In our country, someone who hasn't been convicted or otherwise adjudicated of a crime is called innocent. There are thousands of innocent people being deported.
Perhaps these people committed crimes or administrative violations, perhaps not, but until they've been determined as such, they're correctly called innocent with no quotes.
GP is speaking specifically about that subset of people when they use the word innocent.
>In our country, someone who hasn't been convicted or otherwise adjudicated of a crime is called innocent.
Total nonsense. This only applies to the state. Individuals are totally free to believe that a person not convicted of a crime or even proclaimed innocent by the state, is in fact not innocent.
If your legalistic fiction of innocence was correct, then individuals would have to believe that the law is the infallible representation of morality, which is an abhorrent claim. What I meant by the quotes around innocent is that the state has not yet deemed them criminal, but I disagree with the state on that assessment.
I am sorry, but "you are dumb" is not an argument. I just do not care about the law at all+. Far too often have I seen justice abused in the name of the law. Any appeal to some supposed legality just rings entirely hollow.
Either the government acts justly and I support their actions or it acts unjustly and I will oppose that action. Whatever some piece of paper says or does not say I do not mind.
+ Of course I care about it in so far I have to understand how getting into conflict with the prevalent interpretation of it will have consequence for me or my family or my friends. I pay my taxes, after all.
> There are thousands of innocent people being deported.
Right, the only crime they committed was entering and remaining in the country illegally. And now they’re facing deportation by this unjust administration.
The Cato article says specifically that nearly half the people they were able to get in touch with didn’t seem to enter illegally OR otherwise violate their immigration status
Huh? Do you think the possible legal statuses of people in the US is either “here illegally” or “US citizen?”
My claim is quite clear: legal immigrants who have not committed any crime or administrative violations have 1) been deported, 2) without due process, and 3) to a foreign torture camp.
Any ONE of those elements is illegal with regard to legal immigrants, and items 2 and 3 are illegal even with regard solely to illegal immigrants.
Btw this is not including people whose TPS was canceled and were “made illegal” overnight, of which there are hundreds of thousands now.
There are plenty of people the administration is trying to deport who neither entered nor remained in the country illegally.
For example, Rumeysa Ozturk who was arrested for engaging in 1st Amendment protected speech and put into deportation proceedings despite entering the country legally, staying in the country legally, and breaking none of our country's laws.
Do you think that such a deportation would make the US more or less appealing for immigration? After all, every immigrant has to suspect that they might become a target of such an enforcement action as well.
Of course it would make the US less appealing, which means the immigrants with the most optionality of where to go (like researchers, engineers, and high value contributors in general) are disproportionately likely to seek other destinations.
It would have the least deterrent force on those who are already criminal and otherwise lawless or desperate.
Back to your claim about this being an "effective" immigration policy: no it's not.
I think it is pretty dishonest how you are asserting that I am making arguments, which I never made.
>which means the immigrants with the most optionality of where to go (like researchers, engineers, and high value contributors in general) are disproportionately likely to seek other destinations.
>It would have the least deterrent force on those who are already criminal and otherwise lawless or desperate.
Completely agree. But I want the "researchers, engineers, and high value contributors" even less than the rest. Those groups are actually harder to remove, they often have institutional support in the form of corporations and other associations and might feasibly be positive fiscal contributors. With "the rest" the argument for deportation is far simpler and has far more support in the population. Also my labor competes with the "researchers, engineers, and high value contributors", while "the rest" only depresses the wages of the proletariat who now have to compete with black market labor.
Notably, deporting US citizens would also make the US less appealing for immigration. Would you agree with that? Since fewer people would want to travel to a country where even its own citizens are not safe living there.
Considering your other arguments above, I assume you are also volunteering to be one of the people deported from the EU for the sake of making it less appealing for immigration?
Perhaps these people committed crimes or administrative violations, perhaps not, but until they've been determined as such, they're correctly called innocent with no quotes.
GP is speaking specifically about that subset of people when they use the word innocent.