Activist Sues ICE For Its Unconstitutional Targeting Of Immigrants' First Amendment-Protected Activities
from the IF-YOU-DONT-LIKE-ICE-THAN-GO-BACK-TO-YR-COUNTRY-ETC dept
ICE has been instructed to make the nation safer by deporting the "worst of the worst." The nation will be made secure again, said the DHS, pointing to its report declaring three-quarters of those convicted for terrorism offenses were "foreign-born." Of course, to reach this ratio, the DHS had to count people the US government had extradited to the US to face trial for terrorism attacks committed in foreign countries, but whatever. The point is: foreigners are dangerous and ICE is going to remove them. An ongoing "challenge" for ICE has been finding enough dangerous immigrants to deport, so it's had to change its strategy a bit.
So, if we're trying to root out would-be terrorists and MS-13 gang members and undocumented immigrants with long domestic criminal rap sheets, why is ICE targeting people for their First Amendment activities? That's what one rights activist wants to know, and he's taking ICE to court to force it to explain itself. Kevin Gosztola of ShadowProof has more details.
Immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir, who recently had his deportation stayed by a federal court, the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, Casa de Maryland, Detention Watch Network, the New York Immigration Coalition and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild are all plaintiffs pursuing the First Amendment lawsuit.
“Federal immigration authorities have specifically targeted prominent and outspoken immigrant rights activists across the country on the basis of their speech and political advocacy on behalf of immigrants’ rights and social justice,” the lawsuit declares [PDF]. “These activists have been surveilled, intimidated, harassed, and detained, their homes have been raided, many have been plucked off the street in broad daylight, and some have even been deported.”
“The ‘broad discretion exercised by immigration officials,’ has been abused in a cynical effort to punish those who disagree with [President Donald Trump’s] administration. To sweep away all opposition. The government’s targeting of activists on the basis of their core political speech is unfair, discriminatory, and un-American. And it violates the First Amendment.”
Ragbir isn't dangerous. Nor should he be anyone's idea of someone ICE should expend resources deporting. Ragbir has lived in the US for 25 years, has advocated for people like him, and has generally been all the things we want from US citizens. The only problem is that he isn't one. He's faced a "final order of removal" since 2007, but that has been extended time and time again because he's someone who's a credit to this country, even if he doesn't have the paperwork in to make it permanent.
Despite this, ICE arrested him and sent him from New York to a Miami detention facility. He was not given any of the courtesies one expects would be given to someone who's lived peacefully and productively in the United States for a quarter-century. Instead, he was treated like the "worst of the worst," and not even given a chance to get his personal affairs in order or say goodbye to the family he would be leaving behind.
This resulted in a scathing court order from a federal judge in New York. The full order [PDF] is worth reading but here are a few of the highlights. It opens with this devastating paragraph and the heat never lets up.
There is, and ought to be in this great country, the freedom to say goodbye. That is, the freedom to hug one's spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time. It ought not to be -- and it has never before been -- that those who have lived without incident in this country for years are subjected to treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away. We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it. We have a law higher than any that may be so interpreted -- and that is our Constitution. The wisdom of our Founders is evident in the document that demands and requires more; before the deprivation of liberty, there is due process; and an aversion to acts that are unnecessarily cruel.
[...]
In sum, the Court finds that when this country allowed petitioner to become part of our community fabric, allowed him to build a life with and among us and to enjoy the liberties and freedoms that come with that, it committed itself to allowance of an orderly departure when the time came, and it committed itself to avoidance of unnecessary cruelty when the time came. By denying petitioner these rights, the Government has acted wrongly.
While the court agrees ICE has the statutory authority to enforce deportation actions, it does not have the authority to pursue them in this manner. Its treatment of Ragbir was unconstitutional, given Ragbir's extended stay in the US without incident and frequent timely renewals of his work permit and permission to stay. The tactics used by ICE were cruel and capricious. And, as argued by Ragbir in his lawsuit, likely the result of ICE's disagreement with his First Amendment activities. All of this is unconstitutional, even if technically legal under ICE's statutory guidance.
