Otherwise, you have a 'king' issuing general warrants which allow federal agents to search and seize anyone they want in the course of their investigations based on 'feels'. What makes it even worse is some court said racial profiling is sufficient reason to conduct a Terry stop to determine if the person is engaged in (civil) criminal activity and lets law enforcement demand they show their papers or be scanned by some dodgy app.
Meanwhile last week I was in LA for a family thing and caught some TV ads playing there. That dog-killing gnome woman was on TV saying something like "We will hunt you down and deport you, there is no hiding, leave now". Initially I thought I was watching some comedy skit, but no it was an official US government advert.
Whether I'm in Montana or in LA vastly changes my perception of what's considered ok in America today.
An ICE officer can't just detain somebody for having an accent or whatever, but if they have probable cause to think the person may not be a citizen then they have a substantial amount of leverage to affirm that. Probable cause has been tested somewhat rigorously in the courts and really means probable cause and not the knee-jerk obvious abuses like 'he's brown!'
Do you just throw up your hands “i guess there is nothing we can do”?
What I find entertaining as a non-US citizen is how border enforcement is table stakes in every other country I’ve lived in (5 so far). Even the left doesn’t question it, it’s a basic function of a government.
Even the less developed countries have relatively straightforward enforcement. You produce proof you’re there legally or you’re put on the next flight home.
Since I lived in the US people keep asking me why some Americans don’t want border security. I don’t have a good answer.
Citation needed lol.
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cincinnati-...
That ONE CBP office in the US. And it’s not even in a state with a high population of illegal aliens. There are 20 offices in the US.
And sure creating fraudulent documents from scratch isn’t easy. But it’s not that hard to use someone else’s identity to get documents that support US citizenship. Hell, a paper social security card is proof as long as it doesn’t say “NOT WORK AUTHORIZED on it.
So it wouldn’t even be that unusual to locate an alien that the database says (correctly) has a deportation order but for them to claim US citizenship and even produce a document that looks like they are.
You can even read a nice CBP report on the problems they have with fraudulent documents.
https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2025-09/O...
There is a lot of constitutional law here, not a lot of ambiguity. While mistakes happen, and ICE is clearly becoming more eager to violate the law (see TFA), that doesn't mean we should be unclear about what the law says. In particular, prioritizing the (incorrect) results from an app over any sort of claim or presentation of proof is illegal.
We made these decisions for various reasons, but broadly because the voters felt that US citizenship and lawfullness should be presumptions, rather than something you had to prove in order to enjoy your rights as a citizen.
For an immigration agent, this is really tough. You have to identify unauthorized immigrants in an environment where you can't just require lawful citizens to carry ID or proof of citizenship. You legally can't arrest or (more than briefly) detain a US citizen for failure to carry citizenship documents. You have to walk on eggshells even with actual unauthorized immigrants, to avoid violating the law. And our proof-of-identity document systems are deliberately decentralized and unreliable, so you can't just check a master database. It's a tough problem!
But that's the way the cookie crumbles. We designed our society to make this kind of "papers please" enforcement difficult, which means that immigration enforcement needs to be smarter and more savvy, or else we need to actually change the laws. What ICE and CBP are trying to do now is just to ignore the law, and that doesn't work. Citizens' built this law to protect their rights; you can't just take away those rights because CBP have a tough job.
My only point is that when a deportation order shows a name and face, people can still produce fraudulent documents showing they are a citizen.
It’s not a uniquely American problem.
So how do you discourage this? We could start prosecuting and imprisoning people with fake documents, but that would send our already absurd prison population through the roof and cost immense amounts of money. An alternative way is exactly what this article is about.
If you want a national estimate that grossly undercounts, just multiply by the 20 field offices. Now we’re in the hundreds of thousands.
As I said in a different comment, we US folks have decided as a society that we don’t want to have mandatory difficult-to-forge national ID. When asked this question democratically, US voters and their representatives have repeatedly* turned down this option and explicitly banned the Federal government from issuing Federal ID cards outside of optional passports for international travel. We made this decision precisely because we distrust the sort of Federal government that would require us to carry that sort of document. There is nothing accidental about this, and you can find explicit statements of this bipartisan consensus all over real Federal legislation; there’s really no possibility that we did this by accident or without due consideration of the tradeoffs.
