I Want You to Understand Chicago
Posted2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
aphyr.comOtherstoryHigh profile
heatednegative
Debate
85/100
Ice OperationsImmigration PolicyLaw Enforcement Abuse
Key topics
Ice Operations
Immigration Policy
Law Enforcement Abuse
The article 'I Want You to Understand Chicago' by Kyle Kingsbury details alleged abuses by ICE agents in Chicago, sparking a heated discussion on HN about immigration policy, law enforcement, and human rights.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
34m
Peak period
137
0-12h
Avg / period
20
Comment distribution160 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 160 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 8, 2025 at 2:47 PM EST
2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM EST
34m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
137 comments in 0-12h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 14, 2025 at 2:29 AM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45859402Type: storyLast synced: 11/22/2025, 11:47:55 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
I’m so sad that he had to.
Pay attention to what’s going on and vote.
You can say "vote, vote, vote," and maybe it will work in 2026 or 2028, or 2030 or whenever, but the root problem is not going away: you are still surrounded by people all over the country who want this.
I think the right will turn on itself in 2026. We could even end up with three parties, only one of them able to obtain a majority (Democrats). There's a plausible version of the future where the Republican Party goes the way of the Whigs.
If they turn on themselves it will not be over immigration. This is the one issue where they are almost all in wild agreement. A massive, overwhelming majority of Republicans agree with these cruel treatment of immigrants[1].
They might disagree on the economy or tariffs or jobs or whatever, but there's no infighting here. They fully back this cruelty.
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/07/what-amer...
The only way out of this is replacing dem leadership in congress with people who give a shit, winning the presidency in 2028, killing the filibuster, and then going on a serious denazification effort to restructure our institutions so that this sort of shit can't happen. Court packing. Total dismantling and rebuilding of federal law enforcement. Recreating a functional congress.
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-rights-existential-fight-over
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Planck's Principle [2] applied to voting)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45818505
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-support-among-men-eroding-108...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-absolutely-craters...
Young women are also most liberal than ever, and who carried recent election wins. I expect this trend to continue.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/gallup-analysis-finds-yo...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/609914/women-become-liberal-men...
https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/03/2025-election-results/
The 2024 Trump "realignment" is already over - https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trumps-winning-2024-coaliti... - November 7th, 2025
The votes move in cycles
But what really makes me sad is how this mentality so quickly swept into the country to begin with. 30 years ago, the vast majority of Americans would be horrified at the thought of people being assaulted on the street in broad daylight, black-bagged, kidnapped and disappeared forever by masked, non-identifying thugs. Fast forward 30 years, and (chances are) my neighbors want this and are absolutely giddy at the thought of it happening here!
Regardless of who votes for what, how did my country turn into this?
Deepfriedchokes is right; we need stronger, more robust systems to protect humans from other humans, because we cannot trust the human (broadly speaking).
You can absolutely think that what's happening now is an overreaction, un-American, gross, illegal, and morally wrong.
But if you're unwilling to try and understand how it's possible that over half the country voted for someone who would enact policies that lead to what we're seeing now, you're simply not paying attention.
If you just want to see the people who voted for this as "the enemy" and "evil" you're basically doing the same tribal "othering" that's lead to these outcomes you don't like.
Is that ugly and uncomfortable? Yes, absolutely. Will things get better by ignoring it? Absolutely not.
"If you point out problems, you yourself are actually the problem. I am very rational."
Incredible logic.
Let me try to phrase it differently: ostracization rarely yields positive results, and is more likely to lead to opposite of desired course of action through future radicalization.
In other words, saying that bad people are bad is - as paradoxical as it might be - less likely to making anyone better than make bad people even worse.
Because it's wishful thinking, and it only serves one purpose and only benefits one group.
You can't say it wasn't tried. Far from it.
It didn't work out. Plain and simple.
What was tired or supposed to work out? Not ostracizing is not exactly a solution (grandparent comment haven’t made suggestions as to what to do instead), and alternatives aren’t one possible approach but a giant spectrum of possible reactions. Instead of saying “you’re a bad person” a lot of different things can be done, right?
Or do you possibly mean that we collectively tried everything and nothing ever worked out, so we’re fairly positive this is wishful thinking? Or am I misunderstanding something, or falling to some fallacy here?
