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hypeatei
chasil
I would say that any U.S. citizen living in an area of focus who is even vaguely latino and/or does not speak English well should obtain a U.S. "passport card" and carry it on their person at all times, as a federally issued ID. It's $65 for the first application, and $30 at renewals. In this context, the passport card is much more valuable than a state-issued ID.
You know if your children should have them.
A real passport at home is also wise, in case these ruffians "lose" the card.
It is intolerable that U.S. citizens are detained in this way.
Uehreka
I get that you’re trying to help, but trying to find a bureaucratic/technical workaround through original research and proffering it as advice is not a super helpful thing to do right now. At this phase of the game, the best advice you can give people is to follow immigration lawyers and long-time activists on social media and do what they advise.
I know we’re all used to being the problem-solvers in the room, but this is a time where those of us without specific expertise need to take direction from those who do.
chasil
I get that you yourself have not researched this problem.
These are worthless?
Notice this section: "Carry with you evidence of lawful entry or current lawful status in the United States if you have it."
https://www.nilc.org/resources/know-your-rights-expedited-re...
Edit: I went to Medellín, Colombia recently, and going through immigration, I said that I was there for my birthday. The officer then asked me, "That was May xxth?" I responded, "No, my birthday is August yyth." She handed it back and waived me through.
Anyone making a mistake with details will see greater scrutiny.
testing22321
ICE have the official policy that no paperwork is sufficient to prove citizenship. The only source of truth it their biometrics app
https://www.404media.co/you-cant-refuse-to-be-scanned-by-ice...
chasil
That will certainly not work for children, as their faces change.
I live in Illinois. Since Republican governor Ryan gave chauffers licenses to undocumented immigrants (resulting in fatalities), it is certain that an Illinois license is worthless.
I had hoped that an ID issued by the U.S. Department of State would be a safeguard.
Perhaps not, but wise to obtain both forms, for the judge.
mystraline
When the "do you belong here? " is a non-sarcastic adaptation of the Family guy skin color meme, no amount of 'proper IDs' will do shit.
tky
Accurate, if even a bit softer than how it really is.
I never felt unsafe in my west side Chicago community until the Black Hawks started doing daily intimidation runs. Until they abducted community members who were out working one day, gone the next.
I used to push a wagon with side pockets full of bubbles, snacks, and toys. Now there’s fewer toys to make room for gas masks for kids and adults.
Chicago is a tough town. People here are doing an amazing job restraining themselves and others. I’ve heard on more than one occasion people in crowds reminding one another to not give them reason to pull in the Guard.
This will likely not be the case forever.
More people need to see what’s happening here. This is not sustainable; generational harm is being inflicted on those directly targeted and those who seethe with anger and have to explain to kids why their friends aren’t around anymore.
lurk2
> have to explain to kids why their friends aren’t around anymore.
How does that conversation go?
tky
Honestly, not well. It’s hard to articulate to a 4 year old that people like us are hiding for fear that they’ll be taken by “army men”
jalapenof
[flagged]
xdennis
[flagged]
UncleMeat
Nearly half of the bill of rights is focused on the rights of criminal defendants. The idea that if somebody commits a crime that the state has unlimited power to use force and violence against that person is anti-american.
ozozozd
What’s the accurate description when US citizens are _allegedly_ accidentally arrested?
How much freedom citizens must sacrifice for these laws to be enforced?
shakes_mcjunkie
The article is missing a bit about Bovino the other day. He threw a sieg heil and has been videoed doing "paper beats rock" with agents which is a white supremacist dog whistle. These people are openly racist and have unaccountable power to stomp around Chicago and destroy the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/comments/1os2lid/greg_bovi...
*Edit: I forgot to mention, please consider (1) organizing with your neighbors now because this is probably coming to you sometime soon and (2) donating to ICIRR which is doing amazing on the ground work right now https://www.icirr.org/
tastyface
And here’s him cosplaying SS: https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1o55i0x/meet_grego...
Strip him down and I’m pretty sure you’ll find some “choice” tats.
tasuki
> He threw a sieg heil
Obviously very bad. I can't understand how people can think Elon was "just waving".
> has been videoed doing "paper beats rock" with agents which is a white supremacist dog whistle.
