30 Durham NC church members arrested today trying to block arrest of immigrant they protected for 10 months

[Lemon Drop]

comphernation wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
[quote=billb]
illegal immigrant
how convenient to leave that part out.

Would you like us to translate 'undocumented worker'? He didn't set up a fake charity or a fake university or stiff contractors or molest women or bankrupt a handful of times or sell out to the Russians and the Saudis. He just came to do honest, hard work. Sure, he is here illegally and that is a law that needs to go away. A lot of people resent lazy illegals laying around on their couches doing nothing but sucking up government benefits and taking away their jobs, sometimes two jobs, occasionally more.
So Lemon Drop's "That whole 'it's OK not to follow the law if it offends your religious principles' statement above is only for pro-Trump conservatives." doesn't apply? Laws apply to *everyone*. Selective application is bullshit, regardless of one's perspective or preferences. Pot, meet kettle.
Not all laws are just. Nor is their application always just, or humane, or in keeping with the core values of many Americans. Immigration is one such example.

I personally oppose the deportation of people who have been working and living peacefully in the US for many years. People who have families and jobs here, there is just no point to harassing people that way They are technically guilty of the misdemeanor of crossing the border without proper documentation.

I have a good friend whose parents immigrated from the Netherlands in the 50s. They never had proper immigration documentation and in their 90s now are technically "stateless," living in the US all these years as "illegal immigrants." They have NEVER been harassed or threatened with deportation. Why not? They broke the law.

We know why.

[Speedy]

Lemon Drop wrote: I personally oppose the deportation of people who have been working and living peacefully in the US for many years. People who have families and jobs here, there is just no point to harassing people that way They are technically guilty of the misdemeanor of crossing the border without proper documentation.

Some overstay their visas which isn’t a criminal act, let alone a misdemeanor.

[rjmacs]

Speedy wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]I personally oppose the deportation of people who have been working and living peacefully in the US for many years. People who have families and jobs here, there is just no point to harassing people that way They are technically guilty of the misdemeanor of crossing the border without proper documentation.

Some overstay their visas which isn’t a criminal act, let alone a misdemeanor.
I had been led to believe by DHS that all lawbreakers are morally equivalent, so the scofflaw who overstays a visa is as dangerous to the fabric of America as a rapist drug lord who eats live puppies.

[Speedy]

rjmacs wrote:
[quote=Speedy]
[quote=Lemon Drop]I personally oppose the deportation of people who have been working and living peacefully in the US for many years. People who have families and jobs here, there is just no point to harassing people that way They are technically guilty of the misdemeanor of crossing the border without proper documentation.

Some overstay their visas which isn’t a criminal act, let alone a misdemeanor.
I had been led to believe by DHS that all lawbreakers are morally equivalent, so the scofflaw who overstays a visa is as dangerous to the fabric of America as a rapist drug lord who eats live puppies.
Well, unless those puppies are brown in which case eating them is your patriotic duty.

[comphernation]

Lemon Drop wrote:

Not all laws are just. Nor is their application always just, or humane, or in keeping with the core values of many Americans.

So true.

Lemon Drop wrote:

... in keeping with the core values of many Americans.

Some laws are decidedly against the core values of me and "many Americans" like me. Other laws (and often even the *same* laws) are against the core values of you and "many Americans" like you. Which set of us "many Americans" gets to decide which laws are to be followed? And how might we go about deciding?

I seem to recall that our forbears put into place mechanisms for precisely that task. ;-)

Lemon Drop wrote:

They are technically guilty of the misdemeanor of crossing the border without proper documentation.

In which case, perhaps, they should bear only the "technical" consequences prescribed by existing law.

[Lemon Drop]

I seem to recall that our forbears put into place mechanisms for precisely that task.

They sure did! Civil disobediance is a long, proud American tradition practiced in the best of faith by the folks at the church in Durham. Churches are the one place ICE won't raid. They lured someone out of safety on false pretenses in this case.

Did you know that the agents who enforce immigration laws by harassing and arresting and deporting people have a such a bad reputation INSIDE the Trump administration that their department peers (same department but work with a different focus) wrote to the Secretary of Homeland Secretary and asked if they could be completely separated from them and moved to a different department? Because these agents have such terrible reputations they are making it difficult for other federal agents to their jobs.

Trump deports about the same number of immigrants charged with other crimes as Obama did. Few object to that.

What has skyrocketed under Trump are "non-criminal arrests" (which is what our government calls them) of immigrants. People who have broken no law whatsoever except walking or driving across the border and then working here. Our country has a very long history of pretty much letting those people alone. Now our government is behaving like inhumane a'holes toward them, and their children. People who are for that or say that matches their values are people I cannot comprehend on any level.

So every American of conscious should object to these actions and do everything they can to protect these vulnerable people.

[rjmacs]

For the Netflix-subscribed of us, Hasan Minhaj did an episode on exactly what LD described in his new show Patriot Act.