I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn this, but there’s a new level of cooperation between government agencies in the United States, which could lead to more airport arrests, including of domestic travelers.
In this post:
Airline passenger data is helping Trump’s deportation efforts
The New York Times reports how the Trump administration is increasingly using the airline tickets that people book to help with deportation efforts.
When passengers book airline tickets, it’s standard that the data is provided to the TSA, and is compared against national security databases, to identify people on watch lists, suspected terrorists, etc. The TSA hasn’t historically used this information to get involved in domestic criminal or immigration matters. However, that has now changed.
Under a program that was launched in March 2025, multiple times per week, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shares the names of all travelers booked on flights with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE then matches the list against its own database of people subject to deportation, and sends agents to airports to arrest people.
This is of course being done as part of the goal of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in United States history. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson released a statement that “the message to those in the country illegally is clear: the only reason you should be flying is to self-deport home.”
A former deputy head of the ICE office in New York City said the following about this program:
“The administration has turned routine travel into a force multiplier for removals, potentially identifying thousands who thought they could evade the law simply by boarding a plane. This isn’t about fear; it’s about restoring order and ensuring every American knows their government enforces its laws without apology.”
An example of how this program was recently used
Last month, there was a story that got quite a bit of attention about Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a 19-year-old who was attending college in Boston. On November 20, 2025, she showed up at the airport in Boston to fly to Texas to visit her family for Thanksgiving.
Moments before getting on her flight, she was told there as a problem with her boarding pass, and on her way to the customer service desk, she was “surrounded, (placed) in handcuffs, and dragged out of the airport,” according to her attorney.
Within 48 hours, she was deported to Honduras, a country she hadn’t lived in since she was seven years old, when her parents brought her to the United States, while seeking asylum. Her attorney claims she was removed even after a federal judge issued an order barring the government from removing her outside of Massachusetts. She was also never shown a warrant, a removal order, or given any explanation, by ICE officials.
DHS claims that an immigration judge ordered her removal in 2015, but she “illegally stayed in the country since.” Meanwhile her attorney claims the only record he found in the government’s database indicates her case was closed in 2017.
Obviously immigration is a contentious topic. I think a vast majority of reasonable people agree that violent criminals should be deported (I certainly do!). But my heart breaks for children who were brought to this country by their parents (through no choice of their own), and are now being sent to a country that is really “foreign” to them, and that they don’t really know.
At this point it seems like the government is deporting people just to reach a quota. I mean, top White House official Stephen Miller has made it a goal for 3,000 people to be arrested everyday for immigration. To me, it’s sad when you’re deporting people just to deport them, especially someone like this young woman, who was trying to contribute positively to society, was pursuing education, etc.
But hey, I have to be balanced. We live in a democracy, and not in my imaginary dream world. Trump promised the largest mass deportation in history, and that’s what we’re getting.
Bottom line
In recent months, the TSA has started frequently sharing airline passenger lists with ICE, in order to facilitate airport arrests of people subject to deportation orders. Historically, domestic passenger data hasn’t been used for these purposes, but instead, the data was just shared in order to screen potential terrorists.
If the goal is to simply deport as many people as possible, then I can see how using airports is one of the easier ways to do so — you know exactly where and when someone will be, and if they’ve been screened by the TSA, you also know they don’t have weapons.
If you’re someone who might be subject to deportation in the United States, then it’s probably worth being aware of this new reality…
Isn't the TSA a government agency? .....
And what is so bad about enforcing the law. If you’re here illegally, then back to Mexico you go.
It's about time.
For y’all bipartisan haters here, US already has effective immigration laws on the books. It’s just every administration chooses how much or how little of them to enforce. And it’s fobody’s nault that being a Mexican is synonymous with being illegal. As if millions of Hondurans, El Sals, Nicaraguans, Guats, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Venezuelans, Brazilians, Dominicans that are here have papers.
What ID did Any Lucia Lopez Belloza show to get through TSA? News articles suggest she visited universities all over the US, so this was not her first flight. She could not get a RealID, so did she use her Honduran passport? If so, she well knows she doesn't have lawful presence in the US, unless the parents sold her a BS line. What should we do in cases like this? Say it's OK because...
What ID did Any Lucia Lopez Belloza show to get through TSA? News articles suggest she visited universities all over the US, so this was not her first flight. She could not get a RealID, so did she use her Honduran passport? If so, she well knows she doesn't have lawful presence in the US, unless the parents sold her a BS line. What should we do in cases like this? Say it's OK because their unlawful prense is over a decade? So, now everybody knows: sneak in, overstay, or ask for asylum and not leave when it is refused. Then stay "long enough," and you're OK to stay? Seems like a precedent that would encourage overstays and illegal entry. I will never defend going after folks based on looks. But, if we don't expel those who are here without lawful presence when it becomes known, what do you think will happen?
Maybe Trump could give her a pardon.
Trump is freer with those than Dr. Feelgood was with his prescription pad.
