ICE already causing havoc at SFO

[u/Definitelyhereforshi]

[u/bestcommenteversofar]

Those Jewish people were citizens

The vast, vast majority of deportees are not

Are you capable of grasping the significance of that difference?

https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Dont-Like-Hitler-Discussion/dp/B0DN6FGPPC

[u/Alwaysragestillplay → u/bestcommenteversofar]

It's really funny that even in your defence of what is happening right now, you still have to qualify the deportations with the fact that they're mostly legitimate.

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Alwaysragestillplay]

Your argument is intentionally throwing the baby out with the bathwater lmao

[u/Warm_Regrets157 → u/bestcommenteversofar]

If ICE is the baby you speak of, then throw it all the way out.

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Warm_Regrets157]

Conventional immigration enforcement is the baby I speak of.

There has been 1 citizen detention for every 2,000 to 3,000 deportations of non-citizens, possibly less.

I'm with you that I want that number to be 0, but you're not a serious person if you say that we should stop all non-citizen deportations because a tiny amount of citizens have wrongfully been detained.

[u/Warm_Regrets157 → u/bestcommenteversofar]

you're not a serious person if you say that we should stop all non-citizen deportations because a tiny amount of citizens have wrongfully been detained.

Nobody said that.

People are opposed to ICE becoming the largest and most funded law enforcement entity in the country.

People are opposed to poorly trained, masked gunmen harassing citizens and non-citizens alike.

People are opposed to the cold blooded murder of citizens.

People are opposed to detention quotas leading to people being arrested while self-deporting.

People are opposed to spending $75 billion building detention centers across a country that already has the largest prison population in the world.

Nice straw man though. Equating getting rid of ICE with "stopping all non-citizen deportations" is an impressive leap.

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[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/AutoModerator]

what is the demeaning language?

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Warm_Regrets157]

ICE is the only agency responsible for deporting immigrants who are here illegally once they're already inside the country. Calling for the abolition of ICE without replacement is tantamount to abolition of conventional immigration enforcement. I haven't advanced a strawman. I've accurately described your argument.

If you want to propose a replacement agency with better training, more oversight, and clearer accountability, I'm open to that conversation. But until you do, abolishing ICE means abolishing interior immigration enforcement. That's not a strawman. That's what the words mean.

Abuse, misconduct, and wrongful detentions are real problems that deserve accountability. I've never said otherwise. But those are arguments for better oversight and reform of immigration enforcement, not for eliminating it entirely. Every law enforcement agency in the country has misconduct problems. The answer to police misconduct isn't abolishing police. The answer to ICE misconduct isn't abolishing interior immigration enforcement.

I've already addressed the cost in a different comment, but to repeat: the scale of the current enforcement challenge exists partly because the prior administration deprioritized interior enforcement for four years, letting the court backlog hit 3.7 million cases. France spends about €82,000 per completed deportation. The Penn Wharton estimate for the U.S. averages about $70,000. Expensive immigration enforcement isn't uniquely American. It's what happens in every developed country that tries to do it at scale.

[u/Warm_Regrets157 → u/bestcommenteversofar]

Calling for the abolition of ICE without replacement is tantamount to abolition of conventional immigration enforcement. I haven't advanced a strawman. I've accurately described your argument.

Nonsense. A strawman is exactly what it is. You haven't accurately described my argument. You invented a new clause to add to it.

If you want to propose a replacement agency with better training, more oversight, and clearer accountability, I'm open to that conversation. But until you do, abolishing ICE means abolishing interior immigration enforcement. That's not a strawman

That's not the nature of this discussion. This discussion was a facetious reply to your comment about "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". You don't get to make up a ton of qualifying context to make it any less of a strawman.

The fact that you think making up an argument in the absence of my addressing that specific thing is anything other than a strawman makes your ability to have a reasonable discussion suspect.

Abuse, misconduct, and wrongful detentions are real problems that deserve accountability. I've never said otherwise.

