“In Fiscal Year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in the Cincinnati area alone intercepted and identified more than 6,800 fraudulent, counterfeit, or stolen documents.”
That ONE CBP office in the US. And it’s not even in a state with a high population of illegal aliens. There are 20 offices in the US.
And sure creating fraudulent documents from scratch isn’t easy. But it’s not that hard to use someone else’s identity to get documents that support US citizenship. Hell, a paper social security card is proof as long as it doesn’t say “NOT WORK AUTHORIZED on it.
So it wouldn’t even be that unusual to locate an alien that the database says (correctly) has a deportation order but for them to claim US citizenship and even produce a document that looks like they are.
You can even read a nice CBP report on the problems they have with fraudulent documents.
With due respect, that problem is on CBP. I am somewhat (albeit decreasingly) sympathetic to the unique challenges that immigration enforcement agencies face in the US. We live in a country where the citizens have decided democratically that no US citizen will ever have to carry proof of US citizenship, and moreover, that national ID and standardized proof-of-citizenship passports should not even be mandatory for citizens to possess, let alone carry. We even decided that the Federal Government should be explicitly banned from creating those forms of ID.
We made these decisions for various reasons, but broadly because the voters felt that US citizenship and lawfullness should be presumptions, rather than something you had to prove in order to enjoy your rights as a citizen.
For an immigration agent, this is really tough. You have to identify unauthorized immigrants in an environment where you can't just require lawful citizens to carry ID or proof of citizenship. You legally can't arrest or (more than briefly) detain a US citizen for failure to carry citizenship documents. You have to walk on eggshells even with actual unauthorized immigrants, to avoid violating the law. And our proof-of-identity document systems are deliberately decentralized and unreliable, so you can't just check a master database. It's a tough problem!
But that's the way the cookie crumbles. We designed our society to make this kind of "papers please" enforcement difficult, which means that immigration enforcement needs to be smarter and more savvy, or else we need to actually change the laws. What ICE and CBP are trying to do now is just to ignore the law, and that doesn't work. Citizens' built this law to protect their rights; you can't just take away those rights because CBP have a tough job.
6,000 supposed papers for a pool of 5 million immigrants seems like an extremely minor problem that doesn't require shooting food bank workers to enforce.
If the paperwork is that easy to duplicate, it's on the government to make it more difficult, not beating in the faces of citizens until they produce documentation they don't have.
I feel like you’re being disingenuous in your argument.
Hundreds of thousands of aliens with fraudulent documents seems like a huge problem to me.
Keep in mind it’s US law for every alien to keep documentation of legal status on their person at all times (US code 8 USC § 1304(e)).
Since we know fraudulent documents are not uncommon, then immigration officials must have some powers to validate a person’s status if uncertainty remains.
It's only a problem if (1) the immigrants in question behaving in a dangerous and criminal fashion, or (2) you need to urgently deport millions of peaceful, non-dangerous immigrants in an extremely short period of time, and you don't care about the harm this does to society.
Obviously in case (1) you can just detain and carefully identify people, since they're actually doing dangerous things and you'll have probable cause to detain them. Note that this was the case that nearly all the 2024 election rhetoric was focused on (i.e., deporting the "rapists and murders".)
In practice we're seeing that the true goal is (2), rapid emergency deportation and arrest of non-criminal immigrants. There is absolutely no emergency that requires this to be done quickly or carelessly, such that there's any risk to US citizens' (or immigrants) civil rights. It can be done carefully, with strong evidence, without violating civil rights. But of course, violating civil rights and creating disorder appears to be the goal.
Why would a country not deport non-criminal illegal aliens? Not being American and having lived in 4 different countries, I’ve never encountered this attitude except in the US.
Controlling who enters and stays in your country is just table stakes for a functioning state. Without it, you don’t even have control over basic things like security.
In every other country I’ve lived in anyone who enters illegally or overstays is promptly removed.
So to answer your question, fraudulent documents is a massive problem. Now not only do you have no control over who enters and stays you have no ability to even determine who these people are even if you do encounter them.
> If the computer says you’re in the US illegally, but you have documents that say you are a US citizen, then you are put in custody until the discrepancy can be resolved.
Yeah, this is exactly the problem. It is not, in fact, illegal to be in this country
without a visa. It's a purely civil matter. Like, parking ticket level.