This is what we voted for. Illegals out. Period. Use legal immigration and then you’re more than welcome.
Perhaps that’s what you voted for but that’s not the viewpoint of most Americans. Most want secure borders and everyone wants criminals off the streets, but most Americans see Trump’s immigrant policy for the political show that it is.
"Use legal immigration" and then proceeds to make it $100k per H1B to dramatically reduce the number of sponsored individuals and $5M for a "no questions asked preferential tax treatment platinum visa."
Which is interesting, because these "$5M club" visa holders actually are treated better than the folks who voted for Trump. Does that bother you? Or do you believe there's some magical, golden ticket for you down the road?
The worst part of my day is dealing with the white MAGA construction workers I supervise. The Mexicans, many of whom with dubious legal status, are some of the nicest, most hard working people I’ve ever met. Nothing but whining, bitching, and moaning from the white boys. Always looking to blame someone else for the fact that all they amounted to in life was an overpaid laborer.
You voted for - knee bending tRumper
Late to the party on this one, so, lemme just say, kudos to the libertarians who are not hypocrites here. Y’all usually promote privacy at all costs, and I respect that, even if it conflicts with your preferred immigration enforcement policies. The reality is that we need bipartisan immigration reform, not just roughing up and renditioning of ‘brown people’ without due process. For instance, wish we’d actually punish employers who fail to properly verify their...
Late to the party on this one, so, lemme just say, kudos to the libertarians who are not hypocrites here. Y’all usually promote privacy at all costs, and I respect that, even if it conflicts with your preferred immigration enforcement policies. The reality is that we need bipartisan immigration reform, not just roughing up and renditioning of ‘brown people’ without due process. For instance, wish we’d actually punish employers who fail to properly verify their ‘undocumented’ labor (who they then underpay and exploit). Likewise, do we really need all the H1-Bs while ample citizens are being paid off from tech and other high-paying industries. We got a lot of work to do.
AS THEY SHOULD!!!!
Sounds like you’ve got nothing to hide… be sure to voluntarily give all your data/DNA to the government, just in case. Thanks patriot!
I dont know why this is a surprise. Every other country in the world does this with local authorities.
And this "great" woman can now contribute to fixing and helping her native country of Honduras be a better place.
"Every other country in the world does this with local authorities" is a MAGA lie. You only have to ask your favorite AI (yes, even grok!) to see where that is not the case. I'll start you off with Canada and most of Europe.
Agreed!
Part of the steady slide into fascism here in America.
Keeping in mind by US law almost all immigration violations are a civil matter, so we're depriving everybody of basic privacy and liberty so the goons can enforce their racist agenda for crimes that are substantively the same as traffic violations. HUH.
Immigration enforcement isn’t fascism. Now, if we deputized all municipal police to enforce immigration law, that would definitely make us…….actually just like the entire rest of the world.
I'm try to understand the target population. To clear TSA, a person needs a Real ID or passport. To obtain a Real ID, one must be lawfully in the US. To obtain a US passport, one must be a US citizen. So, we've narrowed to those traveling on a non-US passport. Either they have a visa or not. For those without a visa, how many are we talking about?
Actually more than you can imagine. I know an individual who crossed the border illegally and then proceeded to fly within the US. No one even bothered to check to see that she did not possess a visa. Yet much more common are those that entered with a visa but overstayed. Airlines are already required to determine the immigration status of anyone flying to the US or they can be fined. Maybe they should be...
Actually more than you can imagine. I know an individual who crossed the border illegally and then proceeded to fly within the US. No one even bothered to check to see that she did not possess a visa. Yet much more common are those that entered with a visa but overstayed. Airlines are already required to determine the immigration status of anyone flying to the US or they can be fined. Maybe they should be required to do the same for flights originating within the US.
Just a little PSA... all the white people - including my family in the 1700s - along with most everyone else came from here somewhere else. Every generation, every population that has come to the US has tried to close the door behind them. But this is next level nastiness. And don't tell me that "my family did it the right way and they didn't." Many of the people being deported today did it the...
Just a little PSA... all the white people - including my family in the 1700s - along with most everyone else came from here somewhere else. Every generation, every population that has come to the US has tried to close the door behind them. But this is next level nastiness. And don't tell me that "my family did it the right way and they didn't." Many of the people being deported today did it the right way. This behavior is designed to rile up people and get them to ignore the cost of living, the money grab by Trump's cronies and the erosion of their rights.
You may want to remember a famous poem that starts "first they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist... and ends... "then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
If you think this stops with brown people who are here without the proper documentation, go read project 2025 or listen to Stephen Miller. Unless you're white, male, heterosexual, christian, republican, able bodied, have never had a mental health issue and of working age, you're probably on their list. Keep cheerleading now and when they come for you the rest of us won't be left to help you.
