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Enforcement on businesses hiring non legal workers - gets the root cause. Without fixing that we are just playing wack a mole - people will still venture to the

• Nextgrid 11mo ago
  Companies that employ undocumented workers at scale have significant political power and deporting them en-masse would shock many industries, so this won’t happen. The recent ICE shenanigans (which don’t get me wrong - are awful and badly executed) are just performative bullshit to please the voter base. In fact I’d argue they are intentionally executed badly to attract media attention so they can all say they are being tough on immigrants.
  • mattmaroon 11mo ago
    I think it’s more to scare immigrants with pleasing the base being icing on the cake. Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. And anecdotally, it is working. Ask any flight attendant on an international route. They want people to stop coming here, and the threat of being sent to some torture camp in the third world won’t deter a Haitian (whose daily life already meets that description) but it will deter people from less atrocious locations.
    • istajeer242 11mo ago
      > Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. I don't know much about him but aren't his grand parents Belarusians who came over to the US?
      • pengaru 11mo ago
        As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants... I don't think it's worth pointing out. Most anti-immigration americans obviously aren't native americans. pulling up the ladder behind you isn't a new concept
        • johnnyanmac 11mo ago
          In my ancestor's defense, they didn't get much choice on emmigrating here. It'd be truly poetic if they tried to forcefully deport me because they can no longer use me as free labor on the fields.
        • NoMoreNicksLeft 11mo ago
          >As an american, unless you're descendant from native americans, your ancestors are immigrants. How'd that work out for those native americans again? Maybe I'm a little reluctant to let things play out the way it did for them.
        • snickerbockers 11mo ago
          Ive always been ashamed of all the genocidal massacres and forced relocations we did to the native americans but its not in any way accurate to compare establishing a colony to immigration; they came here to create a new society not to live amongst the existing civilizations. The way they did so at the expense of the civilizations already living here is abhorrent and shameful but its also in no way comparable to illegal immigration. To the extent that it is comparable we would be absolutely justified in regulating immigration because the implication would be that the same thing that we did to the native americans is going to happen to us. Its also not in any way reasonable to use the sins of the distant ancestor to delegitimize the nation's right to self-determination. Even if i accept your premise that my ancestors are comparable to immigrants i myself am not. If the argument is that the nation has no rights to control its own borders because that would constitute some sort of "generational hypocrisy" that would also mean we have an obligation to accommodate slavery and genocide because our ancestors committed and benefitted from both of those.
        • wahnfrieden 11mo ago
          As Vincent Gallo put it recently re: federal debt: > The USA can tolerate one of these two things. A system of no welfare, no social services, no socialized medicine, food or housing with open borders. OR. No open boarders and highly limited, highly controlled, assimilating immigration policy. We cannot have both. When the USA had unlimited immigration over 100 years ago, we did not have Government supporting immigrants with welfare, medical services, housing, food etc. I don't agree with Mr. Gallo here - I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this.
      • Geezus_42 11mo ago
        Hey now, we don't need no fancy logic 'round here. /s
      • ryan_lane 11mo ago
        Japan now has Kimi Onoda as Minister in Charge of Foreign Nationals and Immigration, and she's an immigrant herself, but her stance on immigrants is pretty hardline. These people aren't anti-immigrant because of issues with immigration. They're anti-immigrant because they're hateful.
        • johnnyanmac 11mo ago
          Japan is truly impressive on taking an anti-immigration stance because they have numbers already that would be the dream of other countries pushing such perspectives. Off the top of my head there's 0.3% immigration. It's truly saddening that such a stance can still work when it's likely the average citizen will not encounter an immigrant in their day to day life. a million immigrants is not threatening the jobs of 300m Japanese people.
          • goykasi 11mo ago
            That is mostly correct; immigrants account for about 3% of a total 123mil population. Your point does stand, but we are quite visible in Japan -- especially in Tokyo. You are correct that we do not threaten jobs either. A large majority of the foreign population is working low/unskilled jobs. Generally, the native population is not wanting those jobs.
            • wahnfrieden 11mo ago
              Those undesirable jobs can also be highly visible. Maybe the most frequent place Japanese notice visible minority immigrants is at convenience stores. So maybe it makes the population feel overrepresented. I see RWers post frequently about convenience store workers at least.