Here, instead, the process we have employed has also been unnecessarily cruel. And those who are not subjected to such measures must be shocked by it, and find it unusual. That is, that a man we have allowed to live among us for years, to build a family and participate in the life of the community, was detained, handcuffed, forcibly placed on an airplane, and today finds himself in a prison cell. All of this without any showing, or belief by ICE that there is any need to show, that he would not have left on his own if simply told to do so; there has been no showing or even intimation that he would have fled or hidden to avoid leaving as directed. And certainly there has been no showing that he has not conducted himself lawfully for years. Taking such a man, and there are many such men and women like him, and subjecting him to what is rightfully understood as no different or better than penal detention, is certainly cruel. We as a country need and must not act so. The Constitution commands better.
Ragbir isn't suing ICE simply because of its targeting of him. His lawsuit points out he's not the only activist ICE has taken action against, using similar unconstitutional tactics.
ICE agents arrested Jean Montrevil, a Haitian national immigrant rights activist, co-founder of the New Sanctuary Coalition, and green card holder, on January 3. It was mere days before Ragbir’s check-in, which led to his detention. Montrevil was deported to Haiti on January 9. Authorities forced him to leave his four children—all U.S. citizens.
According to the lawsuit, Montrevil’s lawyer asked Scott Mechkowski, the ICE Deputy Field Office Director for New York, why ICE agents were deployed to “apprehend” Montrevil at his home “months before his scheduled check-in.”
“We [ICE] war-gamed this over and over,” Mechkowski apparently replied. “[T]his was the best time and place to take him.”
Several more are listed in the lawsuit (and covered by Shadowproof). In each case, immigrants appear to have been targeted for their activism or engagement with entities providing shelter and care for other immigrants. None of those listed faced deportation for illegal acts and many of those had lived in the States for years, raising families and becoming positive additions to their communities.
ICE has been given free rein by the current administration which never misses an opportunity to portray undocumented immigrants as inherently dangerous. If this lawsuit goes far enough, it should lay bare ICE's forays into unconstitutional behavior.
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Filed Under: activists, dhs, first amendment, free speech, ice, immigration, ravi ragbir
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Bit one sided
It's not like this is some kind of baseless attack on him because of his beliefs, and it's not a new thing.
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Re:
How awful it is of us to enforce the law against someone who is vocally flouting it.
“The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”
― Tom Wolfe
The right is always accused of fascism, but it always comes from the left.
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it's in the name ICE
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Did you miss the one...
"ICE agents arrested Jean Montrevil, a Haitian national immigrant rights activist, co-founder of the New Sanctuary Coalition, and green card holder, on January 3. It was mere days before Ragbir’s check-in, which led to his detention. Montrevil was deported to Haiti on January 9. Authorities forced him to leave his four children—all U.S. citizens."
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Re: Unamerican activities
I am reminded of this story from NPR yesterday. Some municipalities in California worked with a private law firm to rewrite their civil code to allow a 3rd party to collect massive fines for minor violations ($5,659.02 because a tennant kept chickens). Unfortunately, when talking to Silver & Wright's co-founder Curtis Wright, who stated "...then the public is entitled to get that money back. It's not intended to be punitive at all." the reporter did not ask what percentage of the $6k stayed with the law firm - a terrible oversight on the part of the reporter. (https://www.npr.org/2018/02/14/585122825/some-california-cities-criminalize-nuisance-code-violation s)
Lest someone say 'hey, you break the law you pay the fine' allow me to remind everyone that there are so many requirements in municipal civil codes that it is difficult to keep track, let alone comply. Some cities say you cannot place your garbage can at the curb too early the night before trash day (https://consumerist.com/2012/08/28/how-early-should-you-be-able-to-put-out-your-garbage-without-get ting-fined/), or that it cannot stay at the curb past midnight (https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/public-services/garbage-yard-waste/ ). Some might have grass height laws (https://dcra.dc.gov/grassseason ), or regulations on the number of cars in your driveway (https://jalopnik.com/stupid-minneapolis-will-fine-you-for-having-more-than-t-1822669000 ).
As T.A.C. said, one day you might be under their thumb.
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Re: The right is always accused of fascism, but it always comes from the left.
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Living here illegally is an illegal act
That is not true as the basis of living here without a valid visa or green card is an illegal act.
I personally think there should be exceptions made for anyone of first nation blood since this was their land before we stole it, and therefor should be naturalized citizens by default. I do think we should be doing more to stop illegal immigration from other countries though. The legal process is hard enough without everyone and their mother trying to circumvent it.
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Re: Re:
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He isn't a citizen legally so why should his non existent 1st amendement right be respected?
