Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.
Asia rolled it out? Wow, imagine the coordination that took to get all of those disparate countries (like, 48 or 49 countries make up Asia) on board with a 4 day work week... and so quickly, too!
My homeowners association can't pull off a neighborhood playground cleanup without conflict, disorder and confusion even with 6 months of planning so again, kudos to the 48+ countries of Asia for coming together in this herculean example of speed, unity and coordination.
Iran did not admit to this. Further, the current suspicion that the killing of these children was done by the US is coming from a US investigation, not from some external source.
I surprised more US folks dont visit Canada, its amazing, much safer, and cheaper for them because of the exchange difference. Im guessing they see prices in CAD ($), and think its more expensive, but not realizing that $1 of theirs buys $1.35 CAD.
It's probably just that it doesn't feel like there's much to "get" there.
If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for.
Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same as the options available in the US, just further away. It's not really "exotic".
We don't really have the same emigrant relationship with Canada; my grandfather's family spent a couple generations in Canada, but my mother only found out about it after he died. He considered his family to be Irish and to have come from Ireland; that they came to the US via a couple of generations spent in New Brunswick was never a part of the family lore.
So there's no real "visiting the home of my ancestors" sort of feeling you'd otherwise see.
I don't know about "exotic", but for anyone living in the northeast of the US, the easiest way to visit Europe (sort of) is to drive up to Montreal/Quebec.
Or they can go to St Augustine, New Orleans, or mid Manhattan to also get that Euro-Architecture feel (sort of).
Having been to Europe, no comparison.
Nothing prepares you for walking along a city street then “oh fuck, a castle…” and learning that it is now, the city’s government building. Cool… (Stuttgart, you’re awesome)
Museums and public art galleries are notably worse in Canada, honestly.
But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal/Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.
It's not so much what's better as whether it's different enough to attract a significant tourist group from areas with similar attractions nearby.
Like, if you want to see a rain forest or a thousand year old Buddhist temple or a pyramid, there's not really a substitute in the continental US.
But if you've two options, where you can go to the pretty good option domestically or drive past it and continue on to the much better option in another country ... most people will be happy with the closer option, even if there's some small number of people who want the best or have seen all the closer options before and want something different or just whimsically like the idea of going to the further-away one none of their friends have been to.
Spent a delightful weekend in Quebec last month. Beautiful city, great culture, friendly people, best damn duck I have ever eaten in the a resteraunt they must having teleported from southern France
I don't visit Canada for the same reason I don't do a whole lot of touristy stuff here in the US: The travel costs aren't really _that_ much cheaper vs going somewhere more exotic like South America, Europe, Asia, etc, and it feels a bit too much like "home".
Living on the west coast, Vancouver's the easiest to get to -- I love Vancouver (and Victoria), and I've been both places several times, and I've gone to Whistler a handful of times as well, but, again, it's a lot like where I grew up in Seattle.
I really do want to visit Montreal sometime, but I also want to visit Chicago and Memphis and a lot of other "domestic" locations that I somehow never find the time for.
Also, when you grow up in a country you have a lot of local knowledge from culture, friends, television, education, so we just know a lot more about domestic places we haven't (yet) visited. Plus, a substantial number of people don't have passports. We used to be able to visit Canada easily without one, now we cannot.
Montreal is the exception to the rule about Canada not being differentiated enough from the US to encourage tourism. It really is quite different than anywhere in the US, it’s more like going to a funny speaking part of France without having to travel so far. They also mostly speak English, which makes it a bit less exotic but more convenient.
Canada is great. Montreal feels like a stylish and fun European city.
As a film lover, I've been to the Toronto film festival many times, it's an unmatched experience--so many things to see, and watch films with a very engaged festival crowd just makes them better. (In the same way, even if you don't love Star Wars, going on opening weekend, with the most enthusiastic fans, makes the experience better.) And given that nearly half of Toronto's population was born outside of Canada, it makes even New York feel a little parochial.
With a few possible exceptions, Canada isn't really cheaper for US tourists. They get more CAD for their US dollars, but most prices in Canada are scaled up accordingly, so it ends up being pretty much the same or more expensive.
I think there are some parts of Canada worth visiting from the US:
* Montreal - it's a big-ish city, without piss in the subways. Also the restaurant scene is good, and the old town is worth seeing.
* Quebec City - again, the old town is worth seeing. There's not much else in the US/Canada like it.
