zlacker

The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

submitted by fajmcc+(OP) on 2026-01-15 14:54:51 | 650 points 651 comments
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13. andrew+z7[view] [source] 2026-01-15 15:27:10
>>fajmcc+(OP)
For an idea as to how this gets translated into the reality on the ground here in Minneapolis this is an article on what’s going on from the main newspaper in the state.

> In the past week alone, ICE boxed in a Woodbury real estate agent recording their movements from his car, slammed him to the ground and detained him at the Whipple Federal Building near Fort Snelling for 10 hours. A 51-year-old teacher patrolling the Nokomis East community told the Star Tribune she was run off the road into a snowbank by ICE for laying on her horn. Officers shattered the car window of a woman attempting to drive past a raid in south Minneapolis to get to a doctor’s appointment nearby, then carried her through the street. Feds pushed an unidentified motorist through a red light into a busy intersection, reportedly fired projectiles at a pedestrian walking “too slowly” in a crosswalk and shoved Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Payne while he was observing their actions from a public sidewalk.

You can read the full thing here: https://www.startribune.com/have-yall-not-learned-federal-ag...

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16. ceejay+78[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:28:59
>>mosura+R6
> Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.

Like expanding Presidential immunity specifically for a President with 34 existing felony convictions?

Or the admin refusing to even investigate the agent in the Good shooting (https://www.axios.com/2026/01/14/ice-trump-minneapolis-inves...) while going after her widow (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/prosecutors-doj-resign...)?

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27. Sparkl+o9[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:32:26
>>biophy+c7
There are reports that ICE threw a flash bang into a vehicle last night that contained a father trying to leave with his children to get them to safety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbMO7u44LGM

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29. andsoi+L9[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:33:45
>>smt88+i7
> deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)

MOST states (purple, blue, red) have mail-in voting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_St...

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37. 10xDev+Oa[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:38:19
>>Sparkl+k8
This type of behaviour from Palantir is old news: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
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40. ceejay+Za[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:38:57
>>andsoi+L9
They're working on that.

Challenging the rules: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-revives-...

Changing the rules at USPS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-this-new-mail-rule-c...

And I'd fully expect some fuckery via executive orders closer to the election, and SCOTUS to use the emergency docket to let them "temporarily" be enforced.

49. m-hodg+Xb[view] [source] 2026-01-15 15:42:12
>>fajmcc+(OP)
I keep thinking about https://neveragain.tech
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71. browni+4e[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:48:48
>>Sparkl+k8
"The Palantir CEO is currently the 142nd richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $18.2 billion..."

https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/alex-karp...

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87. tencen+kg[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 15:56:02
>>nerdjo+ya
It was a boring database product in 2011. It expanded in scope over many years, and now has a much larger budget.

"That changed in the second Trump administration, with Palantir now working on ICE’s deportation efforts."

https://www.palantir.com/newsroom/press-releases/homeland-se...

"...Since 2011, Palantir has partnered with HSI"

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93. milton+Dh[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:00:10
>>CodeMa+Ee
We have technofascists trying to bring AI into the military and saying it's Star Trek. Star Trek! One of the most clearly socialist, "woke" tv series! Media literacy is not a conservative value while illiteracy and ignorance is.

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/01/pentagons-arsenal-of...

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113. staple+3k[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:07:56
>>ecshaf+09
You already lost your own bet.

"A pair of armed and masked men in tactical gear stood guard at ballot drop boxes in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 21 as people began early voting for the 2022 midterm elections."

They might be "off-duty" but this is during Biden's admin. They're immensely more emboldened now and local LE will absolutely not enforce any laws restricting this.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/06/election-officials-facing-ar...

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120. Permit+Sk[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:10:09
>>honeyc+8j
It's possible that different people flag the discussions you're referring to. That said, it looks like there have been ~7 threads with over 100 points on Iran in the last week alone: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=tru...

If anything, it appears that Minnesota/Minneapolis are under-discussed relative to Iran, no?