You can't form a country with people who want half the country to disappear. There's only three possible outcomes here:
- civil war
- secession
- remove all people that want other people to disappear
Are the Republicans doing that right now? Probably not. Are the Democrats doing that right now? Also probably not.
Anyone who's read about the history of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s should understand how it's possible. We can still feel disappointed and helpless that the same mentality is rearing its head again, especially in a country that itself sent people overseas to fight it 100 years ago.
Off and on throughout my life as an American, I thought my fellow Americans could be sometimes be described as arrogant, sometimes uninformed, sometimes overconfident, sometimes over-patriotic, sometimes selfish. But never needlessly cruel and cold-blooded like millions are today. This is new and terrible. It's absolutely sickening to walk outside in my neighborhood, look at 10 houses and think maybe 3 or 4 of them are homes to people who are OK with what is happening.
Actually it was more like 25% of those eligible to vote, not "over half the country."
There are two components to this answer.
First, your country has been divided since at least the mid-19th century. Every war has a winning and losing side, but the losers don't simply vanish. Their mentality persists throughout generations, even if it remains in the background, and is ignored by the other side.
Secondly, all this technology you've built and allowed the world to use can and has been exploited by your enemies to your own detriment. The same systems you've built that allow manipulating people into buying things are also ideal channels for spreading propaganda and disinformation. Information warfare is not new, but modern technology has made it more effective than ever at manipulating groups of people, sowing dissent, and generally causing chaos and confusion within a nation.
So, putting those two together, it's not difficult to see how acts of information warfare could be used to fuel the deeply rooted social divide, directly causing or strongly contributing to the internal sociopolitical instability you've been experiencing for the past decade.
Meanwhile, your enemies can sit back and enjoy the show of an imploding nation. They know that you're untouchable via traditional warfare, which is why these tactics are so perfect. They do require a long time to come into effect, but they're highly effective, very cheap to deploy, and the best part is that they're completely untraceable to the attacker. It's still debatable whether there was Russian interference in your elections, and how effective it actually was, even though there is evidence for it. It's still debatable whether Chinese-operated social media platforms are a national security threat or not. Were J6 protesters rioters or patriots? And so on about every controversial sociopolitical topic.
This confusion is exactly the intended effect. Your regular checks and balances, your laws, ideals and values, make no difference if your communication channels are corrupted.
I don't see how you can get out of this mess, and I expect things will get much worse before they get better. Not just for you, but globally. These same tactics are also deployed in other countries, by the US as well. Though, ironically, countries that are cut off from the global internet have an upper hand in this conflict.
If they voted for Trump it doesn't mean they agree with him on immigration and crime. They just have to think it's less important than the positions they do agree with. An effective argument to win over those voters isn't "you're evil and should have better opinions," it's "immigration policy is important too and this one is really bad, plus Trump is doing a bad job on your pet issues."
Swing voters exist. Moderates exist. Single-issue voters exist. Occasional voters exist. These are observable facts about the world.
The four groups exist in large enough numbers that they decide elections. Die-hard party loyalists exist, committed non-voters who'll never ever vote exist, but they're fixed quantities and are practically irrelevant.
I agree with the statement that what really matters is whether you can convince someone to vote differently - but, yes, of course you can! Trump has run three times and only won twice. Obviously there's something that can convince people not to vote for Donald Trump, because it has already happened.
You are fucked, American friends. And we're all fucked with you and because of you. When you sneeze the rest of the world catches a Covid sized cold so you're taking down the rest of us with you.
We must also do other things, too: Voting isn't the end-all, be-all solution to everything. (And that's OK; we can do more than one thing at a time.)
But the absolute necessity of actually-voting is a constant, and I'm equipped with a profound amount of intolerance towards any idea that may suggest otherwise.
My state hasn't voted Democrat since 1964. The only two elections with less than a 10-point spread since then were in 1976 (7.5% spread) and 1992 (5% spread due to Perot stealing votes from Bush Sr.).
I moved to this state in 1993.
---
1. So it's about odds?
By what mechanism do you think that refusing to vote will improve your favored diminutive party's odds in your state?
---
2. Or maybe it's about cost, instead?
What does it cost to vote in your state? How much time, and how much money, does a voter need to put forth in order to cast a vote in [wherever you are]?