* Alberta Rockies - The corridor between Banff and Jasper is beautiful. Also, Waterton is decent. It's right across the border from Glacier NP in Montana, but less crowded. And for skiers, the Alberta Rockies also probably had the best snow in North America this past year.
> I surprised more US folks dont visit Canada, its amazing, much safer, and cheaper for them because of the exchange difference.
1. A lot of people can't afford vacations right now
2. For people in the US, socially and culturally, there's not much of a "drive" or desire to visit Canada. I've worked for Canadian companies, etc. I've never once in my entire life heard somebody talk about visiting Canada. It's always someplace warm and tropical or it's Europe or Asia.
Visiting Quebec from the East Coast is great. Driving distance, plus Montreal and Quebec City are both different enough to feel like you’ve gone somewhere different. Plus the people are just really nice.
If you mean North East US, that whole area is a different thing. You guys (US NE + Eastern Canada) are practically neighbors compared to Miami, Houston, or Los Angeles folks :) Also probably more used to the cold!
Quick question about US folks traveling to Canada: are cars with US plates being vandalized in Canada? I was thinking to drive and stay in Vancouver for a few days but I would not want to get a graffiti on my car (or worse)
As long as you don't have a MAGA bumper sticker, I doubt it. Most Canadians have some American friends, so we're usually pretty good at separating "Americans" from "the American government".
Especially in Vancouver, most people should be pretty aware that anyone with Washington/Oregon plates (which I'm guessing is what you have) probably hates Trump more than they do.
In Vancouver specifically, they'd have issues distinguishing your car from any others on the road, because there's lots of foreign (US/Alberta) plates there for some reason (I understand it's some insurance thing). At least, that seemed to be the case when I was there recently.
No, most people recognize a government isn’t reflective of individual people and are kind. If anything you’ll be more likely to be let in on the road if you are in the wrong lane assuming you don’t know where you are going. Having said that I wouldn’t wear/sticker political messaging, namely Trump and MAGA given current realities, but really of any type.
I've never understood why somebody behind me on the road would care at all about what my political views were anyway. I guess I get it during an election, maybe (in a grammar school "inventor contest" which happened to be during the 1980 US presidential election, I invented a bumper sticker sleeve that attaches to your car, so you could swap out political bumper stickers after your candidate lost. I didn't win the contest.) But in the end I don't really understand putting any sort of social signaling of any kind on my cars, though it seems hard to avoid even by just the kind of car you drive.
Closer to topic, I've always thoroughly enjoyed my trips to Canada, and can't imagine why people think "it's just like the US, so why bother" as seems to have been expressed ny some in this thread. I somewhat recently drove up to Roberval, Quebec from my home in New England, and it was absolutely nothing like the US. I find the rural Quebecois very odd, refreshingly direct, and enjoyable to hang out with.
I'd take that election atmosphere and then recognize Canadians are living in a charged environment with cost of living/quality of life/economy changing and uncertainty. Many Canadians see Trump & his with the de facto support he has (in that nothing has been done about it despite posturing) as a threat and root cause of much of it. Not all of that's true or due to him or the US. But it means nobody down there will meaningfully protect Canada with his threats/economic war if they can't even block his domestic chaos. Folks are happy to see other folks and appreciate visitors but they also recognize a threat. Just like in America. So agree why publicize foreign political views.
Perhaps in the white vs black experience lens that most of my US friends seem to see every world conflict through to relate to their own history (wild conversations about Middle Eastern politics there being racial), it's like wearing something racially inflammatory to the wrong neighbourhood. If one's blowing $$,$$$ on bespoke fly in tourism you can probably get away with it with a polite topic change as tourism keeps food on the table, but park a Trump sticker on a residential street I'd be surprised if even in the nicest neighbourhood there isn't some damage to it. Likely from a teenager goofing off with friends in the current environment.
To the second individually most Americans are nice in my experience, if you are seen as a person and not anonymous in the crowd. I've had a family member get a rifle leveled at them for stepping over a property line in the US where clearly they weren't seen as a fellow human... what can I say to that or the normalization of it.
We recently went to Niagara falls on the Canadian side and it was fun. Canadian sales taxes and fees took some of the currency difference, but yes we had a decent deal on a steak dinner in the tourist trap.