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121. wahnfr+Tk[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:10:10
>>numbsa+Tj
a few here: >>46634217
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127. Detect+dl[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:11:36
>>chinat+Ma
Palantir does not work in a vacuum - it requires other technology, platforms and systems to operate and succeed - many of which are designed and maintained by the users of Hacker News.

Take a look at Palantir's trust center: https://palantir.safebase.us

Schellman did their audit and compliance - do they have blood on their hands?

How about AWS, GCP, Azure cloud resources used by Palantir - are they stained, too?

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129. sjsdai+yl[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:12:52
>>Aurorn+V6
Hitler's regime didn't start out making death camps for Jews. The initial plan was to deport them, with camps for holding and processing. That was unrealistic given the volume of people to process, which led to the detention and work camps converting to death camps.

This is relevant to mention because the number of people in ICE detention right now is spiking: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.htm...

Just saying, similar outcomes could occur here. It's happened before. Their goals being unrealistic doesn't mean they'll stop, and may be part of their justification for doing even worse things than they're already doing.

131. datsci+Nl[view] [source] 2026-01-15 16:13:49
>>fajmcc+(OP)
Great time to bring up the Imperial Boomerang[1]. My paraphrasing: the weapons and technology that imperial and colonial powers develop or use to control subjugated populations will inevitably be used to also control its own population.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang

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140. andrub+en[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:18:52
>>ks2048+Oc
Mr "free speech" Musk (/s)

If it is this tweet you are referring to, it's about _teaching_ hate, which is only a slight nuance and still a terrible point to make for a self-labeled "free speech absolutist"

> Teaching people to hate America fundamentally destroys patriotism and the desire to defend our country.

> Such teachings should be viewed as treason and those who do it imprisoned.

https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2011519593492402617#m

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157. glial+Lo[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:23:32
>>Slight+T8
Here's a recent write-up by a local: https://wburdine.substack.com/p/letter-from-an-occupied-minn...
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174. speff+7r[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:32:14
>>no-dr-+bp
It’s hard to prove without knowing the app devs, but for points 1 & maybe 2, we can look at whether Americans think the raids are justified.

28% of them think they are [0]. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that the devs would be part of that number

Edit: it looks like the poll it’s for the recent incident of the woman who was shot - my mistake. Then I would assume the number for the raids themselves is higher

[0]: https://x.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016

190. aestet+Ms[view] [source] 2026-01-15 16:38:30
>>fajmcc+(OP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
196. Pwntas+lt[view] [source] 2026-01-15 16:40:09
>>fajmcc+(OP)
https://archive.ph/9UPzF
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201. silver+Qt[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:42:08
>>no-dr-+bp
> JP Doherty did not want to sign the email. But he knew he didn’t have a choice. His son, Rhys, was scheduled to have strabismus surgery in January, correcting an eye issue that made it difficult for him to walk on his own. The procedure cost $10,000 out of pocket. Doherty discussed the decision with his wife, and while she wanted him to be able to quit, they both knew the kids needed his health insurance. [0]

Regarding Musk's "hardcore" ultimatum at Twitter.

[0]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-ultimatum

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204. ceejay+9u[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:42:51
>>wat100+st
https://x.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744
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211. ceejay+ru[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:44:13
>>zbentl+uo
The "under the control of the mayor" bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc...

> Approximately 4,000 NYPD officers took part in a protest that included blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and jumping over police barricades in an attempt to rush City Hall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_San_Francisco_P...

> The ACLU obtained a court order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20, a bomb detonated at the Mayor's home with a sign reading "Don't Threaten Us" left on his lawn.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio...

> Among the hundreds of protesters arrested over the four days of demonstrations in New York City over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, only one was highlighted by name by a police union known for its hostility toward Mayor Bill de Blasio. The name of that protester? Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter.

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214. ryandr+Bu[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:44:44
>>amster+rn
> What constitutes this "high value"?