---
3. Are you a masochist? (Are you sure about that?)
I predict that California will “go blue” in the presidential elections for at least the rest of my lifetime. Someone who “votes red” in California can say that their vote doesn’t matter, and a reasonable person would understand why they feel that way.
You don’t seem like a reasonable person, or you’re also suffering from some nihilistic delusion, possibly.
This method is literally an example of nihilism.
You latched onto the nihilistic part, which I suppose isn’t surprising.
By extension: Any suggestion to the contrary is delusional.
Your vote doesn't always matter.
(I vote every single time unless my ballot would simply be empty. I'd like to say "I'll see you at the polls!" but that is seemingly a lost cause -- it's apparent that only one of us has any chance at all of imparting any change at this level, and that this person is not you.
But you do you. The folks who aren't nihilists will do what we can to steer the ship without your help.)
What led into our current circumstances was several years of uncontrolled, chaotic immigration, caused in large part by specific articulable decisions Biden's administration made. People felt like the situation had gotten out of control, and they weren't wrong. Every day I'd commute into my office and pass multiple corners and Ike off-ramps(!) staffed by a woman and several of her tiny children, out in the cold, trying to sell bottles of water.
My reaction to that wasn't "deport them". I'm a liberal Democrat. But we're kidding ourselves if we think a natural reaction to that situation was "this is fine".
The election was fully determined by inflation. Biden made a reasonable (though incorrect) bet that full employment was more important than price stability. It was not: people fucking hate inflation. By a large factor inflation was the most important issue in the 2024 election. But the second-most important issue was immigration (like it has been throughout Europe over the past 10 years) and then after that the issues sharply trail off in importance.
There is credible theory (shared by a very balanced labor economist I follow) that the immigration crisis helped tame the inflation crisis, besides boosting the economy enough for a soft landing:
https://fortune.com/2024/04/12/immigration-inflation-economy...
Also some studies for and against this theory:
- https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2025/01/10/Imm... (Finds inflation lowered.)
- https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2025/0708 (No effect on inflation, but yes on GPD growth.)
Now, I'm not saying this was always Biden's plan, but the economics are not as straightforward as "employments vs inflation."
But from 2021-2023, we experienced a destabilizing sudden amount of immigration. We'd had immigrant-friendly policy during Obama, but I don't recall many dozens of Venezuelan refugees on the doorstep of our Village Hall. Obviously, that happened in large part because southern governors bussed people (often without their informed consent) to northern states. But so what? All that says is that we were experiencing something the southern states had been experiencing all along.
My big point here is just: it's not enough to say how strongly you feel about immigration in 2021-2024. Enough people hated it that it motivated a materially important bloc of voters. I disagree with those voters. But I also disagree with people upset about inflation, and I feel like we generally understand that those of us on my side of the employment/inflation question were just, you know, wrong. In an electoral sense.
Maybe (being very generous to him) Biden didn't do a tradeoff between inflation vs employment... maybe the gamble was that increased immigration would boost the economy enough that citizens were not as bothered by the immigrants.
In other words, the very valid "its' the economy stupid" theory would imply that if people can comfortable provide for themselves and their families, they'd be less bothered by what they saw as competition for jobs.
Unfortunately time was not on their side, and inflation did not drop fast enough.
But there might be another angle. An interesting aspect of the economic sentiment and inflation hysteria preceding the election was that data showed that the majority of Americans thought they themselves were doing well, but other Americans were suffering. So the statistical reality was much better than the statistical perception.
This is one reason that led to the term "vibecession" -- data belied the sentiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession
Many have credibly attributed this phenomenon to all the algorithm-driven ragebait content on social media, and certain news media channels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession#Media_influence_an...)
But maybe we still underestimate the size of that effect: it exploited a critical flaw in an otherwise successful economic strategy -- its reliance on "the outsiders." During the time things were improving but still painful, the perception of these outsiders could be exploited to distract from the improvements happening and foment a backlash.
Note it could very well have just happened by accident, but if not... that shows the power of mass perception. The events happening with media platforms leading up to the election may have been (and still are) much more consequential than we realize.
> In other words, the very valid "its' the economy stupid" theory would imply that if people can comfortable provide for themselves and their families, they'd be less bothered by what they saw as competition for jobs.