          • mitthrowaway2 11mo ago
            In Japan, the popular sentiment on immigration tends to be grouped together with tourists and temporary foreign workers as a single category: foreigners. This is perhaps understandable but unfortunate, because tourists often are very visible and tend to make a bad impression, as most haven't studied the language or learned the numerous behaviour expectations. Bad experiences with tourists creates hostility towards immigrants, who are few and mostly do work hard to integrate and behave well.
      • js2 11mo ago
        https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-miller-is-an-immigration-hypocrite-i-know-because-im-his-uncle-219351 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/13/stephen-m...
  • blurbleblurble 11mo ago
    You're telling yourself what you want to hear. I guarantee you these guys are dead serious, and they've recently gotten a huge flush of cash.
    • dpkirchner 11mo ago
      The grunts are surely dead serious, but the bosses? Nah. If they were they'd be sending execs to prison. Anything less is pointless if you truly want to solve the problem.
      • clipsy 11mo ago
        You're assuming that the thing they're "serious" about is ending illegal immigration.
        • naijaboiler 11mo ago
          The thing they are series about is racism, and having power to terrorize anyone they deem “undesirable”, a group which may one day include you
        • blurbleblurble 11mo ago
          The bosses are serious about making the US an authoritarian ethno state.
          • deaux 11mo ago
            A MAGA state first and foremost. The hierarchy is "white MAGA > non-white MAGA > white silent > non-white silent > white anti-MAGA > non-white anti-MAGA". Will they eventually come for everyone but the first group? Very likely, but there's always a priority ordering. I'll leave it to the proper historians to decide how similar this is to the state they're using as their main inspiration.
      • blurbleblurble 11mo ago
        "truly solve the problem" ???
  • aprilthird2021 11mo ago
    It's also an enormous waste of money, which this admin loves to do. Billions to Israel, $40B to Argentina, $1T+ to bomb boats in the Gulf of Mexico, waste waste waste everywhere and send the bill to the average American, whose economic prospects haven't improved
    • foxglacier 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      • dpkirchner 11mo ago
        How about spending on things that will have no benefit to the average US citizen, and in fact might just make things worse without solving the stated problem?
      • scarecrowbob 11mo ago
        How about "stuff that is internally logically inconsistent"?
      • johnnyanmac 11mo ago
        > I dare you to define what you mean by waste. I'll just go with the dictionary: >to allow to be used inefficiently or become dissipated So, why are we bailing out Argentina, or bombing the South American gulfs? We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning. I've heard very little reasoning from the administration. The best I heard was "we're hitting drug dealers". Even if I believed that, pending hundreds of billions to attack boats with drugs on them sounds horribly inefficient. Drugs are not an immediate threat to people and we have many methods through negotiation to simply limit/stop such imports. I've heard zero justifications anywhere on the Argentina issue. It seems even many republicans do not like this approach.
        • foxglacier 11mo ago
          > We can't be efficient if we can't even explain our reasoning You're confusing transparency with efficiency. Military and international politics decisions often need public lies or omissions for political reasons but that doesn't mean they're inefficient for their intended purpose. If you word it more honestly as "The government can't be efficient if it doesn't explain its reasoning to the public", then it obviously doesn't follow from the definition of waste.
  • jonway 11mo ago
    normalize adversarial face paint, make up, and apparel. Silver linings…
    • Klaster_1 11mo ago
      Only works until that's no longer legal, see face coverage laws in various countries.
  • wsatb 11mo ago
    Their reasoning for deploying the Texas National Guard to Chicago was because they claim a rebellion has started. They are consistently provoking citizens and lying about it. The courts have dismissed this due to the ridiculousness of it, but they continue to agitate. I don't think it's all for show, they're seeking a violent response so they can deploy the military.
    • votepaunchy 11mo ago
      Note that the courts have split on the deployment of national guard troops so the issue is destined for the Supreme Court.