It's pretty simple[1].

1: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/family-guy-skin-color-chart

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239. ceejay+px[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:54:59
>>ryandr+9r
Florida made it one.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-p...

> Gov. Ron DeSantis said that drivers will not be at fault if they hit protesters that block roadways in a clip that took social media by storm.

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240. prapta+qx[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:55:01
>>Detect+dl
Yes, this is how market economy works. For every organization doing horrible things, literally everyone is a small number of payment-handshakes from it.

No, it doesn't mean that "mr gotcha"[1] argument is valid. You don't have to isolate yourself from society Kaczynski-style to either criticize society or to do something smaller (like choosing who you work for).

[1] https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

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245. Silver+Rx[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 16:56:55
>>chinat+Ma
It looks like their CTO is an Indian or Pakistani: https://investors.palantir.com/governance/executive-manageme...

I wonder how he feels about what the administration is doing and how his own work is directly helping them. Surely he is aware of all of the supremacist rhetoric coming from the official Twitter accounts of various government agencies or Elon Musk or Stephen Miller. Surely he has seen the kind of racist abuse that Vivek Ramaswami endured on Twitter, which led to him recently quitting social media.

Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?

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277. ceejay+uA[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:06:04
>>Silver+Rx
> Doesn’t he see how all of this is going to come for people like himself next?

People are often remarkably good at this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...

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278. prapta+zA[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:06:15
>>wat100+ws
That's not my experience from the time I worked for Google. The popular sentiment was actually "We now work for a company that dropped 'don't be evil' and that sucks". See Manu Cornet comics - they are a pretty good reflection of the sentiment I'm talking about, a random example https://goomics.net/387

And it's not like everyone just complained for moral posturing and then continued to wipe the tears of disgust with wads of cash. Many people who left also mentioned the ethics part as why they left.

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288. kilroy+9B[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:08:22
>>unstyl+s5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
301. Grosve+LC[view] [source] 2026-01-15 17:13:47
>>fajmcc+(OP)
This is extremely relevant for the current conversation. All this has happened before.

IBM and the holocaust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

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303. tremon+4D[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:15:09
>>Amezar+aA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
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320. ceejay+KE[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:20:58
>>krapp+4z
Same thing happened to Sears.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/4385-failing-to-plan-h...

> He radically restructured operations, splitting the company into thirty, and later forty, different units that were to compete against each other. Instead of cooperating, as in a normal firm, divisions such as apparel, tools, appliances, human resources, IT and branding were now in essence to operate as autonomous businesses, each with their own president, board of directors, chief marketing officer and statement of profit or loss. An eye-popping 2013 series of interviews by Bloomberg Businessweek investigative journalist Mina Kimes with some forty former executives described Lampert’s Randian calculus: “If the company’s leaders were told to act selfishly, he argued, they would run their divisions in a rational manner, boosting overall performance.”

345. duxup+9I[view] [source] 2026-01-15 17:31:11
>>fajmcc+(OP)
I suspect they are using it in this encounter, where someone just out for a walk is harassed by armed men…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/1qbawlr/minnea...

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346. gehwar+gI[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:31:28
>>oxqbld+28
Some guy on X recently commented on how “dystopian” Flock’s nationwide surveillance is.

Response by Garry Tan (CEO of YC)[1]

“You're thinking Chinese surveillance

US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims”

[1] https://x.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955

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351. dragon+OI[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:33:41
>>buelle+DC
> My counter-hypothesis is that America has never really known authoritarianism

Funny, because the racist authoritarians most people point to as the canonical example were themselves directly inspired by the US example. I think a more realistic reason is that this particular brand of race-heirarchy-based authoritarianism that mostly only affects white folks if they are seen as challenging what it does to everyone else has been normalized in the US since before the founding, varying only in intensity and the degree to which its intent is overly stated.

