I agree they are deadly serious, but to the parent commenter’s point, why wander the streets grabbing random people when they could go straight to the employers? They would have far more success targeting farms, construction sites, restaurant kitchens, etc.
The answer is the business owners are their constituents. They cannot afford to piss them off. If they lose their support the wheels will fall off this farcical performance.
I grew up in Florida, and I remember the sugar plantation “raids” they used to stage. They were a complete dog and pony show. They would announce them in advance so the plantations could hide most of their undocumented workers. Then they would round up just enough people for the photo op to prove they were being “tough on immigration.”
This is the same thing but on a grander and more dangerous scale.
Not quite. You had a bunch of workers at Tyson Chicken and Hormel Foods... At Tyson, underage and other undocumented workers were complaining about OSHA type stuff... next thing, there's a raid, 900 workers rounded up. Awkward moment as many of them spoke about how Tyson knew they were undocumented, and even handed over the written instructions provided to them on how to fill out paperwork and stay under the radar if they were.
"That is outside the scope of this investigation." Nothing ever happened.
At Hormel, complaining about all sorts of strange diseases and health conditions, possibly from inhaling aerosolized pig brain all day long? Oh, look, another raid.
"Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"
Just a theory but it seems highly plausible in both these cases that the companies and ICE colluded... stage a big photo op, get rid of problematic undocumented workers and oh, hey, wouldn't you know, no plans to investigate the company?
This is also your friendly reminder that visa overstays are a misdemeanor, but for an employer, assisting or knowingly hiring undocumented workers is a felony. Tough on crime, indeed.
I'm guessing the companies can make things go away by donating to someone with (R) suffixed to their name. Ha, someone's a magician, they can turn a democracy to a banana republic very quickly.
Is it (R) or (M) for MAGA.
I used to joke "Hello to the NSA analyst reading this!" when talking about "sensitive stuff" in private messages, but I guess that needs to be updated to "Hello to the LLM!"
> why wander the streets grabbing random people when they could go straight to the employers?
Because immigration stuff isn't the primary purpose at this time. The primary purpose is to normalize a police state, to invoke feelings of fear in the general population and to build up a bigger infrastructure to do more authoritarian things.
They are targeting those locations... but they need credible reporting of wrongdoing in order to do so. Insider reporting, anonymous tips, etc. They generally don't just randomly show up at an employer without initial reporting of a crime.
For the most part, they've been targeting visa overstays by those who have been charged with and/or convicted of other crimes in the US. Not significantly different than under Obama. It's only that the visibility has been turned up to 11 along with ramped up protests and state/city sanctioned resistance in some locations.
As to the ramp-up in scale.. that's what happens when you let 5x the amount of people legally allowed entry to come into a nation in a relatively short period of time illegally. over 90% of asylum claims are invalid and fraudulent... there is almost no legitimate reason for crossing into the country outside a recognized port of entry.
I say this as someone who feels that immigration should generally be tied to "do you have a source of income and a place to stay?" at its' core... combined with a multiple of minimum wage as an income baseline with hefty employer side taxes to go along with. Arguments against doing so are very similar in my mind to having slavery... it's not okay, not good for the nation. I have similar feelings that "free trade" should only occur when similar quality of life or safety measures are in place. I'm optimistically libertarian minded, but recognize reality.
I have wondered this myself. I can see how it would be useful if you missed your target and it returned to you. But the demonstrations I have seen, where the boomerang is thrown and returns, the boomerang is usually thrown at an angle up in the air rather than near the ground or treeline where a person would be hunting. It seems like in a realistic hunting scenario the boomerang would most likely be thrown in a way that would cause it to hit the ground or some vegetation and not return.
Are you sure? He certainly engaged in a lot of military operations in several countries without Congress's approval. He also ramped up drone strikes dramatically.
None of those required congressional oversight. The US hasn't officially declared war since WW2. That's largely due to every administration since then finding clever wording to get around it. Did Obama do unethical things? Probably, geopolitics is not a game of right/wrong. Did Obama do anything illegal, nope. Same with Trump. (Yes, in this context I'm both-sidesing, but not every context: Trump wants to imprison/deport/kill me and people I love, there's no comparision, and he's too dumb to be a nazi but is absolutely an evil dictator. Obama never put crosshairs on the heads of US citizens for not being straight white christians or not kissing his ass.)
Kolyma tales. It's a collection of essays from Varlam Shalamov, a Russian writer and reporter, who was imprisoned in the Gulag for nearly two decades. It was a shocking first hand account of human suffering and depravity.
I think if you are careful there is little risk of rupturing your eardrum. That being said...
I have ruptured my eardrum with a q-tip.
It wasn't my finest moment. My wife was behind me and said something. I turned to ask her what she had said and I hit my elbow, jabbing the q-tip into my eardrum.
That hurt like hell, but it didn't actually rupture on the spot. It wasn't until later that evening, when my wife and I were watching TV, and it suddenly sounded like the television was under water. I looked at my wife and asked what the hell happened to the TV, she freaked out and said blood was coming out of my ear. Interestingly, I did not feel any pain when that happened.
It took over a month before everything sounded normal again
I'm sorry to read that. Accidents happen. I'm sure, qtips have also been used in fights and killings already. It's an external object that we insert into a cavity.. we must take care. (Sorry, I'm watching to much of these Kong-Fu 'I fight you with chopsticks" movies)
But, beside that, how far must a men go deep before you can call him an idiot? It hurts. It's a curvy way. Sometimes, my qtips are of low quality missing the cotton - I notice it with pain, if...
I commented to my wife this past week that I was suddenly contacted by multiple recruiters, seemingly out of nowhere. It had been many many months prior since that had happened.
I use reusable food grade silicone bags I bought from Amazon. They are not vacuum sealed but I don't think that matters at all. As long as the portion of the bag containing the food is completely submerged the water pressure is sufficient to seal the bag around the food and ensure even heating in my experience.
I was a nine years old and I tossed it as high and as far as I could. I realized it was coming dangerously close to a friend. Everybody had their backs to me. I yelled, but nobody heard me.
In my memory it landed inches from them, but that could be because I was young and scared shitless. Maybe it landed fifteen feet behind them. All I know is it scared me enough that I have never touched a lawn dart after that.
The answer is the business owners are their constituents. They cannot afford to piss them off. If they lose their support the wheels will fall off this farcical performance.
I grew up in Florida, and I remember the sugar plantation “raids” they used to stage. They were a complete dog and pony show. They would announce them in advance so the plantations could hide most of their undocumented workers. Then they would round up just enough people for the photo op to prove they were being “tough on immigration.”
This is the same thing but on a grander and more dangerous scale.