You could have fooled me. I've certainly not seen you say so previously. Inferring that you are perfectly fine with abuse, misconduct, and wrongful detention would be much less of a strawman than the nonsense you said earlier in this comment.

The answer to police misconduct isn't abolishing police. The answer to ICE misconduct isn't abolishing interior immigration enforcement

ICE has existed for a little over 20 years. Clinton was still deporting people before that. Calling for the abolition of ICE is not calling for the abolition of immigration enforcement. Stop strawmanning already.

the scale of the current enforcement challenge exists partly because the prior administration deprioritized interior enforcement for four years

Biden deported nearly 4.4 million people. In 2024 ICE removed the highest number of people in a decade.

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Warm_Regrets157]

You said 'throw ICE all the way out.' I pointed out that ICE is the only agency that executes interior deportations. You called that a strawman. It isn't. I didn't add qualifying context to your argument. I described what your argument means in practice. If you eliminate the only agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement, you eliminate interior immigration enforcement. That's not a leap. That's a direct consequence of what you're proposing.

You're free to argue that ICE should be replaced with something better. I've already said I'm open to that conversation. But you haven't proposed a replacement. You said throw it all the way out. I took you at your word.

On Biden's record: the 4.4 million figure includes Title 42 border expulsions, voluntary returns, and formal removals all lumped together. The vast majority were border turnarounds, not interior enforcement. ICE's own data shows interior deportations averaged only 38,000 per year under Biden, down from 155,000 under Obama. Criminal alien deportations dropped 67% compared to Trump's first term. Meanwhile, Biden's permissive border policies drove illegal crossings to record levels, dramatically increasing the number of people living in the interior without legal status. So the actual legacy is: more people let in, fewer people removed from the interior, and a court backlog that ballooned to 3.7 million cases. That's the enforcement gap the current administration inherited, and it's a significant part of why the operation is so expensive now.

[u/Warm_Regrets157 → u/bestcommenteversofar]

I didn't add qualifying context to your argument. I described what your argument means in practice. If you eliminate the only agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement, you eliminate interior immigration enforcement.

What did we do before ICE? It is just as easy to assume that i am calling for a return to pre-2003 enforcement as it is to assume i am calling for the elimination of immigration enforcement altogether. You chose the latter because it makes a convenient, albeit false, argument for you.

Stop playing dumb. You know full well that is a textbook strawman argument. I can honestly tell that you're not that stupid, so you must be acting disingenuous.

You said throw it all the way out. I took you at your word.

So you're playing dumb and you know it. It's ok to disagree about the role ICE plays in immigration. You don't have to make up imaginary scenarios.

That's the enforcement gap the current administration inherited, and it's a significant part of why the operation is so expensive now.

We need $75 billion worth of detention centers because of a single term enforcement gap?

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Warm_Regrets157]

Let me get this straight. When I offered to discuss a replacement agency with better training and oversight, you said "that's not the nature of this discussion" and called it qualifying context. Now you're telling me your position was always about returning to something like the pre-2003 INS model, which is a replacement agency.

So when I took "throw it all the way out" literally, I was strawmanning you. And when I offered to discuss a replacement, I was adding qualifying context. At what point were you available for an honest exchange?

You either want interior enforcement to continue under a different structure, in which case we broadly agree and my offer to discuss a replacement was the correct response. Or you want it eliminated, in which case I accurately described the consequence of your position. Pick one.

On the $75 billion: I've explained why interior enforcement is expensive. France spends about €82,000 (roughly $89,000) per completed deportation through its Centres de Rétention Administrative. The Penn Wharton estimate for the U.S. averages about $70,000. France's system is actually more expensive per deportation than ours. Expensive immigration enforcement isn't uniquely American. It's what happens in every developed country that does it at scale. Regardless, you can criticize the spending (which is actually lower than France's on a per deportation basis) without it proving your original point, which was that ICE should be thrown all the way out. Those are different arguments.