  • drivingmenuts 11mo ago
    That performance may backfire, since some of the big supporters are agriculture businesses that rely on illegal immigrants to survive. Mass deportations of the type ICE seems to want will put a lot of those businesses out of business. I'm sure someone up in Washington thinks that poor Americans will step in to fill the gaps, but when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. I've seen some conspiracy theories that RFK, Jr, et al, want to start labor camps for autistic kids and just about anyone else his bunch can get tagged as defective or deficient or whatever, but I don't think that's going to work out like someone hopes it will.
    • johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      >when it's been tried before those assumptions failed, badly. Turns out Americans don't want to move out to rural areas to be paid minimum wage to do hard farm labor. Who knew? That's the only real upside to this gig economy. Their competition isn't just flipping burgers, but anyone who has a car that can sign up to an app to make some quick cash.
      • BobaFloutist 11mo ago
        Sub-minimum wage, agricultural work is exempt from minimum wage. It makes me so mad.
    • intended 11mo ago
      Nothing will backfire. A Reuters poll on the White House demolitions had a 63% approval for one question and a 40% approval rating for another question - from Republican voters. As long as there exists a content economy on the right that does’t have to pay their dues to reality, you will not stop a political machine which is based upon fantasy. The only thing that will cut through the noise is a recession, because that cannot be spun. Even then - that would just be a speed bump; eventually the recession will pass.
      • dboreham 11mo ago
        Short term pain for long term gain. Locker room economics.
  • sieidj184 11mo ago
    The deeper purpose is to create another state-sanctioned security force that is highly associated and politically enabled to deal with ‘undesirables’ outside of normal legal process. Then include whoever is needed under the label ‘undesirable’ — see other comment about a journalist being detained and questioned
    • actionfromafar 11mo ago
      Yes - ICE is filling a similar role to what Wagner did in Russia and the brownshirts in Germany. A parallel structure which can be deployed anywhere against anyone. The concentration camp building industry is looking great.
  • rukuu001 11mo ago
    The theatre is also there for the immigrants (or whatever undesirable that's being targeted). It has a chilling effect on what people say and do. You'll notice the same effect in other states that have armed people who turn up unexpectedly to make people disappear.
  • enieslobby 11mo ago
    Which companies employ undocumented workers at scale?
    • grumio 11mo ago
      Uline https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-mega-donors-underpaid-mexican-workers https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/uline-trump-...
  • isolay 11mo ago
    Not to forget they can use the performative bullshit to lay grounds for a paramilitary GeStaPo. ICE as it is already attracts all the wrong character types.
  • array_key_first 11mo ago
    ICE is not just performative bullshit. It's a display of authoritarian power and yet another branch of our government mobilized against the US people. As this article highlights, it's an excuse for surveillance. Of citizens, mind you.
  • cool_man_bob 11mo ago
    I’ve seen Trumps buddy’s (the inhuman lawnmower) big company appear on jobs.now posting for general midlevel dev positions. These people are liars and it’s so painfully obvious. I’ve seen more people realize this since his Trump started beefing with Massie, but they still glaze him so hard as to not offend, that it’s basically meaningless.
  • potato3732842 11mo ago
    This. It's like the environmental people going off half cocked screeching about how random petty developments needs more green space in their site plans (while invariably screeching out the other side of their mouth about how the decreased density of stuff makes it less walkable) all while the DuPont or the .gov or some university or whoever has got their engineers and lawyers and whatever to lay out exactly why the thing they're doing is "fine" even if it's worse than whatever the little guys are being prevented from doing. You can't solve the problem at the "just regulate the employers" level because it invariably turns into a tighter regulatory capture further enriching the incumbents. Any reform will necessarily increase the competitive advantage of the current winners because they are the ones in a position to shape it.
• FridayoLeary 11mo ago
  I can't understand it. It was a huge story that hyundais entire workforce of 500 were illegals, but i have heard nothing about hyundai facing any consequences for blantantly disregarding the law. That also goes for US companies to be clear, but that was jst the first case that opened my eyes.
  • neither_color 11mo ago
    Because Hyundai was not hiring 500 illegals, that is completely false. Everyone who got deported is allowed to return under the same visas they were on before. They were not allowed to stay without being ejected first because it would have made the current admin and the frozen water gang look really bad at a time where they're trying to establish a reputation as a fair and just law enforcement agency carrying out the mandate of the will of the people. If anything, the shot callers at the frozen water gang should have faced consequences but they didn't and they won't. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-will-allow-south-koreans-with-short-term-visas-and-waivers-to-work-at-industrial-sites-seoul-says https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-will-allow-south-kor...