We're colonists squatting on stolen lands, and (600 years later) are not natives, but any heckin decent personarino who crossed the border this morning is as American as Paul Revere and the liberty bell
I always thought the same way until I learned that the indigenous who possessed the land before the "liberty bell" also fought each other and conquered each other's lands. So even if one assumes the Paul Reveres stole the land, who would you give it back to since it had been stolen for yet time and time again. So no, anyone crossing the border today is not as American unless they come with guns and take the land.
@Alan, that's a lot of whataboutism to defend white colonizing, but whatever helps you sleep at night...
It’s happened since the dawn of time. What about brown colonization? The Aztecs were absolutely brutal in the lands they conquered. Muslims and Africans were some of the worst slave traders and colonizers. If you hate whites so much why don’t you give up any property you have and house these migrants since your land you live on is stolen?
Wow. You’re just flat out wrong. She was here illegally. Period. She needs to use proper legal immigration, then she is welcome. It’s that simple - AND IT IS THE LAW.
>She needs to use proper legal immigration
And then you cretins rig it so that it takes a decade to get a green card, even for foreigners who graduated college in the US on a student visa. Anyone saying they should do it legally is either ignorant or arguing in bad faith. Ignorant because the current path to even START working towards permanent residency can take 10+ years just for a person to be allowed...
>She needs to use proper legal immigration
And then you cretins rig it so that it takes a decade to get a green card, even for foreigners who graduated college in the US on a student visa. Anyone saying they should do it legally is either ignorant or arguing in bad faith. Ignorant because the current path to even START working towards permanent residency can take 10+ years just for a person to be allowed into the US, and bad faith because Trump's goons are literally snatching up people who *did* do it all the right way from their naturalization ceremonies.
Here's reform for you: Pass a background/interpol check, you get a green card and can reside and work in the US. No criminal offenses after 10 years residing in the US? You get naturalized. Done. No lottery bullshit, no country caps. Anybody can come in and get documentation, no more MAGAts whining about immigrants taking their job for lower pay because anybody who WANTS to be here can now be here legally to work.
I don't see the problem the government sharing information with itself - that should have been done before. What other countries would block its equivalent of TSA from sharing information with their immigration authority?
The problem is with how poorly ICE is being run. A scalpel is called for in many cases and they're using a chainsaw instead.
I agreed. The problem is that US citizens who present a Real ID or US Passport are being arrested by ICE. Indeed, ICE agents have actually said they don't care about these (what the *heck*) and have arrested individuals based on their surnames. Also, let's not forget that presidential adviser Laura Loomer wants to return Black Americans to Africa. I guess that swing vote didn't turn out too well.
If those agents really are doing that; I find it very difficult to believe, and if it is happening, it hasn’t happened much; then they leave the federal government open to lawsuits which the plaintiffs will almost certainly win.
If you don't believe it's happening, you're not paying attention. I have seen interviews of ardent MAGA types who have witnessed this stuff and they call it fowl play. Moveover, ICE agents are camped outside Native American reservations and are knowingly and intentionally harassing them. I personally know of incidents.
Hey PeteAU. 10:13 PMLeonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born U.S. citizen, was detained twice by ICE agents at Alabama construction sites despite presenting his Real ID, which agents dismissed as "fake." Maria Greeley, born in Illinois, was held for hours after ICE agents told her they didn't believe her passport was real and that she didn't "look like" her last name. Army veteran George Retes, California-born, was detained for three days despite telling agents "I'm a...
Hey PeteAU. 10:13 PMLeonardo Garcia Venegas, a Florida-born U.S. citizen, was detained twice by ICE agents at Alabama construction sites despite presenting his Real ID, which agents dismissed as "fake." Maria Greeley, born in Illinois, was held for hours after ICE agents told her they didn't believe her passport was real and that she didn't "look like" her last name. Army veteran George Retes, California-born, was detained for three days despite telling agents "I'm a citizen. I'm just trying to get to work."
ProPublica documented over 170 U.S. citizens arrested or detained by ICE in 2025, with more than 20 held over 24 hours. When DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed "no American citizens have been arrested or detained," NPR fact-checked the statement and rated it false.
U.S. citizen Jason Brian Gavidia, detained at a tow-truck yard, described pleading with agents: "Let me show you my ID. Let me prove to you my legal status. They don't care about that. They care the fact that I was brown and that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The problem isn't just TSA sharing data with ICE. It's that ICE is detaining U.S. citizens based on appearance and surnames, dismissing valid federal identification as fake, and denying people the opportunity to prove their citizenship. When ICE dismisses Real IDs and passports as fake, it's clear this is driven by factors other than mere proof of identity or citizenship.
Repulsive, there’s no other wordle for it
But 'repulsive' doesn't have 5 letters.
Why would this shock anyone? When you cross the TSA line your in the land of Uncle Sam. Them sharing information is expected and they should. No thanks to illegals.