TL;DR: https://x.com/i/status/1131996074011451392

This is NOT what America is about. America is about opens history book

uh oh

Frantically starts flipping though pages

uh oh. oh no. no no no. uh oh

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368. newfri+sK[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:41:51
>>embedd+dH
There is a huge difference between turning people away at the border and tallying a "deportation", and removing people from the interior of the US.

The flow of illegal aliens crossing the border has largely been eliminated. [1]

> should you favor a more peaceful and efficient process? Instead of a more violent and less efficient process?

I want a process that actually works. There has been no serious headway made in the number of illegal aliens for decades until now. [2]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...

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382. bright+EL[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 17:47:15
>>pstuar+kH
The “those people” comment is kinda the issue though isn’t it?

I generally try to assume that everyone has good intentions, but we’re all being fed massive amounts of different information. I learned years ago that it wasn’t an issue of people reporting things that were factually inaccurate, it was an issue of people leaving out details to frame the story in the context that supports your readers/viewers belief system.

And then there are the Stanford studies like this:

>>46553818

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393. unethi+vO[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 18:00:11
>>embedd+eA
In Minneapolis and other cities, you do have protests, you have the people following ICE, and it's a valid discussion to have that without the protests and the "mostly peaceful" resistance from Minnesotans is helping the nation see what criminals ICE people are, and what an awful thing they're doing to the country.

Mass resistance movements tend to come at unpredictable moments. The killing or particularly well documented crime of a government, for example. Something acute will trigger it, like George Floyd or Renee Good (whose murder triggered widespread outrage, protests, and despite the bots on Twitter, some shift in the view on ICE from the middle and right).

If, for example, a brigade of soldiers or officers opened live fire on protesters, I think the country would shut down.

Another point, as others have mentioned: It's actually the massive amount of armament on both side of the equation that keeps people from taking the next step. The citizens of Minneapolis could probably take out a hundred ICE agents a day, but now we're in a civil war because the next steps are insurrection act, hundreds of people dead in days, potential of the MN state guard being activated to fight against national forces, and it's already three steps ahead of whatever would happen in Spain.

edit: There are some people already exercising their rights loudly. See: https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1qdnmh...

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397. rybosw+cP[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 18:03:16
>>embedd+At
> Why are Americans so passive?

I think it's important to realize how divided the U.S. is right now. Half the country is in favor of what ICE is doing in some form or another. Some people on the right are denouncing the _way_ ICE is accomplishing this. But they are far from outraged.

The other half of the country is as dumbfounded/shocked as the rest of the world.

This isn't like the French revolution where a majority of the country was suffering and rose up against the few.

This is very nearly 50% of the country wants to make the other 50% squirm.

It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.

The channel "The Necessary Conversation" has some good examples of just how radicalized some American's have gotten. It's 2 kids interviewing their MAGA parents. I think it's not uncommon for American's to know people like the parents in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hSysuwHw4KU

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404. tastyf+2R[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 18:12:03
>>potato+OK
Undocumented immigrants? They’re just violently yanking random nonwhite people off the streets and figuring out who’s who later: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/ice-immigrat...

As well as going door-to-door and forcing entry without a warrant, besieging Spanish language immersion schools, and other dragnet horrors. Meanwhile, official DHS social media accounts are posting literal Stormfront ethnic cleansing memes. I’m not sure how anyone but the most ardent ethnonationalists can be OK with this. Even if you think all undocumented immigrants should be deported, "hunt them down like dogs and to hell with everyone else" is beastial.

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421. embedd+VT[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 18:24:51
>>rybosw+cP
> It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.

Yeah, it's been a sharp shift, as someone who've watched/read Fox News (and other news of course) for decades out of the US. Fox News always been a bit strange with it's vitriol, but at one point, I can't remember if it was around the middle of Obama's second term, or later, but it took a really sharp turn further into emotional reporting and partisanship. Again, Fox always been a bit special, and other news channels also did similar turns further into their sides, but I can remember seeing the change as it was happening.