Have you not looked at Canada recently? They've done exactly what you're suggesting, and the result is a country that is now completely unaffordable for Canadians, with the median home price now over $800k. Is that the kind of future you want for Americans?
I'm not at all familiar with Canada, but a Google AI overview for "canada housing affordability crisis due to immigration" suggests that immigration is one of the smaller factors (11%?) in driving house prices up. The citations include these:
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co...
https://www.torontomu.ca/diversity/news-events/2025/07/immig... (Probably the study referenced above.)
As an aside, as a resident of the Bay Area where the housing market is probably the most twisted of them all, I would kill to find a $800K home!!
Can you please share some information as to why you feel the 21-3 numbers to be destabilizing?
The reason for increasing Venezuelan immigration is most likely the TPS act from 2019 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela_TPS_Act_of_2019 )
I am an internet person, but I am aware of your general career and hold some personal respect for you which is why I am asking you fairly directly for your information. Correcting my knowledge is truly my goal and to be very blunt, I am sensitive to the issues of immigration (all types). Personally, my main concern with my country's treatment of this issue lies in the preservation of due process for these people who are seeking to become my countrymen. It doesn't surprise me that they might desire freedom and self-determination, which is something that I readily empathize with. It is important to me to treat people fairly and with dignity in civil society and especially regarding our government, and this includes citizens who are troubled by it. As such I am very interested in realizing an accurate portrayal.
I do live in a northern municipality and we have a number of Venezuelan people here, which is why I mentioned the TPS Act. I became more closely aware of the TPS when I talked to one of the guys about his country. This was a couple of years ago, but I still see his car (he has a Toyota with a "Venezuela" badge on the rear over the "TOYOTA" he ripped off of it, which is how I figured he was Venezuelan)
But I was wrong about the time frame of the bill which apparently did come into effect during Biden admin, giving them rights to work. Sorry about that inaccuracy, it never mattered to me who did it since it seemed like we were helping these people out quite a lot, and I liked him.
(I liked Biden too and am directionally supportive of TPS; especially for Haitians, but broadly for everyone. My belief in the fundamental moral rightness of that program makes me less tolerant of the ineptitude with which the programs were managed, not more so: Biden's mishandling of this will probably set similar efforts back for the next 20 years.)
Remember that the GOP stopped immigration reform in Congress for many years, including killing the agreed-upon bipartisan immigration reform bill at Trump's behest during the election. If your theory is correct, that would have disqualified the GOP among those voters.
The dems main ongoing weakness as an extreme generalization, is choosing marginal hills to die on, and using hyperbole for everything.
The bill that wasn't required for deportation?
For example, while I’m aware that the Biden admin ended title 42, it had only been policy for a few years, ending this policy simply removes us to the Obama era. Although I certainly don’t intend to strawman what you are saying, Obama immigration certainly wasn’t chaotic and uncontrolled. These statements don’t comport with my reading of the facts, as well as inflation, since I understand this to be a global phenomenon. I am genuinely interested
The plan to defeat fascism can't be "never lose a single election ever for the rest of time." Political leaders did absolutely fuck all to consign Trump to the garbage bin of history in 2021 and now we've got a fascist president motivated entirely by two things: hurting as many people he hates as possible and putting up tacky gold shit in the white house.
The election was fairly close. The winning candidate got elected by a coalition of people with differing views on an number of individual items within his platform. That does not equate to certain approval by the majority of the American population of any of the things the linked article recounts.
All that said, as an American living abroad who votes left, the use of terms like “kidnapped” and “abducted” to describe immigration-enforcement actions seems really weird to me and my expat peers. There are quite a few democratic, developed countries high on freedom-ranking lists that widely deploy law enforcement to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants and visa overstayers. Sure, deplore lack of due process when actual citizens get caught in the net, but so much use of these loaded terms isn’t even about that, it’s criticizing actions against non-citizens.
There may be differing views on other topics among the party, but Republicans broadly support this vision of cruelty and these actions against immigrants[1] by huge margins. It's probably the one single vision they are united behind.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45859760
- Nearly nine-in-ten Republicans approve of sending additional U.S. troops to the border (88%) and increasing deportations (86%). More than six-in-ten strongly approve of these actions.