This is woke nonsense: I was accused of bad things in the past. I did quite innocent things and was accused that my behaviour was a dog whistle for racism. I'm as racist as the next guy (I fail the white-bad black-good test) but consciously very much attempt to be less so!
_DeadFred_
Did you see the video of him doing the paper beats rock thing? Right after doing the sieg heil? It was very obviously he did it intentionally, whether to troll or not, those for who it is a dog whistle saw it and wagged their tale in joy.
tastyface
It’s not new, it’s not “woke,” and it’s not subtle: https://www.adl.org/resources/article/coded-hate-extremists-...
They’ve been doing this shit since they got their asses kicked by the Allies (1488, etc.)
undefined
thechao
A large part of this lawlessness is rooted in nonnormative behavior. But! there are basic protections we could have right now if we demanded them. First and foremost: the Bivens Act; specifically, the right to bring suit in State court against Federal agents. Presidential pardons can't help these thugs in State persons.
georgemcbay
Unfortunately the Bivens act was already heavily neutered well before this current trainwreck of a Supreme Court we have now was fully assembled (saving them the trouble of having to neuter it themselves):
tedivm
Until the supreme court overturns that.
tanjtanjtanj
They already did, more or less.
The supreme court ruled that unless your case is virtually a carbon-copy of an existing Bivens case then it doesn't count. The current supreme court does not respect precedent in any meaningful way.
thechao
Bivens act, not case. The act modifies the statutes. It's been read but not voted on.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/334...
pizlonator
This is really sad to read!
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.)
tedivm
I live in Chicago, and this article doesn't even scratch the surface of how bad it is. My wife went to the beach yesterday for 10 minutes to try and rest from the chaos and a fucking black hawk helicopter buzzed by her. They literally fly over my house daily.
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.
SlightlyLeftPad
The media has an existential threat of having their broadcast licenses revoked so yeah that probably has a lot to do with why there’s no coverage.
If the media had balls, they’d broadcast anyway, license or not.
tedivm
There's a lot of good independent media looking at this. Some good sources:
https://bsky.app/profile/unraveledpress.com
https://bsky.app/profile/djbyrnes1.bsky.social
sgarland
Let the FCC enforce the removal of a license, then. That seems to be the current administration’s approach to everything.
fluidcruft
The media also has an existential threat of being taken as seriously as Russian and Chinese media are taken by the Russian and Chinese people, respectively.
For many of us that ship sailed a few years ago.
enraged_camel
>> What scares me the most is how few people seem to actually know what is happening here.
Submissions like this getting flagged contributes to that.
I mention that because the previous submission with this article got flagged to death.
underlipton
>Visits from the ghetto birds
>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.
testing22321
> This post has been flagged and hidden, just demonstrating how much this country wants to pretend this isn't happening
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.
lurk2
[flagged]
lurk2
[flagged]
fluidcruft
RSNA is coming up later this month and generally I always attend but I'm probably just going to skip it. Just about nobody I know is going.
tptacek
Understandable, but note that decisions like that are part of the adminstration's objectives. This isn't a Chicago policy; it's a federal targeting of Chicago for political reasons.
tedivm
Before I moved to Chicago I used to go to RSNA for work. If I didn't live in Chicago already I wouldn't be traveling here.
lurk2
[flagged]
xdennis
[flagged]
tomhow
> Show me a case where an ICE officer has been convicted of abduction.
> 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
jorts
I see your post and OPs just fine.
tptacek
I live in Oak Park, just outside Chicago (and adjacent to Broadview, where the major regional ICE detention center is).
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.
Isamu
A big issue for people detained, even if they are citizens, is that it can take some time to be released, and when released you may not get your belongings back. That includes passport, phone, keys, cash, jewelry. The advice I am hearing is to avoid carrying around much if you are at risk.
fujigawa
[flagged]
cafard
I am an angry old not-quite suburban white male. My household employs no servants. We mow our own lawn, we rake our own leaves.
I know a fair number of people who are US born and have what appears to be a Central American complexion. I imagine much of the HN readership can get by without income for the time it can take a citizen, or someone with perfectly legitimate immigration status, to establish his or her bona fides to ICE. Not everybody who is getting in can.