So this. A year ago my wife and I did a road trip up into Canada (Kelowna BC region). It was a new experience. I’ve been up into Canadian provinces many times (20+ over the years), but because of the anti Canadian rhetoric that Trump and company were putting out at the time, I was embarrassed and eager for people to not actually know I was from the states. I was hyper aware of the Washington state license plates on our car. I have never felt that way before. Ashamed to be an American. Afraid of the association it implied. Anxious that people would be reductionist, unable to realize that I was not just an American, but a frustrated helpless American.
The Canadian people I met as we travelled were all amazing. I was humbled that they took time to talk. And were less interested in identity than issues. One older gentleman, who saw us pull into the McDonalds with Washington plates approached us in the foyer and wanted to tell me that despite what others might say, I was welcome there. It was on one hand kinda weird and at the same time really touching.
I just saw this recent survey about whether or not people view their fellow citizens as morally good. Canada ranks first, with 92% respondents answering affirmatively.
It's not hard to imagine people like these extending their good will to foreigners, even "hostile" ones.
In contrast, "The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%)."
This is true in most scenarios, and the opposite is also true – that Americans are famously friendly, and even though Canadians may not want to visit to make a point, I think even they would agree that most day to day interactions they'd have would be warm and welcoming.
There might be a bit more hockey ribbing for the next few weeks, but I know there's a ton of respect for Canada's team.
At the end of the day, the idea of "My problem is with the government, and not the people" is as old as time.
I am also a Canadian who has decided not to visit the US until further notice, and honestly, I'm sad about it.
In my 20+ years of regularly travelling to the States, I've almost always had great interactions with the people I've met in all parts of the US I've visited, and I've been all over. "Warm and welcoming" is a very good description.
I think you’re all within your right to keep your distance from us. Our disgraceful leadership, even if it doesn’t accurately represent our people, we must suffer under it but no reason for you to do the same. We just hope you’re aware it’s only a few more years and we can begin to heal the whole relationship with more sane leaders that hopefully do see the strength and value in a positive relationship with a northern neighbor.
If not, please send help or accept our political refugees because we will have become permanently screwed if this behavior continues past our current orange phase.
Elections are not good sample of our collective values. The approval rating is quite low and is probably a better measure.
But when it comes to elections, first, somehow “we” get 2 bad choices every time. This last time, I personally feel they were 2 incredibly terrible choices. Then the fumbling from the other side basically assured orange man’s victory. It was a disaster of an election (but sadly appropriate as it seems like every thing we do is a disaster now.)
We also have a low voter turnout. So the result isn’t really complete and probably has some bias.
We also have an electoral college which means the winner can have less than 50% of the popular vote and win.
I could probably go on but I feel the point has been made that election outcomes are not the proxy you think
If "both sides" are equally bad, then both sides equally represent the people, no?
> I could probably go on but I feel the point has been made that election outcomes are not the proxy you think
The purpose of a system is what it does. There are not many grassroots efforts to change the many negatives you listed. Tacit approval - whether through nor voting or not fixing what is broken - does not lessen culpability. The outcome is still accurate representation on the aggregate.
If 4 housemates always have a dirty kitchen, it's a reflection on all of them. It may fall short of their ideals, or they can blame Bob for not doing dishes, not fixing a problem whose root they know is an indictment, not an excuse.
Most Canadians are visiting Hawaii and California, not Arkansas and South Dakota, so the point still stands for the states most people are going to. (Although Florida and Arizona are both pretty popular destinations too, which somewhat contradicts my point)
South Dakota actually has a few decent tourist attractions west river: (Mt Rushmore, Badlands, Crazy Horse).
With its proximity to Canada, and relative cheapness, likely pulls in quite a few tourists from up North.
One additional South Dakota attraction (although lessening interest as of late) is how much hunting/fishing is available, and how much the community is interested in the ‘visiting’ hunter.
Oh, I wasn't aware of that, thanks! I guess I was only thinking of warmer places, since that's where I tend to travel to. I personally live a bit too far north to drive to the US (in a reasonable amount of time), so I completely forgot that the US is close enough for a summer road trip for most Canadians.
Same has been true the 2-3 times I've visited Canada. I don't think that'll change. I remember how things got pretty heated during the run up to the Iraq War. And we hope that the friendship will endure.
Ironically in my experience anyways, this is true more so in parts that are more strongly "Canada should be the 51st state" politically. e.g. the south, where I find day to day interactions with people there are much more friendly than say California.
Washington has more in common with BC than with Alabama or Florida. Except for the Pig War, which was more of a disagreement between neighbors over their fence line.
> Short of voting, protesting and getting into arguments with MAGA people I don't know what else I can effectively do.
