That's shockingly far lower than I would have expected given the amount of indiscriminate and reckless arrests they are making. I'm guessing for every US citizen that has been arrested there are dozens or hundreds of legal immigrants as well.
You can't even claim the stories of violent illegal arrests are a couple of bad apples. The whole point of hiding their names and faces is to make prosecuting individual bad actors borderline impossible.
> The whole point of hiding their names and faces is to make prosecuting individual bad actors borderline impossible.
There is at least one other reason:
Keffiyeh-clad anti-ICE protester threatens to stab agent, harm family in San Francisco mob attack; Four ICE agents were injured as protesters punched, pepper-sprayed and ambushed them outside the courthouse - https://www.foxnews.com/us/keffiyeh-clad-anti-ice-protester-...
Yes, ICE agents and their families have been extensively doxxed. Multiple Department of Homeland Security sources confirm that ICE officers and their family members have had their personal information, photos, and locations posted online, putting them in grave danger. - https://factually.co/fact-checks/justice/ice-agents-doxxed-8...
>This thread has to go. so sayeth dang, keeper of all words, allower of some.
The HN algorithm is and has always been optimized to rank up posts that contain well-mannered discussions and to penalize threads that contain poor-mannered discussions. In practice, that means ranking up topics around which there is general consensus and ranking down topics where there is strong disagreement. That stems from a thesis that visitors come to this site for well mannered discussions and that the cost in long term user behavior from poor behavior makes any such topic counterproductive to have at the top of the list, regardless of the topic and regardless of the importance of the topic.
The topic here is almost certain to bring out activity that the system views as signals of disagreement, meaning it is algorithmically almost guaranteed to be down ranked, if it hasn't already been.
Why 'illegally'? Isn't it (exclusively even, I think) the role of federal government to enforce immigration law? How else would they do it if not by sending agents into cities? Especially since many cities - called sanctuary cities - explicitly don't cooperate with immigration enforcement.
You're right that it's not illegal for ICE to go into cities where they are unwanted, but the extent of their on "smash and grab" raids in these places is definitely unprecedented. They are also clearly committing crimes left, right, and center as they make their arrests and basically facing no repercussions.
ICE is operating beyond the strict bounds of the law, and also violating important normative statements like "the government does not send masked agents to haul people away in public without warrants."
The Supreme Court has ruled a lot of it constitutional. The Supreme Court is wrong and captured by the GOP through procedural fuckery.
If you are a true American, then the sight of one of these ICE raids should send a cold bolt of fear up your spine because they are superficially indistinguishable from the Gestapo.
I see masked agents going around in broad daylight throwing people in the back of vans and running over protestors as a failure of the system, because I have eyes and took a civics class in high school.
Very sad the country has returned to this - the last time America was this Great was when it was doing this to black people during the Civil rights movement :'(
When you step back far enough, ultimately the governments power is derived from the consent of the governed (as the Declaration of Independnce puts it).
SCOTUS can decide what the “strict bounds of the law” is, within our current system of government. But it is wise to heed what the people want the law to actually be - since their consent is truly what matters. Any government is ultimately powerless if the people decide it is so.
The people elected the politicians who appointed the Supreme Court justices (the governed giving their consent).
If the losing side wants to get politicians into power who are more sympathetic to their causes, they should try to appeal to governed. We overwhelmingly voted for a government that would prioritize us over legal and illegal immigrants, H-2As, H2-Bs, and H-1Bs from countries where ethnic nepotism imported to be weaponized against us.
Maybe it's not productive to compare immigration enforcement (law enforcement) to Nazis (who, by the way, mass murdered 75% of Europe's Jewish population).
Maybe it hurts their credibility when the American middle class is obviously being priced out, and their solution it to vilify us, while they give sanctuary to people who broke the law and illegally entered (or overstayed), from the poorest countries in the world, to compete with the poorest Americans for work and for housing.
Then they'll say "Americans don't want to do those jobs!" That's only partially right. Americans don't want to work for a wage that is on par with the minimum a Honduran illegal will take. Americans had no problem doing agricultural work in the 50's. My Grandpa is 93, and he still gets a pension from Hormel from his decades of work in a meat processing plant in Iowa. Americans always did this work, and every other type of work, until we were systematically pushed out of every blue collar profession by illegal immigrants (and now legal). And they're not stopping there, H-1Bs and other legal work visas are coming for the rest of us, too. Every single field from the lower to the upper middle class is being deliberately undercut by immigration.
The absolutely nutty thing about all of this is that it's all just a giant show. Obama deported 420,000 illegals in 2013, which comes out to 35,000 per month. The most this administration has deported in any one month was 18,000 in June. Suddenly this admin is no longer "within the strict bounds of the law," and the biggest issue you take with all of this is that your rioters, activists, and misfits spent a day in jail for civil disobedience, and that the cops are wearing masks?
