Please don't instigate flamewars about the relative badness of superpowers on HN. We're here for curious conversation, not political/ideological battle.
Right, because an agency supposedly meant for "immigration enforcement" being sent to cities of the President's opponents so they can crackdown on protests and harass citizens is different... how? Is being persecuted for your religion worse than being persecuted for your political beliefs?
There is a secret police force actively patrolling the streets, going door-to-door asking for papers, shooting American citizens and your response is "it's not that bad"?
This frames escalation as if it’s an inevitable byproduct of “not cooperating,” but that’s a choice. Sanctuary policies generally limit voluntary local participation (e.g., detainers without judicial warrants), they don’t “block” federal enforcement.
“If you don’t want door-to-door, cooperate” is basically saying federal agencies get to punish jurisdictions for lawful policy choices by switching to more coercive tactics. That’s not normal enforcement; it’s politicized leverage. And once you normalize that logic, it won’t stay confined to immigration.
> “If you don’t want door-to-door, cooperate” is basically saying federal agencies get to punish jurisdictions for lawful policy choices by switching to more coercive tactics.
If you make any level noncooperation law against federal law enforcement, you are effectively creating the requirement that for the feds to enforce the law the federal government has to change their tactics. That’s not punishment, it’s just the effect of the decision you made.
> That’s not normal enforcement; it’s politicized leverage.
It’s not normal enforcement, but neither is noncooperation. Sanctuary cities are not the norm. It’s a form of political leverage too.
> And once you normalize that logic, it won’t stay confined to immigration.
Right…and you could also say the same thing about sanctuary policies too. So what if a city or area decided that they were going to be a sanctuary for people who violate the civil rights act? Would the federal government be justified in using different tactics in its enforcement of that law?
There are threads here you don’t want to accidentally pull because they will unravel whole sections of cloth that you want to keep intact.
You pretending that this is merely federal agents enforcing immigration laws is delusion. Thousands of agents being sent to one city and hundreds more promised after backlash is not immigration enforcement, it's punishment for dissent.
> If you don’t want the door to door enforcement, have your local officials become cooperative in enforcing the immigration laws
Since when did States need to "cooperate" with federal law enforcement to avoid masked thugs terrorizing the populace? Weren't right wingers all about States' Rights under Democrat administrations?
> So no, I am not going to downplay and dishonor the victims of the the human rights violations of China by comparing it to what is happening here
I didn't ask you to "downplay" human rights violations done by China, I asked if you thought one type of persecution was worse than the other. Clearly you don't have an issue with the persecution happening in the US, so thanks for making that clear at least.
If you don’t like a law, change it. If your representatives are not representing you, elect new representatives who will.
If you don’t want immigration enforcement, don’t elect someone who ran on that platform.
And, no…I do not believe that our enforcing immigration laws that were passed in a bi-partisan and supported as is by presidents from both parties and enforced by presidents from both parties are in any way, shape, or form equivalent of what China has done specifically to the Uyghurs.
“They rounded us up, forced us into labor camps, and sterilized all of us, but at least we could see their faces. That’s so much better than being sent back to your hometown by someone wearing a neck gaiter”
People speaking out against Trump and ICE are getting shot in the head. So I really see no difference.
ICE is sending brown people and people with accents to concentration/death camps. Say what you will about the Uyghurs, but China provided them with their own rooms and toilet facilities. ICE has been forcing detainees to drink toilet water and eat moldy bread [1]. All while hiring rapists and violent criminals for their enforcement.
Really, the US is actually worse than what China was at this point and China was bad.
China is still far more repressive as a system (and Xinjiang is in its own category). The point isn’t equivalence; it’s convergence. Democracies don’t have to become ‘China’ to become unrecognizable fast, what matters is whether coercive tools are being politicized, whether oversight still bites, and whether abuses have consequences.
Personally I don't feel its constructive to discuss who's worst, because there are many axis they could be compared on. But when it comes to internal human rights violations, China has infrastructure in place for industrial control of dissent. The US is not there but is currently on a crash course towards authoritarianism
For a lot of countries China doesn't seem so bad now. Specially when the the difference between human rights in US and China are becoming smaller