Also:
Give money to organizations that are doing the work on your behalf. Lawsuits are still important.
Call or write your reps *frequently*. They use software to automatically tabulate voter positions. (And they look at it--they want to keep their jobs!)
I’ve been making an effort to visit Canada and Europe more instead of domestic US tourism. I used to go to Florida multiple times a year. Not anymore and you know, Canada is such a great place, am there right now on vacation.
So I live in Florida. People leave Canada this time a year because of the weather. If anything, go further south to Central America. Costa Rica and Panama are safe countries.
They leave it because they have probabled lived in a winter climate their entire lives and want a change / have gotten older and it's harder on their bodies.
If you've never experienced a real winter or done neat things like winter sports then visiting Canada in the winter is a great travel experience.
You're getting downvoted, but people should be aware that arguments like this sometimes only reinforce the other party's position in their minds. My recommendation is also not to bother with those debates (unless you're doing it to find deficiencies in your own position).
There are elements of truth to this, but then there's other elements (here) who have said that we somehow owe it to people to argue in good faith with them when they are talking of (the ones I've personally had mentioned): post-birth abortion ("in several Democrat states, abortion is legal up to one month post birth!"), adrenochrome harvesting, etc.
That it was my/our fault such views propagate because we're not "willing to understand their perspectives".
The thing is, their perspectives are a lie. And in many cases, they know they're a lie, they just don't. fucking. care.
So they can go online and whine about being dismissed or criticized, or pat each other on the back for "knowing the truth". There's a subset who, I'm sure, see such things as actual literal truth, and that's a different issue altogether, but not sure it's my responsibility to solve, or that failure to engage on my part makes the current situation "my fault".
> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.
Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?
> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.
This is literally Idiocracy in the making.
If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.
No sitting member of Congress has ever been recalled and it’s almost certainly unconstitutional. Article I only outlines one way to remove a sitting representative or senator, and that’s expulsion by a vote of the chamber in which they sit
Congress is one power structure. States and cities are others. 19 states have recall procedures. The fed is much less powerful domestically without state-level support. And pulling down even a couple state reps would send a chilling message to the fed.
ICE has been detaining Chinese people in my area (and going door to door in at least one neighborhood where a lot of Chinese and Indians live). I was hearing about this just last week as word spread amongst the Chinese community here (Ohio) to make sure you have some legal documentation beyond just your driver's license on you at all times for protection. People will hear about this through the grapevine and it has a massive (and rightly so) chilling effect. US labs can try but with US government behaving like it is I don't think they will have much luck.
*edit: not that it matters, but since MAGA can't help but assume, these are all US citizens and green card holders that I am referring to.
There are 2 groups of new Chinese immigrants in the US, they are quite different:
1.Those who arrived through legal channels (most studied at U.S. universities and remained on H1B visas, with a smaller number through EB5 or other visa categories) and eventualy got green card.
2.Undocumented immigrants, which include several sub-groups/waves. In the 1990s, most came from just a couple provinces, Fujian and southern Zhejiang. After COVID, they were from different parts of China and entered through the southern border.
The contributors to AI development belong to the 1st group. They are spread across the country but a large number work in high-tech companies in Northern California.
The 2nd group was intially concentrated in New York and Southern California (Los Angeles area). Later they have expanded into nearby regions. They provide labor for Chinese-owned small businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels.
There is an industry created largely by Chinese political dissidents helping Group 2 through asylum applications using fake materials and exploiting common Western beliefs or narratives about China like human rights concerns. For example, Alysa Liu’s father is an asylum lawyer.
ICE enforcement efforts would likely focus more on Group 2 if they are knowledgable. Ohio should not be a high-priority area. I could be wrong due to changes over time. One indicator you can observe: Are there many Chinese-owned small businesses in your area?
They were operating in a traditional "China town" neighborhood for the detentions and the neighborhood they were going door to door in is one populated mostly by white collar professionals (tech, college professors, etc.).
ICE arrests citizens and legal immigrants on a regular basis. Only 5% of the people they arrested had an immigration related conviction on their record:
The Bay Area is mostly exempt for now because, after Trump announced ICE was going to surge in SF, a bunch of tech billionaires with economic interests in the region convinced him not to.
Also, over the last year, there have been a bunch of high-profile arrests of Ohioans by ICE. In one example, they arrested someone for showing up to their immigration hearing, leaving their young kid separated from them outside the court.