    • themafia 11mo ago
      It's not "completely false." > South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visas or a visa waiver program called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, to send workers needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years. It sounds to me like they had relied on a grey area. The most obvious conclusion is that pressure from the top down in ICE caused their agents to "hunt around" and look for "big arrests." When political pressure from South Korea mounted they had to reverse themselves.
      • dboreham 11mo ago
        It's the USA (collectively) that's in the wrong here. You can't both beg a Korean company to build and start up a battery factory in your country and not provide any mechanism for the people needed to make that happen to be present in your country.
• mindslight 11mo ago
  Dear Leader has already been talking about instituting some kind of program to formally permit cheap imported labor in "critical" industries like farming, construction, and landscaping. And why would the regime ever want to fix any root causes? Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy applies to autocracies as well. The Republican party has been drumming up support on this bogeyman for decades. Remember when there was a bipartisan immigration bill up for vote before the election and Tramp insisted that it be killed? That's the fundamental dynamic right there - their cultists crave human suffering, not effective policy.
• NoMoreNicksLeft 11mo ago
  > Enforcement on businesses hiring non legal workers How do you imagine such an enforcement effort would proceed? Paint me a picture please. Illustrate a hypothetical example, just one company. What would really happen is that you'd check these businesses, and all the paperwork's in order. Social security numbers for everyone (even if those aren't their own). Without probable cause though, wouldn't even get that far, would they? They'd need that for the search warrants... not that judges are very agreeable to signing those, not when they tend to help illegals flee out the back door of the courthouse so that ICE won't wait at the front door grab and deport them. >We are not fixing the root cause here even if you believe that immigration is bad for the country. Sometimes all you can do is treat the symptoms.
  • sixothree 11mo ago
    Are we really deporting people or just putting them to work in labor camps as has been reported.
  • Larrikin 11mo ago
    Use the existing social security verification system, 5x fines median salary per year of suspected employment. Assume the worker has only worked for one employer for their entire time in the US or since 18 if there is no other verifiable evidence of employment. It would fix the "problem" of all American workers who fear their job can be taken away by someone who doesn't speak the language, possibly has little education, because a large company thinks it's more profitable to hire them illegally. Nobody actually cares if someone hires their cousin at the family owned restaurant that sends money back home to his family. But the goal actually is to have a section of society scared to report employer abuses and willing to work below minimum wage. The farmers in Iowa want the cruelty in Chicago. There was a tiny bit of deportation raids in red states at the beginning because of racism, but that was shut down quick.
    • NoMoreNicksLeft 11mo ago
      >Use the existing social security verification system, 5x fines median salary per year of suspected employment. You explain how to punish them, not how to determine that they deserve punishment. This fixes absolutely nothing. "Social security" won't find anything, because everyone working for those businesses has a social security number (even if it's not their own). To determine those are fake or misused, the government would have to get access to the deep HR paperwork, which would require search warrants and subpoenas, in other words, it would require "probable cause". That isn't going to happen. >But the goal actually is to have a section of society scared to report employer abuse Yeh, probably. But nothing you've described could help to change that circumstance.
• righthand 11mo ago
  Right instead they want the flow to continue so they can create a private prison system filled with immigrants. So private business men can profit. That's really it. It's not about fixing immigration.
  • burningChrome 11mo ago
    >> Right instead they want the flow to continue so they can create a private prison system filled with immigrants. How does this make sense when cities and states have openly declared themselves "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants? How does this work when so many of the prisons are already overflowing? So much so, judges and prosecutors are not capable of sending more people to prisons and instead use diversion programs, down charging, or dismissing more serious crimes to charge these people with lesser crimes specifically in order to avoid jail time? What about states like Minnesota that continually deviate from sentencing guidelines and allow people convicted of crimes to spend the majority of their sentence out of prison? Minnesota isn't the only state that does this either, its just in the top five who do this. The evidence would overwhelming appear to directly contradict this theory.