And have you looked into the big employers, not Harriet Homeowner, but the meat packing plants, to see how carefully they examine documents?
Hell, have you examined the Trump organization's record?
tptacek
None of this has anything whatsoever to do with whether "Pedro" will be there to shovel their driveway. Nobody cares about that. We all live with 100% certainty that somebody will exchange dollars for snow shoveling. The reason you hear about landscapers right now is that ICE is directly targeting them. If you're ICE, looking to meet a detention quota from whatever quadrant Oak Park is in, the easiest way to do that is cruise down the street and stop anybody on a riding mower.
ocdtrekkie
Or people actually like and care about the people they transact with whether their grass gets mowed next week or not. Yeah, for some well off suburban folks, their closest impact might be someone who works for them. Doesn't mean they don't care.
(And frankly, I'd rather my money goes to someone who really needs the money, not a corporate service.)
drewbug01
In a way, the article understates how bad it is. I live in Chicago, and in my neighborhood every lamp post (and mailbox, and other surface) has a poster detailing your rights. “Fuck ICE” (and related) signs all over. Most businesses and a lot of houses in my neighborhood have signs explicitly stating that ICE is not welcome inside without a warrant. My coffee shop regularly has free whistles to take, so you can help alert others.
Just a few days ago I was working at a coffee shop and got a rapid response notice that ICE was about a block from me. I got a few more that day, all within a few blocks of my house.
It is incredibly stressful. I married people, have kids who are not white - they are a target. I pray every day that the next daycare raid isn’t my sons daycare, that ICE doesn’t stop my husband as he goes to work, that my mother-in-law doesn’t get snatched off the street when she walks to Target.
It’s bad.
AstroBen
I'm an immigrant in Chicago (fortunately not one of the racial groups they're targeting) and I follow it pretty closely - yeah it's all really happening. I saw kids get taken away in front of where I live and others just a few streets down
The abuse of power there is ridiculous
tossacct999
> fortunately not one of the racial groups they're targeting
…yet.
abuehrle
In the northern suburbs of Chicago, we often hear helicopters circling. A gardener was taken on my block. The home owner told the masked agent he didn't have permission to be on his property, and the agent pointed a gun at him.
If you suspect anything is exaggerated, you can look to dozens of videos posted online of how these people act and speak. They roll in caravans of unmarked SUVs. Last week they rolled up to an elementary school (https://www.reddit.com/user/rubinass3/comments/1ol319f/ice_d...).
[Here](https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/1986936912134000877) is a particularly hard to watch video of ICE tackling a nonverbal man.
Things feel bad to me in a way (I suppose I'm fortunate to be able to say) they haven't until now. I normally can see the "other side" of issues but I can't fathom how this is what anybody wants. I'm angry and I'm sad.
If there's a silver lining, the community is fired up. The mayor of Evanston talked with an awesome woman who was detained while peacefully protesting (https://danielbiss.substack.com/p/daniel-biss-talks-with-det...). It's a weird and sad time.
kasey_junk
My kids school has started doing drills with the students in what to do when ice shows up. Like they do for tornadoes. They need to because ICE is using schools as raid locations every day.
wombatpm
The children might be citizens, but ICE seizes them so that the immigrant parents have to show up and claim them.
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.
ryandrake
> 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.
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.
bckmn
It's all really happening. Pretty much every meeting with friends touches on what their recent sightings or stories of ICE terror have been. Everyone who hasn't seen it first hand has a second hand story.
Absolutely everyone I talk to is against ICE's actions and that is the thing giving me hope that it will be defeated by the citizenry.
miltonlost
Did you look at the links he posted? Have you seen the news reports he linked to? This is all actually happening right now. Please, read all he linked to an watched the videos of ICE kidnapping people violently.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/11/05/daycare-...
pizlonator
I think my question had exactly the effect I wanted: lots of folks chiming in to give color.
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
don_neufeld
I’m so glad that Kyle wrote this.
I’m so sad that he had to.
Pay attention to what’s going on and vote.
ryandrake
The problem is how many people enthusiastically voted for this madness, lawlessness and cruelty, and are still cheering it on.