- 80% of Republicans approve of cutting federal funds to cities and states if they do not cooperate with deportations
- 72% of Republicans approve of suspending asylum applications, with 38% saying they strongly approve.
You can want all of those things and still be against eg ice agents raiding a school. It would be more accurate if it focused exclusively on the more egregious ICE activities.
Yeah but "the totalitarian Neonazis who wanted to deploy secret police were only a slight majority" is really faint praise.
Like, maybe the defining difference between arrest and abduction is whether the action is the output of an accountable system of justice, rather than whether the people doing it are the right kind of people and the people having it done to them are the wrong kind of people.
That's kidnapping.
They are conducting warrantless searches. There is a case where they rammed the car of a U.S. citizen (clearly seen on video), promptly took her into custody, accused her of hitting them, and then released her without charging her.
They are profiling people based on race and ethnicity.
The abductions look like kidnappings. They don’t look like law enforcement actions.
A form of protest I assume, assuming he runs no business in the UK and no other reason to think the UK Gov has any interest in policing an .com blog run by someone who doesn't live there nor hosts the website there.
(I'm not against that form of protest per se, but let's be clear about who's doing the blocking)
His website links to bdsm (and hosts some very mild art). He has very real concerns and has talked to lawyers about them. I would not call it a protest rather a protective measure.
I wonder if he has consulted with lawyers and authorities from all other 193 countries in the world regarding their laws?
Or to avoid the fines and/or to avoid integrating some age verification service.
Maybe symbolic since it unlikely the site would be prosecuted, even if they were in violation in some minor form. It is easy to be in violation to my understanding since it does not need to what is posted by the site owner as part of the blog but could be in the comments.
https://archive.is/X33oQ
Can folks who live in Chicago confirm/deny/comment on the extent to which this article gets it right?
(I have no reason to believe that it's an exaggeration, but I sincerely hope that it is.)
https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/11/05/daycare-...
Of course I’ll read all the links! I’ve already read a lot about this!
But the first hand commentary from fellow hackers is pure gold IMO
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/
I am rapidly becoming convinced that large portions of the SV ecosystem are just anti-human as a base ideology.
People, US citizens included, are literally being abducted. People have been shot and killed by masked agents. People have had their children abandoned on the side of the road after being kidnapped. Just today they raided Little Village with hundreds of masked troops. I'm in a dozen signal groups to get alerted about where things are.
What scares me the most is how few people seem to actually know what is happening here. I talk to people outside of Chicago, and watch the news, and I don't see or hear about anything that's going on here. I tell them what's happening and they are shocked.
It is impossible to convey what is happening here, how scared we all are for this country, and how much things seem to escalate every single day that this goes on.
Edit: This post has been flagged and hidden, just demonstrating how much this country wants to pretend this isn't happening. It's unflagged now, but the fact that anyone would want to hide what's happening here shows how bad things are for all of us.
If the media had balls, they’d broadcast anyway, license or not.
https://bsky.app/profile/unraveledpress.com
https://bsky.app/profile/djbyrnes1.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/thetriibe.com
https://bsky.app/profile/prisonculture.bsky.social
For many of us that ship sailed a few years ago.
> Or are you just saying that because you think you get to have a veto over every arrest?
Please don't cross-examine on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>Facing police brutality with no accountability
>Media blackout
We're not beating the, "Horrible things that happen to black and indigenous Americans will eventually happen to everyone else," rap.
It’s so sad to see HN taking the side of violence and oppression with their “head in the sand” approach.
I wonder how different the HN overlords would feel if their own families were being torn apart. This is Disgraceful and inexcusable. The shame.
The only reason this is not currently flagged to oblivion is because it’s the weekend crowd.
Submissions like this getting flagged contributes to that.
I mention that because the previous submission with this article got flagged to death.
The abuse of power there is ridiculous
…yet.
Chicago schools are reporting lower attendance as a result.
We just had a case where a daycare provider was hauled out despite having her papers in order-she was subsequently released.
Priests being shot in the head with pepper balls, intentional accidents being caused by agents. And when they do something so egregious that they might face charges, they runaway to other states with vehicles and evidence.
I look forward to everyone in these organizations facing accountability. And not just the thugs on the street but the leaders first all the way to the top.