    • DoctorOW 11mo ago
      You're ignoring some pretty crucial evidence about this administration, which is that: A) They're building more prisons specifically to fill with immigrants B) Sentencing trends don't really affect immigrants who are denied due process.
      • burningChrome 11mo ago
        >> A) They're building more prisons specifically to fill with immigrants Correction: They're building more prisons specifically to fill with ILLEGAL immigrants. The vast majority of whom have committed crimes while here. If you have a problem with criminals being put in jail then you have a much bigger problem with your moral compass.
        • 11mo ago
• shit_game 11mo ago
  Your comment is not considering the possibility of ICE being used as a secret police force under the guise of enforcing immigration. There are strong indicators of this being the case.
  • burningChrome 11mo ago
    >> a secret police force under the guise of enforcing immigration. Isn't that role of ICE? To police and enforce immigration? Doesn't ICE stand for "Immigration & Customs Enforcement"? What am I missing here? There is no need for a "secret police" when that is the intended, declared and funded function of their organization.
    • shit_game 11mo ago
      You're misunderstanding what I'm saying; ICE is an already-established organization meant for enforcing immigration law, but it's entirely possible that ICE is being/will be used as a secret police force to attack or dissuade political dissidents of the American right wing while claiming they are only enforcing immigration laws. Many American citizens have already been arrested and even deported by ICE, and the FBI has already been used to intimidate American citizens regarding their political speech. ICE is not supposed to be a secret police force, but it's certainly starting to become one.
    • popalchemist 11mo ago
      Are you not an American? (Giving you the benefit of the doubt here) In America, immigration enforcement is not a criminal issue but a civil issue. So the proper (as in, according to the laws and norms of the last many decades) and appropriate channels through which the enforcement of immigration is meant to be resolved is the courts. The current usage of ICE as a gestapo is literally illegal (it deprives "suspects" of due process and civil/human rights), in violation of Geneva conventions, and so on. Furthermore even if we accept the blatantly immoral and illegal idea that federal agents should be able to break and enter into homes and kidnap, traumatize, and traffic people without the slightest pretense of legal justfiability (warrants etc), the fact is that they are not even attempting to choose people by any discernable metric other than their skin color. So it is objectively not about the enforcement of the law, it is about stochastic terrorism and ethnic cleansing, as that is the only thing their actions consistently demonstrate.
• gdilla 11mo ago
  no kidding. But what assuages white fragility more? This is what they voted for.
• tracker1 11mo ago
  The issue there is a lot of stolen identities and use of falsified or otherwise fake paperwork to obtain such employment. Then, you get people in positions to aid others to come into that organization illegally. It may not be direct leadership within a company, but I do think plenty of them turn a blind eye to it. This is where reporting and raid events from ICE come into play. That said, I'd like to see plenty of organizations actually have their leadership held accountable. The East Palestine, Ohio train derailment for example should have seen corporate executives and board members find their personal finances at risk because of the damage caused for example. The US has a very poor history of ever holding company executives accountable in general. "Too big to fail."
• ratelimitsteve 11mo ago
  POSIWID instead of assuming we want to stop illegal immigration and then asking why we don't do the obvious thing that would accomplish that goal (eliminating the incentive to hire illegally by punishing companies that do it such that it's not worth it on the balance sheet), look at what the situation actually is and ask yourself why people would want that. The situation right now is that there's a near-endless supply of labor that is 100% exempt from any and all labor protections by dint of if they complain the boss can just call immigration, who will disappear the laborers but not punish the company in any way. The occasional disruption due to unanticipated ice intervention is well worth the cost of being able to pay your laborers sub-minimum wage and not being responsible for workplace injuries or human rights violations.
• _yb2s 11mo ago
  There is zero genuine interest here in dealing with illegal immigration issues, it’s just a very thin veil over state sponsored KKK style white supremacy terrorism. Videos all over the Internet show them violently attacking and terrorizing hispanic looking people with no concern for if they are citizens or not. At the Wilder raid in Idaho they were shooting children with rubber bullets, and zip tying them to watch as they brutally beat their (mostly US citizen) parents in front of them. At the same time you have the administration actively encouraging white immigration from South Africa.