The magnitude of the approval of immigration surprises me a bit. Almost 80% of Americans think immigration is a good thing? And approval has been about 50% for the last two decades? So how did these Republican assholes get elected? Hatred of immigrants and others was their big campaign issue!
What doesn’t make sense is that the Republicans are terrorizing Los Angeles with paramilitary goon squads; they’re making mass deportations of thousands of people; the worst Supreme Court in American history (that includes the Taney court) is giving carte blanche to Trump; and for some reason, the Democrats are practically supine and largely avoiding capitalizing on this weakness in the electorate.
It’s gotten so bad that one college in California is treating ICE like a plague.
California State University, Los Angeles, is giving professors the option of moving their classes online due to students’ fears about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Heather Lattimer, university provost and vice president for academic affairs, said in a letter to faculty this week, according to the Los Angeles Times, that she had heard students are “scared to take public transit and fearful of driving to campus.”
Lattimer said faculty have “the option of working remotely for a limited time due to extraordinary circumstances they are facing.”
I remember when we made those same accommodations for COVID. I guess Republicans are just another disease.
LA’s Bishop gave permission to people not to attend mass, out of fear of ICE.
You know how it is. Forcing people to stay at home as a temporary measure to help save the lives of vulnerable people during an epidemic was criminal. Forcing people to stay at home out of fear of arbitrary detention and deportation is patriotic.
“I guess Republicans are just another disease.”
Just when you think it’s been tamped down, and you can start to relax, it surges back. Best to kill it with fire and make sure it’s completely eradicated, so there isn’t a “next time”.
Um, when someone gets diseased, they are not typically burned alive.
They get treatment; and if one wants to prevent the disease, one uses vaccines.
Terrorizing LA and the rest of California by recently arresting 200 immigrants working on a pot farm and one has died. This doesn’t sound like (M13) gang members. He said he was going to get rid of all the criminals. This whole immigrant thing is only a big distraction. Don’t look at Epstein stuff, don’t look at my beautiful big bill, and especially don’t look at my deals.
I think we’ve finally found why they’re so opposed to vaccines.
Given that ICE agents making an arrest are currently indistinguishable from drug cartel minions doing abductions, the police should be arresting them if they dont show ID and legal authorisation.
You’re being rhetorical here, right? Because I think we know it was a combination of immigrants needing to be From The Right Place(TM) and immigrate The Right Way(TM) for many of these people to fully accept them. My own Democrat voting mother has griped to me about how immigrants from Mexico supposedly don’t adapt to the culture nor learn the language like my ancestors supposedly did. (But, of course, my ancestors did not because they absolutely did not adapt to native culture nor learn Lakota. Funny how the immigrants prior to my ancestors got a pass on this. Also funny how it was the ancestors on my father’s side of the family that she used as the ideal example…because many of my mother’s ancestors were those earlier immigrants who stole land from the native population.)
To be fair, being generally positive to immigration is not the same as being positive to illegal(*) immigration. And it’s not like this is the only example of the thugs dismantling something the majority support. Politics is pretty dogmatic and sectarian, seems like most people will support “their side” pretty much regardless of what they’re doing.
(*) I know it’s designed like that to keep a cheap expendable labor force.
Erlend:
“To be fair, being generally positive to immigration is not the same as being positive to illegal(*) immigration.”
To be technical, immigration is immigration, whether or not it’s granted legal status.
(Don’t get me started on illegal emigration)
—
“And it’s not like this is the only example of the thugs dismantling something the majority support.”
Evidently, the majority does not. I mean, Trump and his regime got elected.
“Politics is pretty dogmatic and sectarian, seems like most people will support “their side” pretty much regardless of what they’re doing.”
What? No. It does not seem like that at all.
Good question.
It has been 6 months of the Trump regime and I still don’t really know.
We have 11 million undocumented migrants and 8 million of them are working at jobs, many of which most Americans won’t or can’t do.
We can’t deport them all without doing serious damage to our economy.
AFAICT, the current migrant sweeps by ICE, the US National Guard, and the US armed forces is mostly just government sponsored terrorism.
The GOP and the current Federal government just like to see heavily armed, masked, unidentified thugs roaming around the USA terrorizing the people who live in the USA, especially if they are in Blue states.
