ICE Raid At Delta Downs

[MorganSercu]

@Texarkana

Yet people here are saying, “aw shucks ICE was just doing their job.” No, they were violating the constitution

Which means they are federal employees and swore an oath:

“I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The oath of office and what it means

The CONSTITUTION - NOT to an individual politician.

[cristalle]

@Kemosabe

What ICE is doing is Un-American…arresting people and then shipping them off to a prison in another country without due process is fundamentally the playbook of history’s greatest villains: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Idi Amin, Franco, the Third Reich.

History has its eyes on…us.

I agree that it is egregious and wrong, and has the fingerprints of fascist dictators all over it.
It is a form of ‘racial cleansing’
But, sadly, what makes you think that it is “Un-American”?
So often we see people say that something is ‘un-American’ and that “we are better than this”.
But, is it? Are we? Look what was done to Japanese Americans - citizens- following the late entry of the US into WWII.
A bit farther back, look how Indigenous people and African Americans were treated…
The fact that many people have been and are A-OK with this kind of treatment of ‘others’ , including the current rollback of DEI and ICE raids, is something to think about.

[ParadoxFarm]

@snaffle1987

I am saying illegal immigrants are bad. They broke the law.

Have you ever driven over the speed limit? Ran a red light? Failed to fully stop at a stop sign? I think it’s ridiculous to say if someone breaks the law, they are forevermore bad. I’m not saying traffic violation are equal to illegal immigration, but your comment doesn’t make sense to me.

[quietann]

That’s where subcontracting can come in. The subcontractor provides the “extra” employees, collects their wages from the construction company, and pays out the wages to them, taking a fee off the top. It shields the construction company from breaking immigration laws, and the subcontractor provides the needed workers on any given day.

[ASB_Stars]

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door.”

At one point in time, everyone would have been considered to be an illegal alien. And criminals? Before they were dumping them in Australia, the US was the place to get rid of your problems. I am looking for a solution that removes those who have been convicted of serious crimes in the place of origin, and streamlines citizenship for everyone else.

[Aussie_2020]

Maybe, but on government projects and any large company projects (I’m familiar with roads and bridge contracts in the western states) all employees that step onto that jobsite are subject to labor laws. I’ve even checked credentials on suppliers if they deliver to the jobsite.

[tabula_rashah]

yes and no- it depends on what type of job it is. Any type of state, township, federal job etc is going to require the credentials of the employees. Sometimes just to deliver plants to a job like this I have to provide this information. Not to mention certified payroll etc.

[Aussie_2020]

Ugh certified payroll checks. I hated doing interviews with workers to ascertain if they were indeed receiving the correct pay.

[tabula_rashah]

Processing certified payroll is all the fun of shoving skewers under your fingernails. It’s not even my company, I just sometimes help my brother out when he gets overwhelmed by paperwork and I still hate it with a vengeance lol

[LCDR]

Re: the comment that all federal workers swear an oath to the Constitution.

That is a true statement. But I have a question for those who have held federal jobs. Did you raise your hand and swear, was it in the contract/paperwork somewhere, or is it a requirement that is overlooked at times?

I ask because in my career I worked at times for the DOD and HHS. I definitely raised my hand an swore the oath when first commissioned in the military. But with the USPHS and with the VA I definitely didn’t. Maybe it’s a once and done for life deal? I don’t recall having to repeat the oath after two military promotions, either.

[JanM]

The first time I heard what the SS admin does to verify SSNs was in the early 90s, so it may have changed. The SSA only verifies the number is a legal SSN, not the name. THat’s how hundreds of people at a meat processing plant in Iowa were working under the same SSN. A friend knew the real owner of the SSN, and it was a nightmare for her to get it straightened out, because she had to account for every penny she legally earned, for income tax purposes. That’s how the scammers got caught, when one person who lived in the next state was notified by the IRS that she owed a ton in unpaid income tax, and her 1040 didn’t reflect the amount.

It took years to get it straightened out.

[CindyB59]

Exactly. My BIL is from Scotland. Took well over a year

[Djones]

Members of Congress are being denied access to an ICE facility in Manhattan, because the conditions inside are that bad.

