[gaoshan]

ICE has been detaining Chinese people in my area (and going door to door in at least one neighborhood where a lot of Chinese and Indians live). I was hearing about this just last week as word spread amongst the Chinese community here (Ohio) to make sure you have some legal documentation beyond just your driver's license on you at all times for protection. People will hear about this through the grapevine and it has a massive (and rightly so) chilling effect. US labs can try but with US government behaving like it is I don't think they will have much luck.

*edit: not that it matters, but since MAGA can't help but assume, these are all US citizens and green card holders that I am referring to.

[bobthepanda]

Yeah, the Hyundai factory fiasco kind of dashed the idea that the enforcement would spare people working in favored industries setting up in the US.

[genxy]

The Hyundai factory "enforcement" wasn't even legal. Those workers were here to train US workers and the Hyundai employees had proper visas for this.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-raid-hyundai-korea-ic...

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/20251112/hundred...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/attorney-says-detained-k...

The regime is powered by racism and doesn't think through things.

[limagnolia]

Allegedly, though the local labor unions seem to disagree. I guess we'll have to wait for the facts to come out in court.

[jjcc]

There are 2 groups of new Chinese immigrants in the US, they are quite different:

1.Those who arrived through legal channels (most studied at U.S. universities and remained on H1B visas, with a smaller number through EB5 or other visa categories) and eventualy got green card.

2.Undocumented immigrants, which include several sub-groups/waves. In the 1990s, most came from just a couple provinces, Fujian and southern Zhejiang. After COVID, they were from different parts of China and entered through the southern border.

The contributors to AI development belong to the 1st group. They are spread across the country but a large number work in high-tech companies in Northern California.

The 2nd group was intially concentrated in New York and Southern California (Los Angeles area). Later they have expanded into nearby regions. They provide labor for Chinese-owned small businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels.

There is an industry created largely by Chinese political dissidents helping Group 2 through asylum applications using fake materials and exploiting common Western beliefs or narratives about China like human rights concerns. For example, Alysa Liu’s father is an asylum lawyer.

ICE enforcement efforts would likely focus more on Group 2 if they are knowledgable. Ohio should not be a high-priority area. I could be wrong due to changes over time. One indicator you can observe: Are there many Chinese-owned small businesses in your area?

[gaoshan]

They were operating in a traditional "China town" neighborhood for the detentions and the neighborhood they were going door to door in is one populated mostly by white collar professionals (tech, college professors, etc.).

[hedora]

ICE arrests citizens and legal immigrants on a regular basis. Only 5% of the people they arrested had an immigration related conviction on their record:

https://www.cato.org/blog/5-ice-detainees-have-violent-convi...

The Bay Area is mostly exempt for now because, after Trump announced ICE was going to surge in SF, a bunch of tech billionaires with economic interests in the region convinced him not to.

Also, over the last year, there have been a bunch of high-profile arrests of Ohioans by ICE. In one example, they arrested someone for showing up to their immigration hearing, leaving their young kid separated from them outside the court.

[jiggawatts]

"Papers, please." comes to the US of A.

[coredog64]

"Papers, please" is not just ID, but also authorization to travel internally. The idea that asking for ID* is anywhere equivalent is asinine.

*Reminder that folks visiting the US on a visa are legally required by the terms of said visa to always carry upon their person at least a copy of identity papers backing up that visa, and that this law has been in place for a very long time.

[gunsle]

You have to show ID to pick up a prescription or open a bank account. You have to show ID for routine traffic stops. This is such a juvenile, tired argument.

[baby_souffle]

“You show ID at the bank” is a classic, juvenile and tired argument because it swaps in a voluntary transaction for state coercion.

The concern isn’t IDs exist—it’s who’s demanding them, in what context, and what happens if you can’t comply on the spot.

[jiggawatts]

Not to mention that the USA has a long history of looking down their nose at the USSR for doing exactly what the USA is doing now.

I forgot that HN is mostly filled with a younger generation that might not get the reference.

The "Papers, please." quote is a common trope in spy movies, books, etc... about the former Soviet Union.

[binarycrusader]

You absolutely do not have to show ID to pick up every prescription; just some, which is also dependent on state law, federal law, and pharmacy.

But also, I don't care if it's a tired argument--this isn't about how things are, it's about how we want them to be. I don't want to live in a state action-coerced society.

[z3t4]

In Sweden you have to use your Bank ID to take the buss. Meaning the bank has the same security as entering the bus. If you get robbed in Sweden they take your bank ID, use it to take a loan and then transfers all your money to a foreign bank. Because we got rid of manual cash.

[brorfred]

Can you expand on this? SL accepts any credit card for purchasing single tickets and I assume you can buy an SL card using cash in for example Seven Eleven? Also, the issue with bank ID when you are robbed is identical to any bank app anywhere, isn't it?

[DiogenesKynikos]

Imagine if you forgot to bring your ID card to the bank, and they grabbed you and the next thing you knew, you were in a concentration camp in El Salvador.

[nomel]

Every administration since the foundation of ICE has removed illegal immigrants and funded ICE and immigration policy/border operations [1].

[1] Removals by president: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-re...

[littlestymaar]

Every developed country on earth has an immigration policy and an administration dedicated to enforcing it.

No other developed countries have masked goons abducting people in public wearing civil clothes and masks and disregarding every laws of the country (violating private property and foreign embassies, deporting national citizens, and numerous other preposterous bullshit).

Immigration policy enforcement is normal, the madness that has been running in the US for a year isn't.

[fragmede]

Yes, but the difference in degree, and how are material. The big showy Hyundai plant raid is an example of something that hasn't happened before. Under Obama there were I-9 audits of Infosys, and under Clinton there was a raid of a Filiberto's, but both of those weren't of foreign workers here to train Americans.

[the_gipsy]

Yes what's happening is totally normal, everybody does it all the time.

[sourcegrift]

Yes. Yes, so true. And the phd types building these models are probably even scared in China that ICE will fly there to deport them.

[jwolfe]

This thread is about bringing these people to the US.

[swiftcoder]

There's no huge reason to bring them to the US. Plenty of US corporations have maintain overseas offices. Even if its impolitic to employ them directly in China, you can employ them in other offices (for example, Amazon has been known to do this with their Singapore offices)

[user34283]

This thread is largely pointless political back-and-forth were predictably the comments with a more positive opinion on current US immigration enforcement will be flagged.

To get back to the original point, personally I doubt sentiment on US immigration enforcement would be so significant a deterrent for Chinese talent, who may not share the political views of the American left for whom this is a big concern.

[Matl]

> pointless political back-and-forth were predictably the comments with a more positive opinion on current US immigration enforcement will be flagged

Given the tactics employed by ICE, it's a true shock and horror that most people have more humanity than that.

But I guess a person who can't form a grammatically correct sentence is an example of the sort of people who can rest easy,