You’re correct that this lack of standardized documentation makes the immigration enforcer’s job harder, since they can’t just force people to produce proof-of-citizenship on demand and they can’t detain US citizens, and they can’t necessarily trust every paper document they’re given. I’m sympathetic! But that’s the tradeoff we’ve made as a society. The answer is not “throw out the rule book and risk depriving citizens of their rights because our job is hard.” The answer is: respect the rules you were given and due the best job you can without depriving US citizens of their rights.
And PS this situation is hardly unique: we also make ordinary cops’ jobs harder by requiring them to respect suspects’ civil rights and demanding probable cause to make an arrest. It’s tough! The result there is that cops have to work harder and be smarter; they don’t just get to detain anyone they want just because they might vaguely hypothetically be a criminal.
If the paperwork is that easy to duplicate, it's on the government to make it more difficult, not beating in the faces of citizens until they produce documentation they don't have.
And now you need every single one of these events to occur, simultaneously. The chances of this happening is practically zero. And even if somehow this does happen, which it won't, it's at worst a significant inconvenience for the person who somehow managed to win the reverse lottery. Though in this case perhaps it's not even entirely the reverse lottery - because there'd be a big paycheck awaiting them in lawsuits, crowdfunding, media fees, and so on.
I simply don't see false positives as a realistic concern here, whatsoever. Going with your analog with the police I'd mention e.g. DNA tests or finger prints. These do have non-zero failure rates, but they're still regularly used to convict people simply because the failure rate is seen as acceptably low. And in this case, the conditional probability we're speaking of is probably even lower, and with much less at stake!
Hundreds of thousands of aliens with fraudulent documents seems like a huge problem to me.
Keep in mind it’s US law for every alien to keep documentation of legal status on their person at all times (US code 8 USC § 1304(e)).
Since we know fraudulent documents are not uncommon, then immigration officials must have some powers to validate a person’s status if uncertainty remains.
You can’t start with this premise, though. Recent rulings allow stops based on “probable cause” such as a combination of “speaks Spanish”, “is brown”, and “is in a place where we think illegal immigrants might be”.
So like: any Latino US citizen, who happens to be working someplace like a landscaping company. Or a kitchen.
The idea that citizens aren’t likely to be targets is now laughable. And we have ample reporting indicating that in fact, citizens are being detained, for hours and hours (if not longer).
And as I was demonstrating above, the conditional probabilities required for a false positive from this app mean that it's practical effective accuracy rate will likely be 100%.
[1] - https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09/23/new-milestone-over-2-mil...
You're free to hope for these things if you want. But hoping does not make them true.
Obviously in case (1) you can just detain and carefully identify people, since they're actually doing dangerous things and you'll have probable cause to detain them. Note that this was the case that nearly all the 2024 election rhetoric was focused on (i.e., deporting the "rapists and murders".)
In practice we're seeing that the true goal is (2), rapid emergency deportation and arrest of non-criminal immigrants. There is absolutely no emergency that requires this to be done quickly or carelessly, such that there's any risk to US citizens' (or immigrants) civil rights. It can be done carefully, with strong evidence, without violating civil rights. But of course, violating civil rights and creating disorder appears to be the goal.
…based on what, the independent research ProPublica did? DHS doesn’t even keep statistics on how many citizens they detain so I’m not sure we should be assuming the numbers here are that low.
In other words, ICE's errors are highly visible. That my approximation aligns with ProPublica's (which is probably a higher end ballpark since I doubt they were especially critical of any claims they discovered) is unsurprising.
The reason divides on these sort of issues are probably irreconcilable is because of stuff like this. So many people seem to have missed the point of the childhood story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Controlling who enters and stays in your country is just table stakes for a functioning state. Without it, you don’t even have control over basic things like security.
In every other country I’ve lived in anyone who enters illegally or overstays is promptly removed.
So to answer your question, fraudulent documents is a massive problem. Now not only do you have no control over who enters and stays you have no ability to even determine who these people are even if you do encounter them.
I would be quite interested to know if you can cite sources on that.
> And we also live in the social media age where nothing gets more of those sacred likes and other such things (including that sweet sweet GoFundMe money) than framing oneself as a victim.