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.
toomuchtodo
Margin of victory was ~2M votes, about how many voters 55+ die in a year. Hopefully enough voters have aged out or learned their lesson next time around (considering election results we've seen in the last week or so [1]). You're never going to convince unsavory voters to vote with empathy, the subject brain structure does not support it (anterior insular cortex, primarily), you can only hope they're aging out of the electorate at a reasonable pace (and not being replaced).
"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)
ryandrake
It's comforting that maybe this mentality is correcting itself one funeral at a time.
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
We shouldn’t need to count on voters dying to avoid outcomes like this. Our institutions are broken if they can’t protect the public from a mentally ill public official on a power trip.
saulpw
The replacement voters are currently teenagers. They haven't "learned their lesson", they aren't old enough to have experienced politics at all. They were 6 years old when Trump was elected the first time. This is their reality and we can't expect that the electorate gets more sensible because old people rotate out.
abraxas
Complete hopium. I remember twenty years ago as we witnessed the second term of W and the talks about the republican party's base dying out and losing their support with it. Yet 21 years later they are going stronger than ever with just mayhem and chaos to show for it. Nothing constructive accomplished in two decades. They either obstructed when out of power or favoured the billionaire class when in power. Yet they rebranded themselves as the "revolutionary" party and suckered enough idiots to vote for them enthusiastically.
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.
queenkjuul
Sadly GenX seems to be getting on board as quickly as the boomers are dying off
ssl-3
We must always vote. Our voter turnout for elections in the US is approximately shit.
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.
throwaway173738
Yeah, the people who suggest voting doesn’t matter are either suffering from some nihilistic delusion or they’re spreading a self-serving lie.
tptacek
I don't think this framing is very helpful. Whatever you believe about the people who pulled the lever for Trump, which included an unprecedented number of Latino and Black voters, they exist, and they're not persuaded by your disapproval. I think a really big problem we have on my side of the aisle is the belief that there's a celestial referee who will call offsides on the Republicans if we can just find the right argument at the right amplitude.
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.
jonway
Could you please qualify both: the several years of chaotic annd uncontrolled immigration as well as Biden betting on employment vs inflation with the policies that you are referencing?
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
keeda
> The election was fully determined by inflation. Biden made a reasonable (though incorrect) bet that full employment was more important than price stability.
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."
mmooss
The conservative message machine is determinative, and they would find something to effectively raise a storm about: immigration, inflation, etc. If Biden cut inflation, they would have demonized him regarding employment. Or just make something up - they can say anything at this point, and the Dems and others have made themselves helpless. They will always find something - Biden and Dems were being called pedophiles in 2000, the election was stolen, etc.
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.
turnsout
I don't know, man. That is definitely true, but they didn't win by a landslide. And a lot of their edge came from the MAGA Latinx vote. This ICE/CPB action is a total self-own. That Latinx vote is going to disappear, and we've already seen the results in the 2025 elections.
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.
ryandrake
> I think the right will turn on itself in 2026.
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...
UncleMeat
There is no way that the republicans split. They are 100% captured by MAGA. The only possible splitting point is with the Fuentes wing, who'd just like to murder all the jews in the country in addition to all of the latinos.
WillEngler
There are some who voted for Trump and do celebrate the cruelty on display in Chicago. But I also think many wanted to deport "the worst of the worst" and that is what they thought they were promised. And per the media many consume, that is what's happening. It's an open question on whether the real extent of the crackdown will break through the echo chamber, but from conversations I've had with people who consume Fox News, I really do think a lot of Trump voters will not be ok with the tactics as they are actually being carried out. For example, I just don't think that earnest religious conservatives I know would defend denying the Eucharist to people in the processing facility (https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/02/faith-leaders-again-...) and then banning prayer outside the facility altogether (https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/07/feds-tell-faith-lead...). When you lay out this (and the many events in Aphyr's post) to them clearly, they really don't like it.
skopje
Half the US cheers about this. I hope we do not get a world war to stop it.
UncleMeat
Right.
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.
alangibson
Voting is what got us in to this. This is supported by a majority of the US. You do not live in the country you think you do.
HeinzStuckeIt
> This is supported by a majority of the US.