There is another documentary I quite liked in similar vein but on an individual level, called "Dear Kelly", that follows a far-right conspiracy theorist and tries to give some understanding into Kelly's struggles and radicalization. Released independently and can be found here: https://www.dearkellyfilm.com/

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498. hvb2+Lq1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 20:35:28
>>AngryD+D51
Are you sure?

https://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/slideshow/Firearms-o...

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508. pseuda+lA1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 21:19:15
>>tastyf+fq1
Some states protect political activity broadly. Some states protect voting solely.[1]

[1] https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/politics-...

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520. ethbr1+DK1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 22:13:18
>>BobaFl+Ec1
Hence the tactical frivolity Portland approach. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/10/22/trump-ice-port... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_frivolity

It's the social media evolution of non-violent confrontation, with the similar goal of making it impossible for any visual image or recording of a confrontation to seem anything other than ridiculous to the average viewer and laying bare the "violence inherent in the system" (as it were).

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521. AngryD+uL1[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-15 22:17:18
>>hvb2+Lq1
The Kalthoff repeater was invented in the 1600s. Here's a Forgotten Weapons video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghKrbNpqQoY

There is also the Cookson repeater available in the late 1600s. And in 1756 was advertised for sale in the Boston Gazette.

Multiple founding fathers, including George Washington, were also offered purchase of repeating firearms, some for use in the military, some for personal usage. But of course this is still before interchangeable parts so production is of course still expensive and repairs must be done be a highly skilled gunsmith and not just some apprentice blacksmith.

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552. rootus+Zb2[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 01:13:15
>>lmz+xn
You are getting downvoted, but this is a fair point. The only other country with a higher estimate for illegal immigrant population is Russia. The next closest Western European country is France, with barely over half the rate of the US. [0]

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/percentag...

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559. willma+Oi2[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 02:15:30
>>newfri+sK
Your sources don’t say what you’re claiming.

The BBC piece is about recorded apprehensions/encounters being very low (still “<9,000/month”), not that the “flow” is “largely eliminated.” Encounters aren’t the same thing as total unlawful entries, and “very low” isn’t “eliminated.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o

The ABC/Brookings story is about net migration turning negative in 2025, mostly due to fewer entries. Net migration is not a measure of the unauthorized population, and the article even notes removals in 2025 are only modestly higher than 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...

Also, the claim “no headway for decades until now” is inconsistent with standard estimates: Pew shows a decline from 2007 to 2019 in the unauthorized population. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...

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575. mlrtim+Y53[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 11:16:25
>>m_faye+HJ
Trump gained more support in 2024 across almost all demographics. To make this only a white issue is misleading and casually racist.

"Trump won 15% of Black voters – up from 8% four years earlier. "

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/behind-trump...

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578. blurbl+c73[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 11:26:36
>>mlrtim+c63
Just because historians haven't yet given the beast a name, it acts and growls just like like exactly what it is, and "civil war" is exactly what some members of the federal administration want, as you might read in their brazen proclamations about re-interpreting the constitution along a hundred dimensions at once.

https://www.project2025.observer/en

The local and federal authorities are at a complete standoff right now. When's the last time you recall a local government essentially asking the court for permission to deploy its national guard to enforce a restraining order against the federal government? All while said federal government was openly conducting sloppy pseudo-urban-warfare in broad daylight?

I urge you to pay attention.

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602. xnx+YX3[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 16:55:39
>>asa400+hM
Poorly trained police deployed into a volatile crowd with intent to draw an attack, justifying brutal retaliation by military forces. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ghorman_Massacre
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611. zahlma+bo4[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 18:44:58
>>watwut+ex
> Actually, it is not.

The law disagrees: https://www.justice.gov/jm/1-16000-department-justice-policy...

It's very easy to find abundant sources for this.

If you're locking yourself in your car when you're under arrest, and that car is currently blocking traffic, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to get into the vehicle and take you out. Nothing else will get you out of the vehicle, and you legally must get out of the vehicle. You can't just be left there.