What, exactly, is your argument here? That it’s all fine because you think people will play victim and strike it rich on GoFundMe? I’m struggling to see what point you’re actually trying to make.
> They are actively trying to make a mountain out of every single molehill, yet they are clearly finding themselves annoyingly short of molehills.
Sources? Please list out what molehills were made into mountains. What evidence do you have that they are actively trying to do it because of their “bias”? You’re regurgitating tired, right-wing talking points. Back it up with evidence if you’re so sure about it.
> which is probably a higher end ballpark since I doubt they were especially critical of any claims they discovered
Well, sure. Let’s see some evidence that they weren’t critical enough with their reporting. My understanding is that they are a highly respected journalistic outfit. What makes you so sure they were playing fast and loose with the facts?
Now go frame by frame at about the 5.5s mark. You can see the individual in question charge and then thrust his body in front of the responding ICE officer (watch how he leans left into the officer before they are in physical contact) to create a physical altercation. He then attempts to grab the legs of the officer as he jogs away. The same guy then comes out for more, and pushes one ICE officer dealing with somebody else, and then starts grappling with another ICE officer before he's finally tackled and arrested.
Media Framing:
- Surveillance footage shows Ice agents pushing 79-year-old man to the ground (Guardian)
- Car wash owner files $50M claim over injuries sustained during immigration raid (ABC)
- 79-year-old US citizen pinned by ICE agents (Fox)
- California wash owner tackled, arrested 'impeding' ICE arrest (USA Today)
- U.S. citizen files civil rights claim after ICE raid at his car wash (NBC)
As this is the first video ProPublica featured, presumably they think that's the most compelling case. In any case it's certainly one of their cases which are supposed to be injust, yet there wasn't even the slightest injustice there whatsoever. And now he wants $50 million lol. I'd also add that ProPublica implies that the government dropping charges in cases is because of lack of merit. In reality it's going to be a balance of gain:loss from such. This is one of those cases where the charges were dropped, but obviously that was not done for lack of merit.
[1] - https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/florida-sheriffs...
[2] - https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
What you see as “thrusting” sure looks to me like he was trying to stop himself from a full-on run - why did he grab a door handle on the wall? Why would you grab and pull like that if you were trying to tackle?
And “grabbing his legs”… come on man. That looks a hell of a lot like an old man flailing after getting tackled.
And you think he grappled with the officer before getting arrested outside? It looks like precisely the opposite.
I’m sorry, I just can’t buy what you’re selling.
The reason he grabbed the door handle is because in his mind he thought he was going to be the one knocking the officer down. He's a big and very aggressive guy that's this spry at 79 - I'm positive this wasn't even remotely close to his first rodeo. He grabbed on to help maintain balance.
As another issue he wasn't running anywhere in particular, except towards the officer. As soon as he collides, he then gets up from crashing into him he turns around and starts racing back towards him again. He then pushes the other officer at 28 seconds and begins grappling with yet a third officer at 30 seconds. He's then tackled at 35 seconds.
Given he was not arrested for intentionally crashing into the first officer I think ICE was generally trying their hardest to ignore him, but that probably became impossible about the point he actively decided to start grappling with them.
My bad. Didn’t realize you already knew his heart, and that this was premeditated. And that you clearly know who his employees were and that they were here illegally.
Whoops. Since we know they’re guilty, I guess all that’s left to do is find the evidence!
Enjoy yourself. I won’t engage in this uncharitable, ugly discussion with you anymore. I hope you find peace in you heart, and I hope others treat you with the charity and dignity you’re clearly unwilling to give others.
He actually gave an explanation for this which we clearly know is a lie - he claimed that "when he tried to speak with the agents and show them the legal paperwork for his employees, they shoved him to the ground, and at least one agent put his knee on Shouhed’s neck." [1] He probably wasn't aware the outside altercation had been recorded. Where's the paperwork? And in this case 5 illegal aliens were arrested, including one who had already been arrested and deported twice previously.
There's a balance to all things in life. Obviously we should not be blindly prejudiced against individuals on one extreme, yet on the equal but opposite extreme one can be so open minded that your brain falls out.
[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-sued-for-50m-over-immig...