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.
ryandrake
> 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.
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.
sgentle
Do you not think there might be a relationship between the lack of due process and the choice of terms?
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.
stavros
> The election was fairly close.
Yeah but "the totalitarian Neonazis who wanted to deploy secret police were only a slight majority" is really faint praise.
queenkjuul
Many of these people are documented permanent residents or US citizens being grabbed without warrants, without being read rights, without charges, and without an opportunity to present documentation.
That's kidnapping.
metabagel
ICE are wearing masks, refusing to identify themselves, abducting citizens and non-citizens alike. They are accusing citizens of assault and then releasing them without charging - a pretty good indication that they lied.
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.
daseiner1
Yup immigration was arguably the concrete issue of the election and these were the campaign promises. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that this is what mass deportation would look like.
metabagel
We already had mass deportation under Biden, and it wasn’t conducted in this manner.
breakyerself
A plurality of the people who voted went for Trump not a majority. He won 49.8% of the vote. When you include everyone who is eligible to vote he only got 31.8% of the total electorate. A large percentage of the electorate doesn't vote.
summa_tech
If you don't vote, you agree with the majority. Plain and simple! If you want to show your protest, go vote and explicitly vote with an invalid ballot or a third party. Don't give yourself the convenient "out" of staying home and then feeling like you're such a counterculture warrior for doing it.
fogzen
I recently saw a video of armed, masked ICE terrorists entering a daycare and forcibly dragging a teacher out in front of babies and toddlers.
America is sick. Republicans are sick. They condone this and have made no attempt to do anything about it.
inemesitaffia
>teacher
Citizen or legal immigrant?
Carer or teacher?
nicbou
Would one of the combinations make it acceptable?
inemesitaffia
I'm looking for the appropriate description of what's going on.
Somehow I'm led to believe it's okay to move into any country and Bhutan's restrictions on visitors are a-okay in the same breath.
Canada's not far and it's not true there either.
paganel
This [1] is civil-war-inducing stuff, that's not "police", that's an army that attacks its own country's citizens. Crazy stuff, didn't think I'd get to see this happening in the States.
actionfromafar
Later when things settle down, they will only do this to citizens who don’t pay the bribe.
fancyfredbot
https://archive.is/X33oQ for those in the UK.
abustamam
I applaud the authors use of the word "abducted" and "kidnapped."
For some reason the media loves to just call it detained so anytime I see someone call it what it actually is deserves a gold star in my book.
How low standards have become :(
scoofy
When states choose nullification as a policy to ignore federal law, it’s an overt act of escalation.
I don’t think these raids are good policy, but I won’t pretend that it’s happening in isolation. What they are doing, in large part, seems to be legal. Dressing detention up as kidnapping isn’t treating the issue in good faith.
jamtur01
You are familiar with the 4th Amendment? These acts are a clear violation of 4th Amendment rights, rights which extend to both citizens and non-citizens.
scoofy
>When do ICE agents need a warrant to arrest immigrants?
>A judicial warrant is a legal order authorizing law enforcement’s search, seizure or arrest on private property. Judicial warrants are signed by a judge.
>Immigration agents also use administrative warrants, which carry lower legal weight. Administrative warrants are signed by federal agents such as immigration judges or officers. These warrants allow ICE agents to arrest someone in public places. However, they don’t give officers the right to enter private property.
>Although ICE agents are required to have a judicial warrant to enter a person’s home, they are not required to have a judicial warrant to arrest someone in public spaces, such as the immigration court building.
>"Lander is incorrect that a judicial warrant is required," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant-rights advocacy group, said on X.
>An administrative warrant isn’t always required to arrest someone in public. According to immigration law, agents can arrest an immigrant without a warrant if they have "reason to believe" the immigrant is in the U.S. without authorization and "is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest."
https://api.politifact.com/article/2025/jun/18/Brad-Lander-I...
This goes on:
>Can ICE agents arrest U.S. citizens?
>ICE agents generally can’t arrest U.S. citizens, because they aren’t committing a civil immigration violation. However, an agent may arrest a U.S. citizen on the grounds that they believe the person is in the U.S. illegally. The person would be released after showing proof of citizenship.
