[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.