> The people elected the politicians who appointed the Supreme Court justices (the governed giving their consent).
I seem to recall a recent instance where a Supreme Court seat was stolen from the politician with the right to appoint them. But, sure, we all consented to these specific justices. Sure.
> We overwhelmingly voted
Ah… that is not at all how the vote went. The popular vote, as I’m sure you know, was a difference of less than 2%. The electoral college ensures that it looks “overwhelming,” but you and I both know that this administration was not elected with an “overwhelming” in any sense of the word. It’s propaganda.
The middle of your rant is just kinda filled with dog-whistles and half-truths, so I’m not going to bother with that.
> Suddenly this admin is no longer "within the strict bounds of the law," and the biggest issue you take with all of this is that your rioters, activists, and misfits spent a day in jail for civil disobedience, and that the cops are wearing masks?
They’re arresting citizens on the street with no probable cause, and publicly lying about why the arrests were made and the circumstances around them. Yes, it is a huge issue. And yes, the masks bother me: accountability matters in law enforcement.
The reason you don’t care is that you think somehow this cruelty will benefit you and people who look like you.
No probable cause? So you are truly convinced that out of hundreds of thousands of interactions with ICE, those 170 people who were actually arrested, didn't meet any of these criteria for arrest? Are you really that far gone?
A protestor's actions are arrestable if they meet statutory elements:
- Physically blocking police movement or access (e.g., surrounding a patrol car or blocking arrests).
- Touching, grabbing, or standing too close after a lawful order to back away.
- Ignoring a lawful dispersal order after being warned.
- Using amplification or crowd behavior that prevents officers from issuing commands or making arrests.
Officers typically move to arrest when:
- They’ve given clear, repeated commands (e.g., “Move back,” “Clear the street”) that are ignored.
- The person’s proximity or actions create a safety risk (blocking traffic, interfering with detainment).
- A dispersal order is issued and disobeyed.
- The crowd shifts from peaceful to physically obstructive or destructive.
>> "The reason you don’t care is that you think somehow this cruelty will benefit you and people who look like you."
This doesn't work anymore. If you're this committed to being a victim, and claiming racism whenever you experience cognitive dissonance, that's your problem. But I'm not going to lose sleep over it anymore, and it would probably do you and others like you a benefit to read the room.
> So you are truly convinced that out of hundreds of thousands of interactions with ICE
What time frame are you thinking of here? It’s very easy to minimize problems if you’re defining the time frame to be years, or something. It’s better to focus on the stark changes in enforcement behavior more recently, I would think.
> those 170 people who were actually arrested, didn't meet any of these criteria for arrest? Are you really that far gone?
For starters, as the article notes - 170 was just the number of US citizens that were arrested, and specifically the number that ProPublica could verify independently, since the government does not keep the statistics themselves. I think that’s important to call out, since the scale of the problem is important.
But the bigger problem is that you’re defining the “typical” behavior - and the “typical” behavior is not what’s happening. Just yesterday, for instance, a judge in IL stated that she was extremely concerned that ICE was not following her orders regarding tear gas - that it was being deployed with no warnings.
And moreover, a different district court judge in IL and three different judges on appeal held that the stories coming out of DHS appear to be completely unreliable!
So - yes, I actually feel pretty good about asserting there likely wasn’t a reason for those arrests. Perhaps there were in some cases, but the lies from the administration make it nearly impossible to tell.
> This doesn't work anymore. If you're this committed to being a victim, and claiming racism whenever you experience cognitive dissonance, that's your problem. But I'm not going to lose sleep over it anymore, and it would probably do you and others like you a benefit to read the room.
What doesn’t work, exactly? And when you say “others like you” - what do you mean by that? What kind of person do you think I am? Why do you assume I experience cognitive dissonance?
> What doesn’t work, exactly? And when you say “others like you” - what do you mean by that? What kind of person do you think I am? Why do you assume I experience cognitive dissonance?
Well since you’re the one who started playing identity politics and making assumptions about “people who look like me,” implying that I’m racist because I have a different opinion about a topic, how about you start out by clarifying what you meant about “people who look like me?”
I’d respond to your other points, but since we’re playing this game, it’s clear that you’re debating in bad faith.
I certainly haven't called you a racist - but given that you seem to support these slapdash ICE raids where agents have no way of knowing who's a citizen and who's not, either you believe in a magic citizen-detecting wand or you're ok with ICE agents doing some profiling.
> No probable cause? So you are truly convinced that out of hundreds of thousands of interactions with ICE, those 170 people who were actually arrested, didn't meet any of these criteria for arrest? Are you really that far gone?