The job of ICE is to deport illegals, if they are illegals and manifest as such isn't it normal that they get the boot?
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Re:
"So people are in the country illegally"
FTA:
"green card holder"
There's clearly more to the story than you have assumed.
Also, I'd argue that where someone is essentially a credit to the country but is being deported on technicalities (as appears to be the case with the main subject of the article), there is another approach other than "the law is the law" that would make sense. Sure, enforce your immigration laws, but it does seem a little bizarre when you're deporting both people who are a positive benefit to the country and people who have actually gained prior permission to reside there.
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Re: Living here illegally is an illegal act
There's a good argument that the reason why so many people do it illegally is *because* the legal process is so hard. Not everyone, but there's a huge difference between the Mexicans who get dropped off to drug gangs through a coyote and the people who overstay their visas and end up staying there for decades, even if some people would like you to believe that all immigrants are the former group.
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Re:
No.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2017/01/30/does-the-constitution-protect-non-citize ns-judges-say-yes/#19168a754f1d
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That'll work.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Bit one sided
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Re: it's in the name ICE
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Re: Re: Bit one sided
A quick search indicates that it's true.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Bit one sided
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In the same article:
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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Re: Re: Re:
As an example, because the 14th amendment states things that apply to "citizens" and those that apply to "any person within its jurisdiction". The right to vote will apply to citizens, but "the equal protection of the laws" applies equally to non-citizens. I'm not American, so I'm going off my general understanding here, but basically you don't get to treat people however you want just because they've been caught there illegally, there's still laws that apply.
You may not like that, but personally I'm happy that I don't become a non-person if I decide to visit your country just because you're scared of others who might not have filed the correct paperwork to get there. Just as I'm happy that any American who visits my country has certain guaranteed rights there should they need them.
Anyway - tldr - I believe you're wrong if you say the entire constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens.
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Re:
What the judge called unconstitutional had NOTHING to do with their deporting him. It had to do with how they treated him as they did that.
You should also go do some basic research into what it means to hold a green card. A person can be in the United States LEGALLY without being a citizen. Your assumptions are all wrong here.
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Re: Re: Re: Bit one sided
He paid for the crime, assuming the article is actually true. So he's NOT a criminal anymore and cannot be punished or treated as if he is. This would explain why the JUDGE evaluating this case wouldn't bring this issue up.
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So ICE will be deporting Trump and friends soon?
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Re: Living here illegally is an illegal act
I get what you're going for, but this is a classic basic fallacy. All one has to do is take it one step further: who'd they steal this country from?
If we followed this kind of logic then everyone would be able to claim citizenship in multiple countries around the world. Trying to pretend that ONLY one group ever invaded anyone ever or that one group is entirely in the wrong making another entire in the right is just ridiculous. History does not bear your perception out.
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Re: Did you miss the one...
Maybe, while tossed out of the U.S. and taking your kids with you, you can apply to come into the U.S. Legally, getting in the back of the line like everyone else. It won't be fast, but it'll be legal. Then you can bring your kids back into the U.S.
I don't see how being an Illegal gives you any constitutional rights. You're not an American, you should have no constitutional rights. Should get the boot right out of this country. I don't care if you're as white as can be from Canada. Illegal is Illegal.
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Re: Re:
The whole point of the Constitution when it was written was to address how people should be treated, period. We only have power to enforce it's principals within our borders, but we should be abiding according to those principals at all times regardless of who we are engaging with or where.
Yes US citizens do have more protection than non-citizens, but it does still afford protection to everyone regardless.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Bit one sided
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Re: Re: Living here illegally is an illegal act
If the answer is "nobody, they were the first human being there"? Obviously, everybody came from somewhere originally, but how far back do you want to go? I think that standard of "those guys were doing OK until the current lodgers moved in and killed everyone" does bear some credit,.
"Trying to pretend that ONLY one group ever invaded anyone ever or that one group is entirely in the wrong making another entire in the right is just ridiculous."
I think the point is the scale of the genocide that happened, rather than simply who was there first.
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Re: Re:
Please cite the law that Jean Montrevil was breaking.
Those guys with the swastika armbands marching in Charlottesville didn't vote for Hillary, chum.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The original question was:
That covers legal visitors.
Immigrants are protected by the Constitution vs. deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law. They have freedom of speech and religion, and if arrested, a right to a Miranda warning.
