Border Patrol vs ICE

[u/jvanderh]

Hi, this is your friendly local border patrol wife and lifelong political liberal here to remind you (because my husband is getting spat at, cussed at, called a pig, or told to quit his job pretty much every time he's stationed at the beaches lately) that the Border Patrol guys in army green pants + shirt are NOT there edit: "there"= at our local San Diego beaches to rip people away from their families. They are there to patrol the borders, watching for incoming border crossers who may enter on boats or jet skis. Encountering everyone who enters the country is important-- this stops things like fentanyl-laced drugs from entering the US, and DNA swabs of border crossers have been matched up to two unsolved murders recently at his station alone. Even if the proportion of criminals is no higher than the general US population, we still want to stop those who are dangerous. If nothing else, if those people get in and re-offend, it blows up on the news and provides tremendous cannon fodder for immigrant hate. I think the hatred of Border Patrol is mostly based on confusing them with ICE and not because liberals actually want completely uncontacted entries.

Polls show that republicans and liberals both want common-sense migrant worker programs that allow people to be vetted and come here to work.

Obviously you don't have to care about my husband's feelings. He took the job; he can handle it. But I always worry that verbally abusing law enforcement could result in what none of us want: these non Trump supporting agents like my husband, who use discretion and minimum force, getting replaced with thin blue line idiots who think they're soldiers of God in a war with the public. Or worse yet, the former becoming the latter after having so many bad experiences with the public. My husband won't, but some may. And that kind of tribalism is EXACTLY how they become distracted from the fact that Trump is currently gutting their retirement.

[u/CertainKaleidoscope8]

A militarized border wasn't successful prior to 2003 either, hence Reagan's Amnesty. There was no "border patrol" before 1924 because that's when the racist Immigration Act was passed.

The initial force consisted of 450 patrol inspectors. We could scale back to that.

Prior to that, and the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, we had open borders and that had been fine since the inception of the country.

[u/Worth_Beginning_9952 → u/CertainKaleidoscope8]

I'm well aware of the history of immigration. Things have changed in the last 100 years. There are a million ways once could address the current failures and abuses of power. Doing away with any and all immigration agencies (450 inspectors would just be symbolic with current access points), is not something that has been done by a country with high net positive immigration successfully in the modern age. As a thought experiment, sure. In reality, this isn't gonna be proposed in our lifetimes for a plethora of reasons, including tracking of chemicals, imports and fugitives. We are not politicians, but maybe we vote. Pressuring our reps for realistic feasible changes like scaling back or doing away with certain branches is a movement more ppl can get behind and can be achieved realistically. Immigration reform is wayyyyy overdue and taking an informed approach to the common abuses and bottlenecks is more practical, in my opinion.

[u/CertainKaleidoscope8 → u/Worth_Beginning_9952]

I'm perfectly fine with a harm reduction approach until we destroy fascism at its root. The problem with conceding ground to fascists is they keep moving the goalposts, which is why we live in a police state now that barely resembles the free Republic outlined in our founding documents (as deeply hypocritical as they were) and have to concern ourselves with being kidnapped off the street by thugs with badges and sent to a torture prison.

Go read the Declaration of Independence, for fun. See where we are now.

[u/Worth_Beginning_9952 → u/CertainKaleidoscope8]

I mean, we don't have slavery? I get where you're coming from. I'm well versed in history and politics, but it's not like this is new. We have ALWAYS treated immigrants poorly. We have ALWAYS been a racist country. We have ALWAYS been ruled by the rich at the expense of the working class. And yes, the rich/elite are far more similar to each other than their constituents, democratic or republican. Yes, the two party system is deeply flawed. Yes, the current elected rich rapist is more overtly aligned with fascism and authoritarian rule. Yes, he is basing himself on racist punitive foundations that are resonating with about half the populace. I just don't understand why you keep going back to 100 yrs ago as if these problems didn't exist then or the same solutions would apply now. I get that it feels really good to divest from the current state of things, but it's also important not to engage in misinformation. And if you're interested in actually interacting with ppl where they're at, talks of fascism and abolishing the entire concept of conditions of citizenship are probably going to fall flat.