If you are resisting having handcuffs put on you, or refusing to walk along as you are taken to a police vehicle, there is no reasonable alternative to using force to ensure that the handcuffs go on and you get in the vehicle. Being carried is about the gentlest thing that could possibly happen.

> she was on the way to doctor stopped by armed thugs.

This is contradicted by the fact that she repeatedly refused to take a clear path when she was being told to take a clear path and the officers were not in any way preventing her from doing so.

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615. 15155+kT4[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-16 21:03:46
>>hvb2+Lq1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle
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620. willma+Tk5[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-17 00:08:08
>>newfri+Rg5
“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports.

“Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-e...

Also, 58k/month annualizes to ~700k/year. You can argue that’s a big improvement, but calling it “largely eliminated” is rhetorical.

Encounters aren’t total entries, agreed, but that cuts against confidently declaring victory, not in favor of it. If you want “better,” the only “better” conceptually is something like encounters + estimated gotaways, but “gotaways” are themselves estimates and not as consistently published/transparent as encounters. So the honest phrasing is: “recorded encounters are way down.”

“No headway for decades” is false on the standard stock estimates. Pew (and others) show the unauthorized population peaked around 2007 and then declined through 2019 before rising again in the early 2020s. That’s headway, then reversal; not “none for decades.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...

It is fair to say: we’re now above 2007 again (Pew estimates ~14M in 2023), so the long-run problem wasn’t solved. But that’s different from “no headway has been made.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-...

On the ABC/Brookings “negative net migration” point: net migration does not equal unauthorized population, and the article itself notes the change is mostly fewer entries, with removals only modestly higher year over year. So it doesn’t support “dutiful removal has made a big dent” as the main story.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...

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622. willma+jG5[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-17 04:25:40
>>newfri+An5
You’re mixing metrics and then calling the correction “pedantry.”

Your own cited stat (“<9,000/month”) is Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry. CBS is explicit about that, and even gives the recent months: July ~4,600; Aug ~6,300; Sept ~8,400 apprehensions. That’s a major reduction, but it’s not “zero,” and it’s not the same thing as “flow eliminated.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-crossings-immigration-u...

The 249,000 figure you’re comparing it to is typically cited as “encounters” (often BP apprehensions + OFO inadmissibles at ports). That’s a different series than “BP apprehensions between ports.” Apples-to-oranges comparisons are exactly how people accidentally talk themselves into certainty.

“Do you have a better way of estimating?” Not really, that’s the point. Encounters/apprehensions are the best consistently published measure, but they are not total successful entries, and “gotaways” are estimates with their own uncertainty. So the accurate claim is: recorded apprehensions are way down.

On “no headway”: if the unauthorized population fell from 2007 to 2019 (Pew shows that), that’s literally headway, even if it later reversed and is higher now. What you mean is “no net improvement vs 2007,” which is a different claim.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...

If you want to say “huge improvement at the border relative to the peak,” totally reasonable. But “flow largely eliminated” + “big dent in illegal-alien stock” is stronger than what these measurements can support.

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626. zahlma+fg6[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-17 12:17:15
>>datsci+Qk
Reposting because there is clearly no reason for it to have been flagged.

The claim that ICE exists and is highly funded is not in dispute. ICE has existed since 2002 and the current funding was provided in the Big Beautiful Bill and was never in question.

"Paramilitary" is a subjective assessment.

Anyone being "held accountable" for anything, ever, in the legal system, takes years. Trump has not even been in office (this time around) for a year yet.

The actions you describe as "clearly violating rights" simply do not do any such thing. The rights of American citizens don't work the way that protesters have been implying.

ICE agents are federal law enforcement officers. They are explicitly empowered in the relevant law (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357 , section (a)(5)) to make arrests without a warrant of any person (including citizens) for any federal crime that they actively see happening, and any federal felony on reasonable suspicion.

Which makes perfect sense, because those are things that any other federal law enforcement officer would be able to do, without a warrant, in the same situation.