The big exception is that they're not allowed to vote in state and national elections.
This is the same for undocumented immigrants except for a further exception; they get almost no due process in removal proceedings.
That last bit doesn't apply to this guy. He's a fully documented immigrant. But one who has committed a crime. He's stayed legally while getting his due process, and that process has run out.
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Re: Re: Did you miss the one...
Courts would disagree with you.
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Well, not intentionally. But I would not bet my life on them having made their cross where they think (sorry if calling this thinking is offensive to anyone) they did.
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Saddened
I'm struck by how much of this seems frighteningly familiar. Instead of analysis, I'm struck by a thought:
Hopefully, one day people won't look back at this time and wonder how so many people permitted some tragic event(s) to occur.
.
.
.
P.S. - Solution: ban religion /s
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So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
The US of A is TOO nice: "He's faced a "final order of removal" since 2007, but that has been extended time and time again"
Do you notice THE TEN YEAR DELAY HE WAS AFFORDED IN WHICH TO SETTLE MATTERS AND GO PEACEABLY AT TIME OF HIS CHOOSING?
Because of that TEN YEAR PROCESS this one activist judge is sure to be overturned, and the new suit should be summarily dismissed: it's simply baseless way to obtain more delay. But there's a limit to even judicial largess.
This only affords Techdirt another opportunity to show it favors ILLEGAL immigrants over citizens, and that it rabidly hates Trump.
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From my point of view, you're all here illegally
Sincerely,
A member of the Lakota Sioux Nation
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ICE is the new Secret Police
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
This is correct. We extend the protection of our laws to all who are subject to those laws, whether they're citizens or not, whether they're here illegally or not, whether they're war criminals or not, whether they're anything. How they got here is irrelevant: maybe they immigrated illegally. Maybe they're visiting for the week. Maybe we captured them in a war zone. Maybe they were born here and are citizens. IT DOESN'T MATTER.
If you think about it rationally for a bit, it should soon become clear why this is so. If it weren't, then we wouldn't have a double standard: we'd have an N-standard, where N is the number of unique situations that each of these people represent. That's a jurisprudence nightmare AND it's unfair.
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Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
Republicans are so concerned about immigrants being lazy and not contributing to society. They should focus on these lazy ICE agents living off the system instead. Amirite?
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Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
Republicans are not complaining about lazy immigrants, but the criminal illegal immigrants.
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Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
Maybe if local governments didn't work to subvert the laws (and our Constitution) ICE wouldn't have to do a lot of the things they do.
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Re: Re: Did you miss the one...
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Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
That's not the case.
Illegal immigrants get almost no due process in removal proceedings. This guy arrived legally, and was entitled to due process.
Look, I agree that he should have been gone shortly after being released from jail, and I suspect most here do. But it's firmly established that even non-citizens get constitutional protections like freedom of speech. Your follow-up - spinning a story on targeting First Amendment activities into...
...only makes you look like a dishonest ten-year-old with no reading comprehension.
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Re: Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
Yeah - they never do that.
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Re: Re: Did you miss the one...
Also thanks for paying real money that someone had to earn by working an actual job, for the first word. Nothing like paying to put your ignorance on display for the whole world to see. I hope Mike donates it to the ACLU.
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Re: Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
You forget that one already did ya?
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Re: Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
Local governments subvert what laws ... federal laws?
Yeah - states are not allowed to make their own laws unless you agree.
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Re: Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
Please. A little compassion for the agents.
Fuck that shit. If they weren't getting these illegals that they clearly knew about out, then they're freeloading pieces of shit sucking off the teat of society. And frankly, they're a bigger expense than the immigrants.
If we want to get serious about lazy pieces of shit draining society, then we should start with those getting paid significant sums of money to do absolutely nothing. I'm not paying welfare so some lazy as fuck "ICE" agents can sit on their collective asses doing nothing.
Let them pick some beans and be useful.
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Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
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Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've been on our own, and moss grows fat on a rollin' stone, but that's not how it used to be, when the jester sang for the king and queen in a coat he borrowed from James Dean and a voice that came from you and me.
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Re: Re: Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
That sums it up.
When individual states started allowing same-sex marriage, Republicans demanded that the federal government put a stop to it. But when the federal government started to favor same-sex marriage, for Republicans it suddenly became a states' rights issue that the federal government needed to stay out of.