All this is Fine & Dandy, They need to go after the H1-B visa abusers. Once the Indians get their visas/Green Cards they Bring their entire Families including Grand Parents, who in Turn Go after The Low Income Housings,Welfare,Senior Livings,etc. This in spite of the people bringing them here are earning $250K plus per year. When these elderly get their Low income Housings, they do not live there. they Rent them Out to Freinds/Relatives. This...
All this is Fine & Dandy, They need to go after the H1-B visa abusers. Once the Indians get their visas/Green Cards they Bring their entire Families including Grand Parents, who in Turn Go after The Low Income Housings,Welfare,Senior Livings,etc. This in spite of the people bringing them here are earning $250K plus per year. When these elderly get their Low income Housings, they do not live there. they Rent them Out to Freinds/Relatives. This abuse is so wide spread in Silicone Valley California that the deserving people do not even apply anymore. North Carolina,NJ,Illinois,Ga,etc are only some of the Hot Spots.
Many Indians apply for these Benefits for their Families even before they Migrate Here. It is so well Organized in their Communities.
Rural medical care is highly dependent on providers with H1B visas. Red state medical care is highly dependent on these individuals. The core constituents of the Administration are the ones being adversely affected.
Foreign-trained healthcare workers comprise approximately 23–26% of U.S. physicians, many of whom enter via J-1 training visas and some later transition to H-1B visas or green cards, and 15–17% of U.S. nurses, with many entering through employment-based green cards (EB-3s), filling critical gaps in underserved areas and primary care specialties.
Approximately 23–26% of all licensed U.S. physicians are international medical graduates who entered through various visa pathways, primarily J-1 exchange visitor visas for residency training,...
Foreign-trained healthcare workers comprise approximately 23–26% of U.S. physicians, many of whom enter via J-1 training visas and some later transition to H-1B visas or green cards, and 15–17% of U.S. nurses, with many entering through employment-based green cards (EB-3s), filling critical gaps in underserved areas and primary care specialties.
Approximately 23–26% of all licensed U.S. physicians are international medical graduates who entered through various visa pathways, primarily J-1 exchange visitor visas for residency training, with some later moving to H-1B visas or EB-3s, and this percentage rises above 35% in certain states and specialty areas.
Approximately 15–17% of U.S. registered nurses are foreign-born, with many entering through EB-3s rather than temporary work visas, though comprehensive visa pathway data for nurses is limited.
Eliminating this foreign-trained workforce would worsen healthcare access problems, as the U.S. faces a projected shortage of 37,800 to 86,000 physicians by 2036 and cannot produce enough domestic graduates to meet demand, particularly in rural areas and underserved communities where foreign-trained physicians comprise a substantial share of the workforce.
Lord, what a Rube Goldberg machine of assumptions and racism, "Stop the H1-B Visas"
Just so I understand:
The US government - who is responsible for securing the US borders and enforcing US laws - has one US government agency coordinating their efforts with another US government agency... in an effort to make it easier to find people who broke the US laws so the laws can be enforced.
Got it. I'll try to remember to act outraged.
And for anyone sincerely upset by the US authorities finally taking...
Just so I understand:
The US government - who is responsible for securing the US borders and enforcing US laws - has one US government agency coordinating their efforts with another US government agency... in an effort to make it easier to find people who broke the US laws so the laws can be enforced.
Got it. I'll try to remember to act outraged.
And for anyone sincerely upset by the US authorities finally taking immigration and border enforcement seriously - go ahead and get an arrest on your record (not a conviction - just an arrest). Then try to enter Canada and let me know how it goes. I'll wait.
Regardless of how you feel about deportations in general, there is good evidence that in 2024 (under Biden) more people were deported than in 2025 (under Trump). Google it.
So what? What's the point? Even if deportations were higher, the current push is clearly driven by extrajudicial military incursions into American cities and stunning cruelty and denial of due process that were not taking place under Biden. Google it.
Obummer deported over 2.5 million peeps.. so some we forget!!!!and joe lost 100,000 or more children..who are now being found by ICE !!!
The Gestapo ( ice) are dragging people of streets and incarcerating them. Innocent people are being sent to concentration camps in El Salvador. Only recently a 19 yr old student was kidnapped and sent to Honduras ignoring a federal judge’s intervention. People going to immigration hearings are being dragged from their partners.
The goal isn't to deport as many illegal aliens are possible. If that were the case, ICE would be targeting rural/farming areas where significant numbers of undocumented immigrants work producing food for American tables. Since removing all those people would cause a politically disastrous supply-chain crisis and dramatic price increases, they're left alone. Instead, ICR launches token efforts, like targeting those wealthy enough to travel by air, to maintain the illusion that the gubmint is...
The goal isn't to deport as many illegal aliens are possible. If that were the case, ICE would be targeting rural/farming areas where significant numbers of undocumented immigrants work producing food for American tables. Since removing all those people would cause a politically disastrous supply-chain crisis and dramatic price increases, they're left alone. Instead, ICR launches token efforts, like targeting those wealthy enough to travel by air, to maintain the illusion that the gubmint is doing its job, all while accomplishing very little in reality other than generating headlines that either outrage or reassure, depending on which side one's bread is buttered.
