[simonh]

So the question is what are the appropriate consequences? This is a reasonable point of debate.

On the one hand the consequences probably shouldn't be nothing. On the other they probably shouldn't be irrevocably tearing apart their family, deporting the adults abroad sometimes to the wrong country and then losing track of their young children in the social services system, as a terror tactic to try and scare other visa violators into line.

[mattsfrey]

A legislative debate, which is my entire point. People aren't showing anywhere near the level of vitriol that ICE receives towards the local police for enforcing laws that are IMO far more ridiculous. Currently in many states people are torn from their families to be placed in cages and children are dumped into facilities because their parents possessed a benign plant which happens to be legal in a plurality of states -- there's no outrage because there's not the full force of the zeitgeist beaming it through the telescreens as a crisis for political purposes. I don't agree with any of it personally but just have to scoff at the hypocrisy.

[simonh]

It would be hypocrisy if the same people that approved of tearing families apart in one case disapproved of it in the other. That tends not to be the case though, generally speaking the people who disapprove of one also disapprove of the other. The level of agitation about them is mainly a matter of pragmatism, not hypocrisy.

As for the people who generally approve of both, they may not be hypocrites, unless they also profess to be pro family and traditional values in which case yes very, very much, but that would be one of the mildest terms I'd use for them if it were applicable.