>However, Lander wasn’t arrested on immigration grounds, said Alexandra Lopez, a Chicago-based immigration attorney. The agent accused Lander of obstruction.
>"In this scenario they are acting as federal law enforcement agents who are arresting a U.S. citizen on criminal, not immigration, grounds," Lopez said. "ICE claims they were detaining Comptroller Lander in their capacity as federal law enforcement agents, not immigration enforcement agents."
Immigration law is complicated.
I'm not some right-wing nutter. I'm just a lefty that thinks we're definitely shooting ourselves in the foot by really misunderstanding what's actually happening. Nullification of immigration laws is, in fact, a right that states can exercise, but it's overt nullification is absolutely an escalation that undermines public trust because it force the feds to send enforcement officers into a hostile area.
We should fight to win the immigration debate with persuasion, in the legislature. We need to have the law on our side, and we need to have the populace on our side. Right now, we have neither. We're operating a nullification campaign, and unlike the successes of legalizing marijuana, we're losing this one. If we want to keep doing this, that's fine, but I don't want people out there pretending that lawful detentions are kidnappings. It's dumb, it's a bad look, and it kind of doesn't care about the complexities of the predicament we're in.
This is a forum for nerds. I expect people to actually be able to google this shit.
xboxnolifes
For me, its really simple. ICE agents wouldn't need to be masked and unidentified if what they are doing is okay.
empath75
You are making a legalistic argument to justify absolutely monstrous behavior and you should probably spend some time examining why you are doing that. If the law justifies an atrocity, you should not defend the law.
drewbug01
You keep saying “nullification”. Can you explain precisely what you mean by that?
Because as far as I’m aware, immigration law is not a concern of the state, and what folks typically mean when they say “nullification” in this context is “the state isn’t doing the fed’s job for them.”
You also brought up warrants to enter private property. What do you make of the incident a few days ago where an agent hopped a fence to arrest someone, without a warrant? Should we just ignore those violations of our rights?
jamtur01
I am sorry but you're delusional if you think any of that is happening and they're acting in a legal manner. A small sample of the links in that post show ICE are actively violating constitutional rights and flaunting the rule of law. This same organization is actively ignoring a federal judge's orders to not use crowd control weapons on people who pose no threat.
Freedumbs
wtf are you talking about? they've shot us citizens, they continually beat an kidnap us citizens for no reason. care to explain any of the actions in this blog post? are you aware of the attack they carried out on an apartment building where they took everyone, mostly US citizens into custody in the middle of the night? kidnapping is the best way to describe it. it's 100% accurate. there's no way to distinguish these terrorists as they drive unmarked cars and refuse to identify themselves. anyone could dress up like them and kidnap people.
scoofy
Because detained and arrested is not the same as kidnapping. It’s just not even close.
tasuki
How do you know whether you're getting detained or kidnapped? The video I saw... it was just some guys with a gun dragging a woman out of her car after crashing into her on purpose. They looked like bandits to me.
UmGuys
KIDNAP: To abduct or confine (a person) forcibly, by threat of force, or by deceit, without the authority of law.
Care to explain the distinction? They have authority of law?? haha It's terrorism. No crime, no warrant, no due process. Obviously it's not kidnapping by law, because no law applies to ICE.
The apartment building scene was a mass kidnapping of US citizens. They've shot US citizens for recording their actions with live bullets, pepper balls, and gas grenade launchers. They tear gassed kids on the playground, attacked a Halloween parade, the horrors are endless.
SAI_Peregrinus
The ICE "agents" often refuse to show any form of identification. There's no way to distinguish it from a kidnapping.
Freedumbs
What's really insane is GOP literally sent all these immigrants on buses and planes to places like Chicago. Now they've hired all the proud boys, patriot front, etc, paid them during shutdown, gave them camo and military gear, and authorized them to terrorize everyone. There's no legal path to justice. It's an impossible situation constructed by people who hate their neighbors and want to literally kill them. It's so much worse than this blog post can capture or any comment. This shit is heinous.
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A news station producer was arrested by ICE and the agents peeled away ripping off someone's bumper[0][1] just for her to be released later without charges.
0: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/14/chicago-ice-...
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLGI2hMaz5Q