Migrants are being held on benches and floors overnight. No beds. No medical care. The facility is over capacity, and ICE admits it. But instead of transparency, DHS issued new rules this week to block oversight, requiring 72 hours’ notice and giving ICE broad power to cancel visits altogether.

Let’s be clear: Congress has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight. If there’s nothing to hide, why are they hiding it?

Something is very wrong here.

Anyone care to defend this practice?

[Amberley]

A quote from that article

“The head of the New York Racing Association, Marc Holliday, is business partners with (Trump’s son-in-law) Jared Kushner, so he had pretty strong assurances there would be some type of executive action protecting the horsemen and agriculture workers,” Velie said. “But I think there’s a lot of competing factions inside the administration battling over this.”

That is NOT how the US government is supposed to work. I know some favors have always been done behind the scenes but seeing that in print is something else. Even thoroughly corrupt countries that I’ve lived in don’t print quotes like that. This along with the safety issues and clear lack of training is what is making people outraged.

[MHM]

@Amberley

That is NOT how the US government is supposed to work. I know some favors have always been done behind the scenes but seeing that in print is something else. Even thoroughly corrupt countries that I’ve lived in don’t print quotes like that.

That statement could apply to so many things that are happening these days in this country. Heaven help us all.

[quietann]

Absolutely. I should have made it clear that political entities don’t use these subcontractors. But it’s very common in private construction, landscaping, etc. I think that when Mitt Romney got in trouble for having illegal immigrants working in the yard of his Massachusetts home, he actually didn’t know, because a subcontractor was their employer.

[Jenerationx]

@Amberley

That is NOT how the US government is supposed to work. I know some favors have always been done behind the scenes but seeing that in print is something else. Even thoroughly corrupt countries that I’ve lived in don’t print quotes like that. This along with the safety issues and clear lack of training is what is making people outraged.

I’m just waiting for someone to be killed. If I were walking through a parking lot, or coming out of a court date, and a bunch of guys wearing masks, no uniforms or ID started yelling at me and tried to grab me… I would be fighting for my life. I wouldn’t know if they were trying to rob me, kill me, rape me, or all of the above, but I damn sure wouldn’t think they were “just doing their jobs.”

[On_the_Farm]

@enjoytheride

I am not missing your point. ICE raids were only supposed to target “the bad ones.” Those who had committed crimes AFTER coming to the US. This was the entire platform. You are specifically saying that ALL immigrants are bad and must be deported. This is a massive change in policy.

Your comment is one of the mis-statements that have been used to criticize the enforcement of immigration laws. The original concept of enforcement was to remove the “worst first,” which implies that everyone would eventually be subject to the application of laws. I can’t recall a change in policy to “only the worst.”

One additional concept to float is farm vs racetrack. I think there is a differentiation in status where activitivies performed at a farm are considered agriculture, but at a racetrack, they are not. I’m not sure if that’s state-by-state (NY has that distinction,) or federal law.

[quietann]

IANL but I think it’s slightly different than that. There are work visas available for seasonal agricultural workers, those who pick crops and such. I don’t know the visa period, maybe 6 months? They’re supposed to go home after the crops are picked and then re-apply. A lot of these are tied to a specific employer, though, so there’s the same problem as H1B visas - you can’t switch jobs easily. There are other short term visas that mostly go to people who work in vacation areas where there are labor shortages, like Cape Cod.

BUT the work of caring for horses or other livestock is a year round activity, so there aren’t visas that work for that situation.

So… There are a lot of people here illegally who do other jobs. I have read that the intense guarding of the border now is actually making people more likely to stay, because if you leave, there’s no easy way to come back. Before, workers - mostly young men - would come in, work for a while, save money for home, and leave. Now, they tend to bring their families and stay, because of the difficulty of moving back and forth across the border.

[MHM]

@quietann

Before, workers - mostly young men - would come in, work for a while, save money for home, and leave. Now, they tend to bring their families and stay, because of the difficulty of moving back and forth across the border.

That actually sounds pretty typical of the completely backwards results of most of the actions that are taking place these days with the government.