The article itself is saying that and listed in the large summary box at the top. [edit] and at the very bottom of the article they detail "How We Did This" and gives more details on the numbers
We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.
Agents have arrested about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers, yet those cases were often dropped.
Out of the 170 that that ProPublica could review, only 130 of them were taken "for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers".
That means the others were not.
There are many reports of Americans being detained at their place of work. I'll leave links in the case that you truly believe every US Citizen detained was because they were at a protest and assaulting officers. [0][1][2] There are more if you care to do a simple search
I have zero sympathy for anyone who initiates attacks on any law enforcement and finds themself arrested; in the same way I have zero tolerance for US Citizens being rounded up for matching a profile of people who lived here long before my ancestors ever landed in Virginia. The burden of proof is on the officers whose paycheck also comes from the citizens they are roughing up or humiliating in front of their families/workplaces. It's uncalled for and it's un-American
> This doesn't work anymore. If you're this committed to being a victim, and claiming racism whenever you experience cognitive dissonance, that's your problem. But I'm not going to lose sleep over it anymore, and it would probably do you and others like you a benefit to read the room.
You are aware that the Supreme Court recently ruled that race was a valid pretext for an ICE stop, right? Do you need me to Google it for you?
This is not about reading the room. Whatever anti-woke crusade you're on is irrelevant to this discussion - there are actual, naked facts that you are ignoring so that you can "sleep at night."
Seeing that your account is the one that is days old I can understand that you may have not yet taken the time to read the guidelines and am leaving this link to help you avoid similar faux pas in the future.
Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
Help! I'm trying to have a serious discussion on the Internet but this guy is incapable of dealing with data and facts and keeps accusing the windmills of being too woke.
Ah but you see the Warren Court, which expanded the rights of criminal defendants and racial minorities, was illegitimate. It is only legitimate when the supreme court is reinforcing hierarchy and enabling violence against the downtrodden /s.
> These cases have often wilted under scrutiny. In nearly 50 instances that we have identified so far, charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found a handful of citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.
Perhaps typical, but it certainly puts the lie to the claims of violent protests coming out of the administration, and shows how hollow their justifications are for federalizing the national guard.
Because if it was as bad as they claim, they wouldn’t be letting people off the hook like this.
No there absolutely are protesters who are rightfully arrested, but the cost to prosecute is not worth it to the DA so they drop the case. Protesters really like to be in this grey area of legality so that you can write articles like this.
If the protests truly were as violent as the administration claims, if ICE agents were truly out there fighting for their lives, etc … then they would prosecute. It wouldn’t be “not worth it” to prosecute if things were really that dire.
Law enforcement don't have to be "fighting for their lives" in order to arrest you. The
Cops can and will arrest you if you're impeding their duties. Prosecutors don't have to charge you, and often don't when it comes to political activism. Doesn't mean they can't, the people who are released without charge are being given a break, I wouldn't be outraged over that. And we're talking about 170 citizens who were definitely protesting and interfering with police duties, out of tens hundreds of thousands of police interactions. This is a big fucking nothing burger and you are all losing your minds.
A protestor's actions are arrestable if they meet statutory elements:
- Physically blocking police movement or access (e.g., surrounding a patrol car or blocking arrests).
- Touching, grabbing, or standing too close after a lawful order to back away.
- Ignoring a lawful dispersal order after being warned.
- Using amplification or crowd behavior that prevents officers from issuing commands or making arrests.
Officers typically move to arrest when:
- They’ve given clear, repeated commands (e.g., “Move back,” “Clear the street”) that are ignored.
- The person’s proximity or actions create a safety risk (blocking traffic, interfering with detainment).
- A dispersal order is issued and disobeyed.
- The crowd shifts from peaceful to physically obstructive or destructive.
This process is completely separate from the decision to prosecute those who are arrested. Often, protestors are not prosecuted for political and economic reasons. It's not a crime to arrest someone and not charge them. It's not a violation of the constitution. Nothing has to be dire.
Especially given that they have brought charges against people for trivial shit and then had juries give not-guilty verdicts because the charges are obviously bullshit.
Better that ten guilty men go free than to send one innocent to jail? I would not expect even the most exemplary police force and legal system to produce a conviction for every single arrest.
If you arrest a lot of people, and get zero convictions, I'd say you really suck at your job, or are just trying to intimidate people into not protesting. I suspect the later is what is happening.
Are any of them even being charged? Or is it all bullshit?
thats not all, they also broke laws, and ignored constitutional limits on authority, with charges of assault/interference being dropped, they wasted time and resources of the court.
You can't even claim the stories of violent illegal arrests are a couple of bad apples. The whole point of hiding their names and faces is to make prosecuting individual bad actors borderline impossible.