The Tenth Amendment does not bar federal officers from prosecuting federal crime and does not bar them from being in your state in the first place. It also doesn't give your local law enforcement the right to interfere with them. It only relieves them of the burden of helping to enforce federal law.

Even a Mother Jones article admits it's "not illegal" generally for the ICE agents to wear masks (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/ice-immigration...). (Aside from any question of anonymity, in the Good case, the face coverings on agents appear to be fabric appropriate to the near-freezing weather.) Attempts to pass state laws to prohibit the masks are being challenged (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-14/federal-...); I'm not convinced they would matter anyway given the Supremacy Clause.

When protesters are resisting arrest, physical force is sometimes required to enact that arrest. (And it's strange to make this argument about "safety" when many protesters are attempting to endanger the officers as well as counter-protesters and critics.) All the same things would be playing out if you had the same actions taken against state LEO that were trying to enforce state law.

I have thus far seen video footage of the ICE protesters:

* vandalizing unattended federal vehicles and stealing a firearm from one of them

* throwing dangerous objects at officers

* intentionally ramming cars

* boxing in officers on the street

* attempting to booby-trap the area around ICE facilities presumably in the hope of injuring the agents

* repeatedly refusing to leave when officers tell them to leave and there is clearly nothing preventing them from leaving, then resisting arrest when that refusal leads to an arrest

* effectively enacting their own "Kavanaugh stops" (without any legal authority) on other random citizens that they wrongly suspected of being plainclothes ICE agents because they happened to own the wrong model of SUV

* vandalizing the vehicle of counter-protesters while they were stopped at a traffic light, physically climbing onto the vehicle, making threats, and soaping up the front window to obscure visibility (a clear safety threat to everyone)

* running in front of a parked ICE SUV and pretending (very obviously) to get hit by it

* using a loudspeaker at close range next to a counter-protester, in a manner that would clearly cause or threaten hearing damage

And a lot of this directly leads to the situations that they subsequently propagandize.

Freedom of speech is not freedom to interfere physically with law enforcement.

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632. Amezar+5N7[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-17 23:46:05
>>unethi+gO1
Too late to edit, but:

> I wonder if Europe and Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the world know what they're missing by not having LEO as qualified as ICE running their streets.

"Europe" is of course not a place, but maybe you'd be surprised to know this does happen in "Europe" and other countries. In fact France specifically legalized police shooting vehicles fleeing traffic stops even if the police themselves are not in danger, and about a dozen people are killed that way every year.

Heck, here's a video of a shooting in Canada where the police fired at someone just trying to get away:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lbqjBauouE

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649. throw1+sSy[view] [source] [discussion] 2026-01-26 16:12:14
>>stackg+Z9
This comment is wrong and/or malicious along every dimension.

> "safe spaces" (like HN)

HN is not a "safe space". Saying that most politics is off-limit most of the time for very good reasons (that only either insane or malicious people would deny) does not make this a "safe space". Go look up how Wikipedia defines it and it's easy to see that your statement is literally false.

> where there's a "no politics" rule

This is false. There is no "no politics" rule.

> enabling people to hide and avoid being confronted with the ramifications of their actions.

This statement is just insane. The direct logical conclusion of this statement is that if every site on the internet is not blasting out political news all the time, that it's enabling people to "hide" from something. That's not just false - that's a deranged position that 99.999% of people will disagree with.

> It's all inherently political.

False. Deciding your backend architecture (microserves vs monolith) is not political. Picking a text editor is not political. Helping a friend install Linux is not political. Not everything is political - the fact that you is means that something is wrong with the way that you view the world.

And even for the things that are political - only a crazy and/or evil person would take the fact that emacs is made by GNU and vim is not as a reason to incite political flamewars on the internet and try to inject politics into every online forum.

People like you are the main reason that modern American culture is so toxic and politically polarized and that democratic discourse is breaking down.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_space

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