Reading these comments, it just reminds me of how hard it is to be a slightly right of center political moderate in our world now. Left wingers are hyper judgmental and will hound someone to hell and back for lacking idealogical purity, and right wingers will furiously tear into anyone who has the temerity to speak publicly in a way that even perceptually contradicts the latest whim of their orange emperor with no clothes.
Being...
Reading these comments, it just reminds me of how hard it is to be a slightly right of center political moderate in our world now. Left wingers are hyper judgmental and will hound someone to hell and back for lacking idealogical purity, and right wingers will furiously tear into anyone who has the temerity to speak publicly in a way that even perceptually contradicts the latest whim of their orange emperor with no clothes.
Being as the right wingers have the most institutional power now, and behaviorally are far more vicious than their counterparts on the left, I'm looking forward to the implosion of their intellectually and morally hollow party.
Seriously folks - cruelty is a party of the Republican platform now. It's a damn shame.
They ran aggressive atomization propaganda campaigns due to the 2008 GFC and the financial class getting skittish regarding populist anti-financier sentiment.
Obama nerfed the Smith–Mundt Act, allowing military grade domestic propaganda campaigns centered around divisiveness (class or national solidarity is risky to the financial elites when they just want to rob and steal in peace).
That's coincidentally why Amazon staff their businesses as diversely as possible - their research indicated that atomized people are...
They ran aggressive atomization propaganda campaigns due to the 2008 GFC and the financial class getting skittish regarding populist anti-financier sentiment.
Obama nerfed the Smith–Mundt Act, allowing military grade domestic propaganda campaigns centered around divisiveness (class or national solidarity is risky to the financial elites when they just want to rob and steal in peace).
That's coincidentally why Amazon staff their businesses as diversely as possible - their research indicated that atomized people are less likely to unionize or find collective agreement against their employers.
As a result, now every sect hates each other and the same financial elites are genuinely panicking that we will degrade cohesiveness to the point of unraveling the economy. So far, their trial balloon efforts as undoing the damage have proven fruitless and society continues its antagonistic unraveling apace.
ADR - one way you yourself can combat this egregore you loosely define, is to resist your instinct to other the people you disagree with - 77 million Americans are not 'vicious', or 'cruel', or intelectually hollow, no more or less so than the 74 million other Americans.
Hey 99 Luft Stanzas. Encourage you to consider leading with questions instead of assumptions. For instance, you could have asked me:
“How do you define right winger?”
- A person who advocates proto-authoritarian "unitary executive" power with the expectation said executive would enforce their narrow cultural vision, often rooted in "Christian Trumpist" (see Michael Horton), through scapegoating minorities to restore a mythical golden age. Guided by that definition, I don't consider all Trump voters...
Hey 99 Luft Stanzas. Encourage you to consider leading with questions instead of assumptions. For instance, you could have asked me:
“How do you define right winger?”
- A person who advocates proto-authoritarian "unitary executive" power with the expectation said executive would enforce their narrow cultural vision, often rooted in "Christian Trumpist" (see Michael Horton), through scapegoating minorities to restore a mythical golden age. Guided by that definition, I don't consider all Trump voters to be right-wingers. Trump himself, the GOP congressional majority, Christian Trumpist leaders, and the extremely committed MAGA base who actively embrace these authoritarian elements are right wingers - not the many single-issue, low-information, or anti-Democrat voters who enabled them.
"How do you define cruelty and/or viciousness?"
- Cruelty is inflicting unnecessary suffering beyond what's required to achieve legitimate aims, or actively pursuing harm with reckless disregard for human dignity. Judith Shklar describes cruelty as "the deliberate infliction of physical, and secondarily emotional, pain upon a weaker person or group by stronger ones."
Tom Regan goes even further into subdividing cruelty, writing, "People can rightly be judged cruel either for what they do or for what they fail to do, and either for what they feel or for what they fail to feel. The central case of cruelty appears to be the case where, in Locke's apt phrase, one takes 'a seeming kind of Pleasure' in causing another to suffer. Their cruelty is manifested by a lack of what is judged appropriate feeling, as pity or mercy, for the plight of the individual whose suffering they cause, rather than pleasure in causing it… The sense of cruelty that involves indifference to, rather than enjoyment of, suffering caused to others we shall call brutal cruelty…"
“How does that apply to right-wingers?”
