I'd agree with most of what you said, but there is no "raising a Gestapo". ICE has existed for 25 years. And the laws that give it permission to act haven't changed. It has gradually grown over the decades but what it fundamentally does has not.
What's new is finally the federal government pushing back against locales that refuse to allow local police to cooperate with federal law enforcement by means of massive influxes of federal officers to offset the lack of local support.
Also ICE has widespread support for what they are actually doing. Only when you ask manipulative questions that presume something is happening that isn't, do you get poll results that support a widespread dislike for ICE.
ICE has not been disappearing people to meet quotas for 25 years.
"Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They're allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they're robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone."
“U.S. Border Patrol agents recorded nearly 238,000 apprehensions of migrants crossing the southern border illegally in fiscal year 2025” [1]. For 2012 to 2015, the chart shows about 360k, 420k, 480k and 330k, respectively.
That means ICE is spending $330 to 580 thousand dollars per additional Southwest border encounter in 2025 versus 2012. ($250 to 440 thousand if we average Obama’s second-term numbers.)
These numbers 10x even San Francisco’s circa 2016 homeless-industrial profligacy [2]. Unless ICE is a ball of wormy corruption, they’re clearly not focused on immigration enforcement.
If you prefer anecdotes, I live in Wyoming. Our farms are de facto exempt from enforcement. I believe in enforcing our immigration laws while we work to reform through the legislature. But that's clearly not what ICE is doing. The most-generous interpretation is they're making videos that make people who want enforcement feel good.
I've said for a while that ICE needs to go after businesses that hire illegal immigrants. So if you're looking for some kind of conflict in what I'm saying that isn't it.
I don’t like that these kinds of posts get flagged. If a post is praising ICE or Trump it should be highlighted and mocked, not flagged and deleted. People should see how batshit insane MAGA people are.
There's one of these articles it feels like every month. And as usual, Betteridge's Law of Headlines is at play here.
There's no replacing the US dollar until a better option comes along. You need a currency that's open (which rules out Yuan), a currency that is backed up by a strong government (which rules out places like Russia, India, Japan, and the UK), and you'd want something that isn't subject to the same geopolitical rules as the US dollar (which rules out the Euro).
RIP to Scott Adams, I'm much younger than most here talking about his work (I didn't enter the work force until the 2010s) but I still found Dilbert interesting.
I saw him most as a victim of cancel culture with people attacking him for things he wasn't and exaggerating his minor issues into much larger ones. There are billions of people in the world with views that are probably worse than Scott Adams' but people always feel the need to attack the nail that sticks out.
I think this was disused a few days ago in a similar HN comment thread. Turns out, the US has way more data-tapping anti-privacy laws than the EU - only that the US more or less secretly adopted them and forbids any company from telling their end-users.
Whereas you hear more about "data regulation-attempts" in the EU because it actually still has very strong privacy-rules and when trying to alter them there is a real public debate and not a hush-hush secret commission that gives security agencies access to all user data without public notification.
Europe already have a thriving software industry, and in fact is probably the leader when it comes to having the most influential and biggest FOSS projects, since so many of them originate in Europe :)
If I had to chose between "control and regulation and healthy community of FOSS" vs "no control or regulation, and healthy community only for for-profit companies", I know what side I'm choosing.
Well the videos of ~200,000 Venezuelan people partying in the capitol of Argentina is a start. As well as many other pictures and videos of gatherings wherever there is significant Venezuelan refugees.
> That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo
I think you're jumping to conclusions. What Trump has said is that he wants the demands of the US satisfied. One of those is ultimately elections in Venezuela. You're mistaking taking a case-by-case approach for "non-interest".
> All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
This white knighting is getting rather tiresome. Why does the _why_ of why it happened matter besides virtue signalling? What matters is the end effect of the action. And the end effect here is better for EVERYONE (or at the worst neutral) involved other than Maduro and his cronies.
I'm not sure which Constitution you read but apparently it was a different one than the one I read.
Congress was not set up to be more powerful than the other branches. The president can veto laws that Congress tries to pass and the Supreme Court can also completely undo laws that Congress has passed.
What's new is finally the federal government pushing back against locales that refuse to allow local police to cooperate with federal law enforcement by means of massive influxes of federal officers to offset the lack of local support.
Also ICE has widespread support for what they are actually doing. Only when you ask manipulative questions that presume something is happening that isn't, do you get poll results that support a widespread dislike for ICE.
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