They may also be trying to provoke a reaction from the nonwhite and progressive segments of the population so they can beat up, arrest, and kill a bunch of Democratic party voters.
Yes, why are we persecuting immigrants in our democratic society? According to what I’ve read, about 85% of immigrants in this country are Christian. If Republicans are trying for a more “Christian” society, these would be the very people they should want. Also, the fact that the new Pope is allowing these people to skip mass so they can stay home and hopefully be safe from the gestapo (or is that “gazpacho”?) is kind of amazing.
FWIW, we may be already seeing the results of the ICE raids on farm workers.
I went to the grocery store a few days ago and a lot of what I routinely buy was up in price.
Beef, which I don’t usually buy, is at record prices.
This is helped by the 50% tariffs on Brazil, which is the largest beef exporter to the USA.
Fruits and vegetables, which in summer usually drop in price were also higher.
Gasoline is also a lot higher than 6 months ago,
AFAICT, the GOP is badly mismanaging the US economy, wherever they can.
I don’t get why some people are so upset about undocumented people here. Yeah, it’s illegal. But so is speeding. But cops don’t pull you out of your car, beat you, then destroy your car if you’re caught doing 75mph in a 70mph zone. ICE is an over-reaction and unnecessary.
@John Morales: I have no idea what your point is. Are you arguing that Republican policies must be popular because that got elected? That excludes the possibility that people simply voted for the ones they hate the least or that they vote against their own best interest out of party loyalty or misinformation.
IIRC the ACA had support from the majority until they started calling it “obamacare”.
Erlend, my point was your attempted distinction between legal and illegal immigration.
Both are migration, but you suggest that you think only the latter should be criminalised.
(Very kind of you!)
Hey, did you know my wife’s great-grandpa jumped of a German boat in South Australia around the end of WW1? Got to shore, set up a new life. Somehow.
Neat, huh?
I wasn’t implying it was right, just that I believe it is a commonly held view. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear, there is a slight language barrier here to consider.
And I’m not anti-immigrant, being a child of an immigrant myself. But that does not mean I’m for absolutely no border control or immigration control at all.
Fair enough, Erlend.
To elaborate, I think there’s a fair gap between not needlessly and perversely harassing and abusing immigrants (especially those who are just making a life while being exploited as cheap labour) and not having border control or immigration control at all. It’s not a dichotomy.
And it’s perverse what’s going on. Like punching yourself in the face.
cf. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/14/jaime-alanis-california-ice-raid-death
Farm worker who died after California Ice raid was ‘hardworking and innocent’, family says
Jaime Alanís, 57, died a day after falling off a greenhouse roof during an immigration raid of a cannabis farm.
The farm worker who died from injuries he sustained after falling from a greenhouse roof during an Ice raid of a California cannabis farm was a “hard-working, innocent farmer” and the sole provider for his wife and daughter, his family says.
Jaime Alanís died a day after a frenzied immigration raid of Glass House Farms in Ventura county where authorities arrested at least 200 workers. The 57-year-old, who was from the town of Huajúmbaro in Michoacán, Mexico, is the first known person to die during the Trump administration’s enhanced immigration enforcement operations in southern California.
(Yay, one fewer worker for the USA! One more needy family without a breadwinner!)
I agree, it’s not a dichotomy. And it is perverse. Sadly immigration is very sensitive to right wing crap in times like this. That’s why they’re making everything worse for everybody, it makes it easier to manipulate people.
@ raven : “FWIW, we may be already seeing the results of the ICE raids on farm workers. I went to the grocery store a few days ago and a lot of what I routinely buy was up in price. …(snip).. This is helped by the 50% tariffs on Brazil, which is the largest beef exporter to the USA.”
Combo of tariffs and loss of labour due to ICE terrorism and removal of bnecessary and valued workers – seems very probbale to me.
Source : https://labor411.org/411-blog/texas-farms-shutting-down-as-almost-100-of-workers-leave-due-to-ice-raids/
Plus
Source : https://www.newsweek.com/ice-immigration-raids-farms-crops-rotting-2092749
Plus :
Source : https://www.thebuildersdaily.com/now-is-no-time-to-deplete-u-s-housings-frontline-workforce/