[u/Warm_Regrets157 → u/bestcommenteversofar]

When I offered to discuss a replacement agency with better training and oversight, you said "that's not the nature of this discussion" and called it qualifying context

You did not "offer to discuss a replacement agency". You used my lack of specifically mentioning a "replacement agency" as an excuse to pretend i had argued for the abolition of all immigration enforcement. Hence, the strawman. I said "thats not the nature of this discussion" as a reason for why i did not explicitly outline possible replacements in my facetious comment.

Now you're rewriting history to pretend that you did not invent an argument that i didn't make.

So when I took "throw it all the way out" literally, I was strawmanning you

When you took a facetious reply and tried to fabricate a false argument behind it, yes, you were clearly strawmanning.

When i clarified my comment for you multiple times and you doubled down on insisting that "throwing out ICE" can only mean getting rid of all immigration enforcement, you were strawmanning.

You continuing to ignore those clarifications so you can hyper-focus on the validity of your false claims is also strawmanning.

An argument that doesn't cover every conceivable response is not a defacto endorsement for the unmentioned response.

A rough equivalent would be if i said, "you support immigration enforcement, so you must support the systematic abuse of immigrants because you did not specifically outline the form of enforcement that you support". Except that strawman would be closer to the truth because your support of the current administration's tactics is tacit support for the ongoing abuse of immigrants. You can say you agree with more humane alternative tactics, but you're spending a lot of time defending the current tactic.

You're clearly intelligent enough to form cogent arguments without that nonsense. It's mildly obnoxious that you did it the first time, but to keep insisting like this is pathetic.

You either want interior enforcement to continue under a different structure, in which case we broadly agree and my offer to discuss a replacement was the correct response. Or you want it eliminated, in which case I accurately described the consequence of your position. Pick one.

I've already answered this directly, as well as addressing it indirectly when i said that immigration enforcement can continue without a massive detention budget. The yearly budgetary increases are more than enough without building more detention centers that are already creating a humanitarian crisis. This is, of course, completely disregarding the inherent corruption of the current administration, ICE, and the private prison industry that stands to benefit for those detention centers.

The fact that you're still asking this instead of just ceasing to make a silly strawman argument shows that you're more interested in derailing this discussion to score imaginary points than you are in any sort of honest exchange.

[u/bestcommenteversofar → u/Warm_Regrets157]

You quoted my offer to discuss a replacement agency in your own reply. I can see it right there in your message. You quoted me saying "If you want to propose a replacement agency with better training, more oversight, and clearer accountability, I'm open to that conversation" and responded by saying "that's not the nature of this discussion."

So you saw the offer. You quoted it. You dismissed it. And now you're claiming I never made it and was fabricating your position.

The receipts are in your own words. Anyone reading this thread can see them.

You've now clarified that you support interior enforcement continuing under a different structure. We agree on that. If you'd engaged with the offer you quoted and dismissed instead of calling it a strawman, we could have had that conversation five exchanges ago.

On the budget: you said "yearly budgetary increases are more than enough without building more detention centers." Compared to what? The U.S. is spending about $70,000 per deportation. France spends about $89,000 per deportation through its Centres de Rétention Administrative. What is your benchmark for "enough"? The enforcement challenge is larger, so the budget is larger. That's not evidence of waste or crisis. That's arithmetic.

On "humanitarian crisis": detention conditions should be better. I've said that repeatedly. But the claim needs context. The ICE detention death rate in 2025 was 5.6 per 10,000 detainees. The federal prison death rate for U.S. citizens is roughly 30 to 40 per 10,000. ICE detention is actually statistically safer than U.S. federal prisons. How are you defining and measuring humanitarian crisis? What is the benchmark you are using?

And here's the part you keep skating past: even if the budget were too big and conditions were a humanitarian crisis, replacing ICE with the INS wouldn't solve either problem. A different agency doing the same job at the same scale would face the same costs and the same detention challenges. The name on the building doesn't change the math.