- Right-wingers as I've defined them demonstrate Regan's "brutal cruelty" - indifference to suffering caused to achieve their ends. The GOP's "Big Beautiful Bill" cuts Medicaid and SNAP (programs supporting vulnerable populations) to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. The Medicaid cuts alone immediately eliminated coverage for ~10 million Americans and put hundreds of rural hospitals at imminent risk of closure, meanwhile the impending sunset of ACA subsidies will cause premiums to rise even for those not on the marketplace, and price up price out 17 million red state and 7 million blue state residents who receive ACA credits from health insurance. Meanwhile, the gutting of the Education Department (firing 97 of 100 statisticians who determine which schools qualify for Title I and rural education grants) threatens federal funding for the rural and low-income schools serving nearly 10 million students, many in communities where the school is both the educational center and largest employer.
"But you referred to it as their party. That implies that all Republicans are right wingers."
- Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, defined a party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." When Trump and congressional Republicans passed the "Big Beautiful Bill" 218-214, when they stated their intent to let ACA subsidies expire despite knowing it would harm millions, when they gutted education funding for rural schools - those weren't rogue actions. Those were the party's official acts, passed by its elected leadership with near-unanimous support. As Aristotle reminds us, character is revealed through habitual action. The GOP's character - what it actually does with power - is defined by these policies, regardless of whether every Republican voter embraces the underlying Christian nationalist ideology. A party is what its leadership does, not what some of its members wish it were.
Not all Republican voters are right-wingers, but the party they've empowered is morally and intellectually hollow. Morally hollow because it demonstrates Regan's brutal cruelty - indifference to the suffering these policies cause. Intellectually hollow because these policies fail even by their stated aims: tax cuts that explode deficits, tariffs that require farmer bailouts, healthcare "reforms" that price millions out of coverage. Whether individual Republicans vote from ideological commitment, single-issue priorities, or ignorance of these effects, they provide the votes necessary for this hollowness to govern.
The tragedy is that suffering doesn't care about the voters' intentions - only about the policies their votes made possible.
I didn't read any of that. Classic tl:dr. Hope it fulfilled whatever need inside you that needed a boost
Terrific self-own on your part 99 Luft Stanzas - revealing yourself to have as little rigor for reading as you do for exchanging ideas.
As for myself, I greatly enjoyed exploring what I've studied about moral philosophy and applying it to this specific argument. Retracing my old steps, rereading passages and thinking about it was immensely gratifying. The fact that I was exchanging with an unworthy opponent has no impact on that enjoyment.
Lots of Hispanics voted for this. I have empathy for those who didn't and are now being impacted. The others, not one drop of sympathy.
Seems to me that people with the right to vote; ie, citizens; aren't the ones being targeted.
@PeteAU, if you google it, you will find lots of cases of US citizens being arrested & deported by ICE.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-look-at-the-u-s-citizens-who-have-been-deported-by-the-trump-administration-so-far/ar-AA1EfDov
That's complete nonsense, PeteAU. Anyone with brown skin is targeted. The US government petitioned for the right to racially profile FFS! Citizens are routinely manhandled and wrongly detained by the orange boy king's de facto national police force. This is utter madness and any attempt to rationalize it is either fueled by the absence of education, the presence of denial or just a desire to be obtuse.
get them all out
Ah, MAGA's version of "The New Colossus":
"Give me your healthy, your wealthy, your international elite looking to obtain residency as a hedge against political or financial instability in their home countries."
The international elite aren't moving to the United States to save on taxes. They have residential status in Monaco, the UAE, et al, where taxes are genuinely low or non-existent; or Singapore, where the taxes are reasonably low and there is real political stability and certainty, which the United States definitely now longer has.
Couple things, PeteAU. I never wrote that this was about taxes; I wrote that it is a hedge against political or financial instability in home countries. Plenty of HNWIs and UHNWIs are still actively seeking U.S. visas, particularly those from the PRC, where capital controls and political risk matter more than marginal tax rates. Monaco, the UAE, and Singapore are not scalable solutions: Monaco has hard residency caps and real estate constraints, the UAE selectively...
Couple things, PeteAU. I never wrote that this was about taxes; I wrote that it is a hedge against political or financial instability in home countries. Plenty of HNWIs and UHNWIs are still actively seeking U.S. visas, particularly those from the PRC, where capital controls and political risk matter more than marginal tax rates. Monaco, the UAE, and Singapore are not scalable solutions: Monaco has hard residency caps and real estate constraints, the UAE selectively limits long-term status by nationality, source of funds, and other considerations, and Singapore’s permanent residency is tightly quota‑controlled and highly selective even for HNWIs and UHNWIs. The global pool of genuinely “rootless” elites with unlimited residency options is much smaller than it appears, which is why the U.S. remains a strategic backstop even for people who already have alternatives.
What ? The entire US population apart from the indigenous people.
Ancestors of the "indigenous people" came across on a land bridge from Asia. Essentially everyone is an immigrant if you go back far enough save for people who's entire lineage has always lived in the Great Rift Valley.
How this any different than other countries that pull visa overstays aside during exit customs and prevent them from coming back? Over stay your visa in Australia by a couple of years and see how fast you get through exit customs.
Orange Man Bad
The difference is they are crossing an international border at that point and directly interfacing with that country’s CBP equivalent.