"Papers, please" is not just ID, but also authorization to travel internally. The idea that asking for ID* is anywhere equivalent is asinine.
*Reminder that folks visiting the US on a visa are legally required by the terms of said visa to always carry upon their person at least a copy of identity papers backing up that visa, and that this law has been in place for a very long time.
You have to show ID to pick up a prescription or open a bank account. You have to show ID for routine traffic stops. This is such a juvenile, tired argument.
You absolutely do not have to show ID to pick up every prescription; just some, which is also dependent on state law, federal law, and pharmacy.
But also, I don't care if it's a tired argument--this isn't about how things are, it's about how we want them to be. I don't want to live in a state action-coerced society.
In Sweden you have to use your Bank ID to take the buss. Meaning the bank has the same security as entering the bus. If you get robbed in Sweden they take your bank ID, use it to take a loan and then transfers all your money to a foreign bank. Because we got rid of manual cash.
Can you expand on this? SL accepts any credit card for purchasing single tickets and I assume you can buy an SL card using cash in for example Seven Eleven? Also, the issue with bank ID when you are robbed is identical to any bank app anywhere, isn't it?
Imagine if you forgot to bring your ID card to the bank, and they grabbed you and the next thing you knew, you were in a concentration camp in El Salvador.
Every developed country on earth has an immigration policy and an administration dedicated to enforcing it.
No other developed countries have masked goons abducting people in public wearing civil clothes and masks and disregarding every laws of the country (violating private property and foreign embassies, deporting national citizens, and numerous other preposterous bullshit).
Immigration policy enforcement is normal, the madness that has been running in the US for a year isn't.
Yes, but the difference in degree, and how are material. The big showy Hyundai plant raid is an example of something that hasn't happened before. Under Obama there were I-9 audits of Infosys, and under Clinton there was a raid of a Filiberto's, but both of those weren't of foreign workers here to train Americans.
All my ancestors had to do to become American citizens was get on a boat in Europe and not shit themselves to death by the time it arrived in New York. Why should it be any harder than that?
Society has changed. Laws practically didn't exist back then, should we go back to a near lawless society? Should we bring slavery back? Should we prevent woman from working, driving, voting?
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to bring up laws, when the current administration really doesn’t adhere to them? Congress today barely does any work, Supreme Court is entirely partisan, and the president is taking bribes in the open.
In any case it’s not the deportation that most people necessarily have an issue with, it’s how they go about doing it. They even killed citizens in the process. Obama deported quite a few.
You don't even know when my ancestors came over. Why do you think they were on the mayflower and not on a boat headed to Ellis island in the 1900s? We very much had laws back then, though appealing to the existence of immigration laws is a piss poor argument.
“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.” — Henry David Thoreau
Can’t believe we have people who unironically say things like “illegal citizens need to go”. For shame. You probably are one too, would you leave first?
It’s beautiful at 37 to still see new phrases sometimes, illegal citizens is a quite beautiful one, lol. (also, note the post is clearly about, to put it in your terms, legal citizens)
The reality is - it doesn't matter. The fact that they have had as many false positives as they have and the way they treat people in general causes it to have rippling effects even for people who are legally here, or are considering legally immigrating.
The risk and level of publicity is just too high for many people to even consider, especially people already intelligent/capable enough to immigrate anywhere else that doesn't have these issues or stay in their own country.
Have they had a lot of false positives? Almost every story I see seems to fall apart on further investigation. To be clear, I'm sure they have some false positives, but do they have a lot of them relative to any other immigration system?
Depends, how are we defining "false positive"? Ex:
1. Detained the incorrect person
2. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status
3. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status, but in unlawful circumstances
4. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status, in ostensibly-lawful circumstances, but in a way which is unconstitutional or crazy
An example of the final category are the immigrants that spent years being vetted, following the law, and doing expensive paperwork to be citizens. ICE snatched them when they showed up on at the last second as they were to take their citizenship oath. [0] Not because of anything they did, but because today's Republican party has decided that it's OK to hurt people based on their "shithole" country of birth.
These are all forms of false positives but the most popular news stories seem to be where they detain the correct person, correct legal status, lawfully, and the story happens to gloss over the facts about the legal status and focuses on the hardship. Yeah, it's a hardship to be split from your family, I can't deny that. But I'm not aware that most countries are very sympathetic to illegal immigrants.