Schrödinger's Sovereignty: States' rights and citizens' rights aren't decided until it's observed whether those rights align with Republican ideology.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
A person married in California should expect that marriage to be recognized in other states, so that does make a difference.
If you want to make pot legal, fine, but that doesn't force other states to allow its residents to smoke pot legally in their own state.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: So for TEN YEARS we've provided process for this trouble-maker who came here illegally and then uses the time to argue that he should be allowed to openly violate our laws.
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My favorite part
If your first reaction is to blame America as the bad guy for people invading it and parents putting their children in this position then you should shut up because you are more than too biased to have an intelligent conversation with, you are nothing other than a mindless fundi parroting an agenda.
America has one of the most lax Immigration policies in the world.
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Re: Re: Did you miss the one...
You come here Illigally, knock up someone, have Kids, that still gives you ZERO right to stay.
"Knock up someone"? That's an interesting way of saying "meet someone wonderful, fall in love, get married and have multiple kids, be a productive, contributing member of society..."
Maybe, while tossed out of the U.S. and taking your kids with you, you can apply to come into the U.S. Legally, getting in the back of the line like everyone else. It won't be fast, but it'll be legal. Then you can bring your kids back into the U.S.
I assume you'll take this the wrong way, but you are a cruel, heartless person. Please go away.
I don't see how being an Illegal gives you any constitutional rights.
You are also wrong about the Constitution.
I don't see how being an Illegal gives you any constitutional rights. You're not an American, you should have no constitutional rights. Should get the boot right out of this country. I don't care if you're as white as can be from Canada. Illegal is Illegal.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
That could affect a great many things from taxes and benefits to even whether someone would be recognized as family and be allowed to visit their dying spouse in hospital.
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Re: My favorite part
Oh, the irony. Perhaps you should read the article. It's related to illegal immigration, but that's not what it's about.
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So where would they have deported
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"Illegal is Illegal."
Which prompts our daily reminder that we are all felons and cannot help be felons by some laws including the CFAA, the espionage act and for the crime of conspiracy. It is only because of prosecutory discretion, the right of district attorneys to choose which crimes they want to prosecute in court (id est selective enforcement) that we are not all in prison for long sentences.
But if an agent of the state, a law enforcement officer or some other official wants to make sure you disappear, (or just confiscate your stuff) he has approximately a 90% chance of succeeding to get you convicted and in prison.
We are all criminals.
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"when they run out of those damn illegals"
The purge trains don't end and they don't stop.
To borrow phrasing from Bertrand Russel, it's not about who's right, but who's left.
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So it has been about "equality" since the dawn of time.
Remember that the Constitution made us all equal...except for slaves and women, and sharecroppers and people in debt, and Mormons and any other religion that was too weird.
The Trump era has just put American hypocrisy into sharp relief.
Equality has to be for absolutely everyone, or it's not.
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Re: ICE is the new Secret Police
ICE has it's own internment camps. I can't say if the folks there are forced to work. That's all classified.
As it will be if internees start getting processed.
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"putting their own children through this bullshit"
Amusingly the right is also at the same time trying to reduce access to birth control and abortion, especially to those marginalized.
Do you know the story behind Fair Spanish Ladies? Even among the noblest and saltiest of peoples, babies happen.
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Tony Benn Quote
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Re: My favorite part
And fourthly why are bigots so often incapable of framing an argument in English as well as, to pick a completely random example, an illegal immigrent trying to blend into society?
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Quality lacking
"the Kids"
"come into the U.S. Legally, "
Your lack of understanding of English grammar is as deficient as your lack of understanding of the US Constitution; nowhere does it differentiate between internal and external.
Also, I have a feeling you lack the basic requisites to qualify as human.
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Re: From my point of view, you're all here illegally
Do you have a flag?
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Re: So it has been about "equality" since the dawn of time.
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Re: Tony Benn Quote
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Re: Quality lacking
A: The immigrants' signs have better spelling.
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You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I've confessed before to being a Lennonist.
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Insult to injury
That strikes me as rather cruel. 'First we're going to throw you in jail, then we're going to throw you out of the country'. If they do something deserving of deportation just deport them first, don't lock them up and then do it after they get out.
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Re: Serving their time does not wipe the slate clean.
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Re: Re: Serving their time does not wipe the slate clean.
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The Last Word
“Tony Benn Quote
“The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”