Australian Border Force also raids farms, factories, and private residences in the search for over-stayers. Overstay you visa in Singapore and you face a mandatory prison sentence plus a caning. Most countries take the matter very seriously indeed.
So what? They're still checking whether you are in that country legally and abided by their rules of entrance. If you haven't you likely won't be coming back. The US doesn't have the manpower at CBP to do this. I'd prefer CBP perform this function but nothing can be perfect.
The US government, unlike the governments you all are mentioning, has made scapegoating non-white minority groups for all the ills of the nation the driving force behind the current anti-immigrant actions.
I'll tell you one thing the Australian Border Force hasn't done - they've not petitioned the High Court to allow them to use perceived racial identity as the soul justification for detaining a person for immigration related offenses.
MAGA has adopted the classic...
The US government, unlike the governments you all are mentioning, has made scapegoating non-white minority groups for all the ills of the nation the driving force behind the current anti-immigrant actions.
I'll tell you one thing the Australian Border Force hasn't done - they've not petitioned the High Court to allow them to use perceived racial identity as the soul justification for detaining a person for immigration related offenses.
MAGA has adopted the classic Russian sam durak false equivalency strategy to try and normalize what is essentially a photo-autocratic partisan philosophy fueled by grievance and rage against perceived enemies who are most often racial, ethnic, religious or sexual minorities. They have a few tokens of each group they want to oppress for optics. But that's the came. And that's why your false equivalencies don't hold water.
What happened to that student is horrendous and sickening. I wonder if one way around it for those people who still want to travel domestically is to book last minute tickets when possible, so the information doesn't get communicated to the gestapo in time.
A better idea would be to get out and vote for people who don’t support the gestapo.
The next US President must abolish ICE.
They’ll do no such thing. Americans were given a choice at the last election, and they made it. What’s happening is exactly what the electorate voted for. If you want to blame anyone, blame the Democratic National Committee for letting President Biden stay on for so long after his best-by date, and then unilaterally appointing a vacuous diversity-hire with a non-existent policy platform and the charisma of a store mannequin to run in his place.
We can all argue on how this information sharing is used to arrest people and whether it’s appropriate.
But from a pure fact that TSA and CBP/ICE are sharing information is actually done by every other country out there too. Canada fully admits they use it to enforce warrants and immigration offenses too. They cite the same reasons to share this information. Heck they used it to enforce vaccine requirements in Canada to fly domestically...
We can all argue on how this information sharing is used to arrest people and whether it’s appropriate.
But from a pure fact that TSA and CBP/ICE are sharing information is actually done by every other country out there too. Canada fully admits they use it to enforce warrants and immigration offenses too. They cite the same reasons to share this information. Heck they used it to enforce vaccine requirements in Canada to fly domestically and shared health databases too.
So to think this is a shock or surprise or something new or unique to America is….naive.
Every other country does the same … fly domestically in Scandinavia…..and you are there ilegally. Expect to be arrested on your domestic flight to Tromsö…
The critical distinction you're missing is that other nations enforce immigration law without making racial and ethnic scapegoating the centerpiece of their enforcement strategy.
Much like the earlier example of Australia, here's something Canada hasn't done - petition their Supreme Court for the legal right to use someone's perceived race or ethnicity as sufficient grounds to detain them for immigration violations.
What we're witnessing is textbook sam durak whataboutism - the same Russian tactic of...
The critical distinction you're missing is that other nations enforce immigration law without making racial and ethnic scapegoating the centerpiece of their enforcement strategy.
Much like the earlier example of Australia, here's something Canada hasn't done - petition their Supreme Court for the legal right to use someone's perceived race or ethnicity as sufficient grounds to detain them for immigration violations.
What we're witnessing is textbook sam durak whataboutism - the same Russian tactic of deflecting legitimate criticism by claiming "everyone does it." But the comparison falls apart under scrutiny. This administration has weaponized immigration enforcement as part of a broader authoritarian playbook that targets racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities as enemies of the state. Sure, they parade a few token members of these groups for political cover. But anyone paying attention knows what's really happening. Your false equivalencies don't withstand even basic examination.
So you are seeing imaginary stuff around the world are you? No personal medical information was shared with airline or security personnel in Canada. To fly during the pandemic, you had to provide evidence of vaccination, they did not get it from any other source but the passenger providing it themselves.
>>fly domestically in Scandinavia….Expect to be arrested on your domestic flight to Tromsö
This is not true. I regularly fly between Helsinki and Stockholm and I do not show ID to anybody. The airline only has my name. I do online checkin and get a boarding pass. No ID is given when I book or check in and on my journey through the airport to the plane I just show the boarding pass QR code....
>>fly domestically in Scandinavia….Expect to be arrested on your domestic flight to Tromsö
This is not true. I regularly fly between Helsinki and Stockholm and I do not show ID to anybody. The airline only has my name. I do online checkin and get a boarding pass. No ID is given when I book or check in and on my journey through the airport to the plane I just show the boarding pass QR code. The same when I fly home. From Finland I think the UK is the only European country where I have to give/show ID when flying there.