If anything I find the stories featuring white/European people oddly racist because they seem to assume that I, the reader, will assume a white/European person couldn't possibly be in violation of immigration rules. But all the ones I've read turned out that they were indeed in violation of immigration rules.
Overall as a potential immigrant to the US myself, I find the process capricious and that US citizens by birth don't fully appreciate how painful it is or why it shouldn't be that way. But I don't find it notably worse or more onerous than the vast majority of immigration policies of other countries in practice.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. The most popular stories are the ones when they detain US citizens, rough them up, and then dump them on the side of the road somewhere without even apologizing.
I assume this is probably a function of our respective locations, because the most popular stories I see as an 'outsider' are those that would discourage tourism or immigration, not those that would worry already-citizens.
To address your stories specifically, my point would be that I'm still not sure whether this shows the US is notably worse on this than any other place.
> the story happens to gloss over the facts about the legal status and focuses on the hardship
Suppose you have a "civil infraction" against you, like an unpaid parking ticket, running across the road in an unsafe way, or overstaying a visa. It's terms of US law categories, it's less than graffiti on a fence. In this case you were "indeed in violation" of it.
However, what happens next is some recently hired weirdos in mismatched camo-gear claiming to be police (with no ID) surround you on the the sidewalk, drag you into a van, and imprison you for months without trial. You are purposefully shuffled between different prisons in different states to prevent your own lawyer from being able to find you.
Meanwhile, some internet dude nicknamed 0x40 comes along and says: "Ugh, why do you guys keep glossing over the facts about their parking tickets to focus on the hardship? Yes, it's a hardship to be split from your family, I can't deny that, but..."
In short, one of the several problems right now is the that even for victims that actually did something wrong, the "hardship" is frequently illegal and disproportional. The truthfulness of the cause does not justify the effect.
> It's terms of US law categories, it's less than graffiti on a fence
The 'level' of the crime is only one aspect determining the treatment.
Some crimes are inherently more prone to absconders, immigration infractions being one of them.
Now, you could just say "oh well, that means we should just not try so hard to get perfect enforcement". Which is fine. But that's obviously not the view of everyone.
I'm not even sure that's the view of everyone when it comes to grafitti. Plenty of people would like to be zero tolerance on that too, it just doesn't have the political momentum right now that immigration issues do. And immgrants as a class are vulnerable in a way that random natives spraying fences aren't.
Also, I'm not sure this really addresses the question(s) of the thread which were more along the lines of "when compared to other countries, does the US: (a) have a higher false positive rate; and/or (b) a harsher regime of treatment".
On that, I'm still not convinced the answer is yes. The UK, for example, has been up to almost exactly the same things. Many European and Asian countries are much worse.
"especially people already intelligent/capable enough to immigrate anywhere else that doesn't have these issues or stay in their own country" Isn't that the point? Come here legally or don't come at all.
No, all of the specific cases I heard about were Chinese people that were naturalized citizens (some for decades) who were cuffed and detained for a few hours before being released. As others have said it doesn't really matter, though. It's the sentiment that counts.
Even if you're not likely to be deported from a foreign country, you wouldn't want to face frequent gang intimidation tactics, would you? Simply feeling threatened isn't fun, even if nothing truly terrible will happen to you (not to speak of the real risk in being detained regardless).
Any idea what the % is? Absolutes don't really make sense without being compared to the number of correct deportations. Detaining someone, for more information, isn't always unreasonable. For example, I was in a car accident with someone, and was not allowed to leave until the situation was understood. Was I wrongfully detained? Of course not. It was part of the due process.
When you were detained it was in service of understanding an accident. When these Americans are detained it’s because they were racially profiled. The courts may decide that’s due process now but they didn’t believe so years ago and there is quite an ugly history to that practice.
According to that article (it's hard to understand their numbers) it seems around 50 (with the remaining being detained for interference?).
According to this [1], ~68k have been deported. So, around 1 in 10,000 (or 0.07%). Next question would be, is 1 in 10,000 reasonable? You would have to compare to other countries or maybe police operations (like I experienced).
This analysis is predicated on a few things- that the estimates in the article are accurate, that 1 in 10,000 assumes that the process of deporting the 10,000 was the same that detained those Americans and not in addition to those deportations, and finally that those deportations were necessary and would not have happened without racial profiling.