Hauling citizens (or anyone, really) off the street and holding them for indeterminate amounts of times when they haven't committed any crime is not due process.
I think you're confused about civil versus criminal violations. Just because a violation is civil does not mean it can't have serious consequences.
JP Morgan was sloppy in it's mortgage approvals contributing to the financial crisis of 2007. Do you think that's not a serious matter? That was entirely a civil, not criminal matter.
And overstaying a visa has serious consequences. It's not a fine and you can go on living in the US illegally. You will be deported and receive a 3-10 year ban on re-entry. Reenter again and it's criminal matter.
But you're also ignoring the numerous criminal violations that occur with illegal immigration. Illegal entry, reentry after deportation, immigration fraud, using fraudulent documents, human trafficking, recieving social services reserved for citizens. All of these are criminal violations.
And no, investigating a possible civil or criminal matter and detaining people while you conduct your investigation has nothing to do with due process. Police and immigration officials need these limited powers to do their job. Each of these people detained will either be released or stand in front of a judge, which shows they received due process.
That assumes a lot of good faith from the current administration which I am certain that they have not earned.
They have repeatedly violated the normal procedures, ignored court orders and even lied to judges. They obviously have contempt for the law so it doesn't make sense to assume that they are following proper procedures.
Sure, I understand that perspective. Trump’s random comments about the law are that helpful in instilling trust that laws are being followed.
But at the same time, when the prior norms were incredibly lax to the point many immigration laws were ignored, suddenly enforcing what is on the books can look rather jarring.
This is a video titled “America’s Gulag”. That alone makes me think it’s not going to provide a fact based balanced view of the issue.
But regardless it’s a 30 min video, so is there something you feel is important because I don’t have the time. Maybe an article from a more reputable source?
I mean it starts with “ICE agents breaking car windows”. If you’re asked to exit your vehicle by a federal law officer and you just roll up the window that will happen. The US (and in fact no country) has rules where a law enforcement officer with probable cause is supposed to give up when a suspect refuses to follow orders.
The five minutes I listened to seemed suspect since it’s a women just saying “they do this” with no sources. Am I just supposed to take her at her word?
Do you want evidence of ICE ignoring legal others? Citizens who were arrested for no reason? An ICE officer admitting they target people based on how they look and not on any actual legal criteria?
Your first example is a mom being deported. Her US citizen children went with her.
That’s incredibly disingenuous claim that “US citizens were deported”. ICE has already stated that US citizen child can remain with family in the US or go with their parents.
I’m guessing your other links of are similar quality.
I mean, illegal parking and speeding has serious consequences too. Next time you get pulled over, how about you spending a month in jail, losing your job, and dealing with the unsafe and unsanitary conditions of jail while the police research if their speed cameras were calibrated properly? That seems fair.
Due process means limiting the government. You do not get to drag citizens into unmarked vans because you think they might have violated a civil matter.
If you read through the papers, you'll realize the actual problem is blatant abuse and reputation hacking.
So many "research papers" by "AI companies" that are blog posts or marketing dressed up as research. They contribute nothing and exist so the dudes running the company can point to all their "published research".
That doesn't solve the problem they're trying to solve, which is their all-volunteer staff is being flooded with LLM slop and doesn't have the time to artistically moderate.
If you want to blame someone, blame all the people LARPing as AI researchers.
The majority of these submissions are not from anonymous trolls. They're from identifiable individuals who are trying to game metrics. The threat of boosting their number of plagiarism offences on public record would deter such individuals quite effectively.
Meanwhile, banning review articles written by humans would be harmful in many fields. I'm not in CPSC, but I'd hate to see this policy become the norm for all disciplines.
Have a long talk with any working teacher or therapist. If you think the regular workload is adequate for them to offer enough genuine emotional support for all the people they work with, always, everyday, regardless of their personal circumstances, you're mistaken. Or the person you're talking with is incredibly lucky.
It doesn't have to be much, or intentional, or even good for that matter. My kids practice piano because they don't want to let their teacher down. (Well, one does. The other is made to practice because WE don't want to let the teacher down).
If the teacher was a robot, I don't think the piano would get practiced.
IDK how AI gains that ability. The requirement is basically "being human". And it seems like there's always going to be a need for humans in that space, no matter how smart AI gets.
Honestly, a lot of it seems like it's lazy narcissism. They don't think other people have value or intelligence, therefore this machine that bullshits well has to be equally useful.
Citation needed lol.