[darawk]

We don't arrest criminals because they're bad people. We do so because the behavior they're engaging in is harmful to society. Society has decided that undocumented immigration is harmful to it, it's as simple as that.

You could try to argue that undocumented migration is not harmful - but you'll have to do a whole lot better than "some immigrants I met are nice". Eric Schmidt is probably a pretty nice guy in person too, but that doesn't mean we should tolerate him fixing prices.

[speedplane]

> We don't arrest criminals because they're bad people. We do so because the behavior they're engaging in is harmful to society.

This is not right. We don't make arrests just based on harms to society, we also consider ease of enforcement and likelihood of winning in court. Governments generally don't pass laws that are impossible to enforce, as it hurts their credibility as a source of power.

Accordingly, arresting illegal immigrants is relatively easy, you can catch them red-handed crossing the border, and they generally don't have the means to put up a fight.

In contrast, financial crimes, which often cause far more harm to society in both monetary value and trust in institutions, is far more difficult to enforce. The accused do have the means to a full legal defense, and they fight hard.

As a result, some types of crimes that cause far more harm to society go entirely unpunished, where easy targets face the full weight of the law.

[darawk]

> This is not right. We don't make arrests just based on harms to society, we also consider ease of enforcement and likelihood of winning in court. Governments generally don't pass laws that are impossible to enforce, as it hurts their credibility as a source of power.

Government passes laws like that all the time. See: drugs and prostitution for two easy examples.

> In contrast, financial crimes, which often cause far more harm to society in both monetary value and trust in institutions, is far more difficult to enforce. The accused do have the means to a full legal defense, and they fight hard.

Financial crimes are actually much easier to enforce. Our system is designed specifically so that they are difficult to enforce. But that is a question of system design. Immigration is hard to enforce because of the fundamental physics.

But i'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

[pjc50]

> drugs and prostitution for two easy examples.

Yes, the other great examples where the amount of violence used might outweigh the actual harm, and the violence gets mostly used against people who might be considered to be the victims ...

[coldtea]

>This is not right. We don't make arrests just based on harms to society, we also consider ease of enforcement and likelihood of winning in court. Governments generally don't pass laws that are impossible to enforce, as it hurts their credibility as a source of power.

Which is inconsequential to the parent's argument, as arresting illegal immigrants does not fall into that category.

>As a result, some types of crimes that cause far more harm to society go entirely unpunished, where easy targets face the full weight of the law.

That happens all the time, yes (actually there's an ancient quote about this "Laws are like spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones").

[speedplane]

>> We don't make arrests just based on harms to society, we also consider ease of enforcement and likelihood of winning ...

> Which is inconsequential to the parent's argument, as arresting illegal immigrants does not fall into that category.

The parent was saying that we enforce laws that cause social harm, and that's why we arrest immigrants. I am suggesting that social harm is not the only reason we arrest immigrants, we do it because it's easy. If social harm was the primary concern, we would be focusing on far more harmful criminals.

[coldtea]

There's also a matter of whether a nation prioritizes its own people over foreigners that e.g. want to be immigrants.

If it doesn't (at least to some degree) then it doesn't make much sense for it to exist as a sovereign nation (in the trivial case, everybody could come in that wants it at anytime).

If it does, some discrimination and sending back of illegal immigrants is inevitable.

The situation is a little trickier for the US though, because itself is a hodgepodge nation made up of immigrants (were most conventional nations have a larger degree of homogeneity). So it can't in good faith say "no immigrants" (at best it can say, "no more immigrants, there's enough of us already here").

(Of course those immigrants first got to exterminate the natives and get their land, so the origins of the US is not exactly a success story for peaceful immigration...)

[drb91]

Those stoners keep rioting! Throw ‘em in jail and ignore their skin color.

[winter_blue]

> Society has decided that undocumented immigration is harmful

No, it hasn't. The only reason the Dream Act didn't pass in 2010 was because of the Senate filibuster (despite Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency). The Senate, a wholly undemocratic institution to begin with, blocked the Dream Act with its effective 60% majority requirement for legislation.

In 2013, the Senate managed to pass a bipartisan immigration bill, but the Speaker of the House blocked it[1]. Despite there being majority support among members of the House. Why was it blocked then? Because of the Hastert Rule[2].

We should also ask: how did the Republicans have a majority in the House in 2013? Democrats received 1.4 million votes in 2012[3]. Yet, Republicans won because of massive gerrymandering[4]. Ugly, undemocratic gerrymandering.

So if the United States were a more representative democracy, most of the undocumented immigrants in this country would have had rights and freedom already. Even that hate-filled orange turd has become President despite losing the popular vote by 3 million.

Current immigration laws are rooted in racism and xenophobia of the ugliest kind. Grover Norquist said it beautifully: "Historically, opposition to immigration in the United States has been racially and religiously motivated in the ugliest, nastiest way possible"[5].

Pew Research studies have shown that the majority of Americans are pro-immigrant, and want to grant legal status to the undocumented[6]. Moreover, some pro-immigrant folk might still vote Republican due to wanting lower taxes, pro-life views, opposition to large government, etc.

The only reason pro-immigrant policy has not become the law is because a minority is allowed to dictate policy thanks to a bunch of highly undemocratic institutions and practices.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Oppo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_House_of_Re...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

[5] https://reason.com/video/grover-norquist-on-open-borders-and...

[6] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/majority-of...

[pjc50]

> Society has decided that undocumented immigration is harmful to it, it's as simple as that.

(Parts of) society have also decided that climate change isn't real and vaccines don't work. This is the 21st century, we could at least try having evidence of what the harm is supposed to be.