I don’t think I agree with any of those points. Firstly the article is likely a gross underestimate from a few months ago. Since then a lot has happened - Americans have even been killed by ICE. On the second, we deported plenty of people in previous administrations without the racial profiling that lead to several of these Americans being detained. Finally, I don’t believe this level of deportation is making us safer or benefiting us economically
> On the second, we deported plenty of people in previous administrations without the racial profiling that lead to several of these Americans being detained.
This is false, which should be expected, since not detaining an American would necessarily mean freeing all who couldn't be immediately identified.
Here's a realistic scenario that I would like your answer for:
A car is pulled over for having plates that belong to someone with an expired visa, with a deportation judgement. The car contains 5 people, none have valid forms of id. In your opinion, what's the next step? Do you temporarily detain them to figure out who is who, possibly detaining a citizen? What is the correct next action to make sure less than 1 in 10000 citizens are temporarily detained?
There's no huge reason to bring them to the US. Plenty of US corporations have maintain overseas offices. Even if its impolitic to employ them directly in China, you can employ them in other offices (for example, Amazon has been known to do this with their Singapore offices)
This thread is largely pointless political back-and-forth were predictably the comments with a more positive opinion on current US immigration enforcement will be flagged.
To get back to the original point, personally I doubt sentiment on US immigration enforcement would be so significant a deterrent for Chinese talent, who may not share the political views of the American left for whom this is a big concern.
This comment really resonates with me (I’m old now, for context). I was put in the gifted program, but the truth is I wasn’t very good at math while I was wildly strong in language. I was a pretty solitary kid who read a lot of quality literature and was endlessly curious about the world. I ended up getting kicked out of the program early in elementary school for being "immature," but the gifted label stuck and I kept hearing how smart I was.
By high school, I was a 1.4 GPA student who was also on the Academic Decathlon team winning state-level medals. My upbringing was extremely abusive, which definitely contributed to the academic problems, but what I really needed was someone in my corner pushing me to explore and actually try. Being told I was smart wasn’t just useless, it was actively harmful. I became afraid to try and leaned on what came naturally (hence doing well on Decathlon tests) while consistently failing to finish things (no homework, no papers... and the GPA shows it).
What would have made a huge difference for me was being explicitly taught how and why to study, how to take and review notes, and how to manage my time. And just as importantly, someone consistently emphasizing that effort matters a lot more than being "smart."
Even now, I’m honestly surprised by how many people I work with in tech equate being "smart" with being good at math, algorithms, or pattern recognition, while seeming almost oblivious to some pretty big gaps in other areas. That mindset isn’t doing anyone any favors.
This smells of "I like to solve puzzles and fiddle with things" and reminds of hours spent satisfyingly tweaking my very specific and custom setups for various things technical.
I, too, like to fiddle with optimizations and tool configuration puzzles but I need to get things done and get them done now. It doesn't seem fast, it seems cumbersome and inconsistent.
> It doesn't seem fast, it seems cumbersome and inconsistent
I think the point of this project is to provide an opinionated set of templates aimed at shipping instead of tinkering, right? "Don't tinker with the backend frameworks, just use this and focus on building the business logic."
Since this is proof that the original and stated point of supplying ID is not valid can we just dispense with the whole charade? It clearly isn't about security if a measly $45 is all it takes to circumvent it so let's just get rid of it entirely.
The emperor not only has no clothes, he's shouting that fact at us.
ChatGPT helped me understand a problem with my stomach that multiple doctors and numerous tests have not been able to shed any effective light on. Essentially I plugged in all of the data I could from my own observations of my issue over a 35 year period. It settled on these 3 possibilities: "Functional Dyspepsia with slow gastric accommodation, Mild delayed gastric emptying (even subclinical), Visceral hypersensitivity (your nerves fire pain signals when stretched)" and suggested a number of strategies to help with this. I implemented many of them and my stomach pain has been non-existent for months now... longer than I have ever been pain free.
I feel like the difference is that doctors took what I told them and only partially listened. They never took it especially seriously and just went straight to standard tests and treatments (scopes, biopsies and various stomach acid impacting medications). ChatGPT took some of what I said and actually considered it, discounting some things and digging into others (I said that bitter beer helped... doctor laughed at that, ChatGPT said that the alcohol probably did not help but that the bittering agent might and it was correct). ChatGPT got me somewhere better than where I was previously... something no doctor was able to do.
FWIW I have used git bisect with merged commits and it works just as well (unless the commit is enormous... nothing like settling on a sprawling 100 file change commit as the culprit... good argument for discrete commits, but then it wouldn't matter if it were rebased or merged)
reply