Love it
For scale: at 3,000 per day, it would take TEN YEARS to equal the amount of people the Biden administration admitted in just four. Insane.
Source?
@ Julia
The source is fox.
@Julia Google is free and so are calculators. That was a low estimate based on liberal media. Based on Fox’s and others it could be 15-20 years. Don’t be afraid to look up every once in a while.
Sauce. Yum.
I thought Biden deported more people than Trump has. Did he allow them to come across the border just to send them back? What a rascal!
10 million people did not illegally enter the country under Biden you credulous buffoon.
Let’s imagine a 7-year-old child whose parents commit a crime and are jailed.
Now, this child is separated from their parents for years, which is exactly as traumatic and life shattering as it sounds.
Does our heart break for this child? Yes. Is the solution to overlook the parents’ crime?
That’s a great strawman!
Now, tell us the crime you’re envisioning for the parent/s so we can judge them appropriately.
Next, tell us the child’s skin color so we can determine whether or not to deport them with the parent/s.
Ugh, it’s so difficult playing Solomon isn’t it?
Families that are deported together stay together!
The child can be deported together with the parents.
Hey Simon. Your analogy fails because unlawful presence is a civil violation, not a crime, and deporting the child punishes them for something they didn't do by exiling them from the only country they've ever known.
Simply being in the U.S. without authorization (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil violation, not a crime. It leads to deportation proceedings and fines, but not criminal prosecution. However, how you entered matters. Crossing the border illegally (improper...
Hey Simon. Your analogy fails because unlawful presence is a civil violation, not a crime, and deporting the child punishes them for something they didn't do by exiling them from the only country they've ever known.
Simply being in the U.S. without authorization (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil violation, not a crime. It leads to deportation proceedings and fines, but not criminal prosecution. However, how you entered matters. Crossing the border illegally (improper entry under 8 U.S.C. §1325) is a federal misdemeanor. Re-entering after deportation (illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. §1326) is a felony.
So overstaying your visa = civil matter. Illegally crossing the border or sneaking back after deportation = criminal offense with potential jail time. Sources: American Immigration Council, ACLU, Title 8 U.S. Code.
I'm no fan of ICE, but it is common practice for TSA to reach out to LE agencies when a traveler has an arrest warrant.
It’s also common to bake cakes for peoples’ birthdays.
That also has nothing to do with this piece.
Well, okay. I'm glad you were able to puff up a bit today.
Why are so many Americans against border control and guarding our sovereignty? Maybe you think they are too aggressive?? I remember vividly in early 90s on a bus from Amsterdam to Calais at midnight, we were stopped by French border guards. About 3 or 4 people were arrested and removed from the bus. Was that such a bad thing back then?
Timo. The issue isn't border control itself - it's the deliberate cruelty, denial of due process, and racial targeting that defines current enforcement.
That French border control example? They were checking people crossing an international border. The TSA program targets people on domestic flights - Boston to Texas, for instance. That's not border security, that's internal population surveillance and control.
Nobody that I'm reading here is arguing against actual border enforcement. They are objecting to...
Timo. The issue isn't border control itself - it's the deliberate cruelty, denial of due process, and racial targeting that defines current enforcement.
That French border control example? They were checking people crossing an international border. The TSA program targets people on domestic flights - Boston to Texas, for instance. That's not border security, that's internal population surveillance and control.
Nobody that I'm reading here is arguing against actual border enforcement. They are objecting to military-style raids in American cities, warrantless arrests at airports hundreds of miles from any border, family separations, and an administration that petitioned the Supreme Court for permission to racially profile. When a college student gets deported within 48 hours to a country she left at age seven, without being shown a warrant or given due process, that's not sovereignty - that's authoritarian overreach dressed up in nationalist rhetoric.
PreCheck and Global Entry?
With all your biometrics.
You all actually enrolled in PreArrest and Global Deportation.
And you even paid for it.
Your mastery of the obvious is masterful.
Do you have any friends in the real world?
Judging from your other comments.
You seem too dumb to know the obvious. That's why that one person likes to troll your traveling genitalia.
Pulling an ad hominem by questioning one's acquaintances just validate how you really are too dumb to know the obvious.
You seem to embrace your first amendment rights almost every day but also seem to like to sh** on the rest of the constitution as well as most other peoples’ rights. Why are you such a hater? We get it that you like to gaslight people. My nightmare would be stuck in a middle seat on Delta in Economy next to you.
Anybody who supports this deserves to die of cancer.
If your annual income is EIGHT FIGURES, you can pay for the illegals! How about putting your money where your mouth is?
Maybe they'll deport you to Germany too
Maybe you’re a cunt.
EIGHT FIGURES certainly is, that's for sure.