Under the auspices of civil disobedience I refer people to Beverly Hills Cop and the bananas scene. Also, Bass Pro Shops sell liquid skunk smell. It would be a shame if it were to end up in vehicles or on the outside air vents of cars. No damage, just annoying.
Unfortunately, the chances of this happening are minuscule, even if the executive branch ever changes hands in the future. The other party is too moderate, and doesn't have the backbone or courage to see it through, nor the patience and attention to detail to get them all. They'll be tied up in subpoenas, testimonies in front of Congress, hearings, hearings about hearings... Meanwhile, the people (both in leadership and boots on the ground) who are doing this today will slink back to normal life. The ringleaders will slide into comfy roles in think tanks, corporate boards, and lobbying groups. The hired thugs will go back to working as mall security and bouncers, hoping nobody remembers the time they cosplayed as Bond villain footsoldiers.
https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/...
He doesn't have a spine, he has an election strategy.
Until then, he bears responsibility for their actions.
Even if he's just OK, doing a replacement-level competent job of being a governor dealing with a problem he himself did not have a hand in creating, this is his opportunity to demonstrate leadership during a crisis, and he's flubbing it. He's asking (we assume) for the highest job in the land, so he doesn't get to ask to be graded on a curve this time.
(Not a fan of Kat Abu, though).
Pritzker can either solve the problem or he can't. It's fine if he can't. I couldn't solve it. Few could! But if he can't, he's not qualified to be President, a job that will send him harder problems than this. It's fine for him not to be President. Most people (waves at the Oval Office right now) shouldn't.
What negatives am I unaware of?
There's a word for this (carpetbagging).
Then more broadly there's the question of what a Representative is for. Is it "designated protester for the district"? If so, she's the leading contender. It's my belief that "most effective on-site protester" is not in fact the job of a congressional representative.
It'd be one thing if the choice was between Kat Abu and a staid machine Democrat. But CD9 is naturally progressive, and she's up against Daniel Biss, a progressive with a real track record of getting things done (and unquestioned ties to the district). What I think she's really going to do, best case, is split the progressive vote.
Think about the message that campaign sends: nobody, in one of the most progressive districts in the country, is as qualified to faithfully represent its progressive ideals as Kat Abu, who has neither ever lived there nor ever held elective office. To me, that's a campaign of contempt for the district.
I've seen the videos of her getting shoved at Broadview. Her immigration politics seem in line with the district. My response to that is: stand on Noyes and Sheridan and throw a rock. You'll hit someone who has identical immigration politics to her.
IL CD9 gets to decide, not me (I'm in CD7). But I do have an opinion!
One thing to consider though - while I would normally agree with you on the job description of a congressional rep, there are some moments in history where performative-protest-as-candidate can do more good than ill. I think we're in one of those times, and I'm glad she's able to use the congressional platform to put the executive branch's policies and actions on display.
We have violent hate gangs staffed with military equipment, with the authority to kill, and with minimal care for the actual law.
You're literally saying the quiet part out loud.
So many people here are complaining that ICE is arresting US citizens, but you literally admit that they're interfering. And yes, it's illegal to "forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere" with a federal officer. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/111
You can do up to 1 year in prison for minor offenses, or up to 20 for using weapons and causing injuries.
When we say they're arresting US citizens I'm referring to the brown people they're picking up off the streets purely for being brown. The lawncare guy they picked up the other day, on film and with paperwork, wasn't protesting or interfering with anything.
You're just making things up to justify this fascist take over.
We have daily ICE sitings, and approximately every-other-day ICE detentions or arrests. It's a constant presence.
What it means psychologically depends. If you're someone who could visually be mistaken (perhaps in bad faith) for a Latino, it's a very big problem. ICE/DHS routinely stops people based on their visual appearance, it takes 15 minutes for them to work out that you're present legally, and throughout the whole thing you have hanging over you that they might just decide to detain you at Broadview anyways, which is a nightmare even assuming your eventual release.
If you're not someone like that --- at least where I live --- you can mostly ignore what's happening, if that's what you want to do. People are basically living their lives. About the closest an ordinary white/Black family here gets to direct disruption is needing to make special arrangements with their landscaping people.
Thank you for outing yourself as willfully ignorant. I also appreciate the unintended admission of privilege.
326 more comments available on Hacker News