in the law.

[dtjb]

I fail to see how the percentage of foreign born citizens is a problem in any way.