ICE just seems to be a setup for "federal personal thugs".
We've seen them now threatening not just American citizens, other politicians, judges. ICE has been given instructions to simply go operate on their own without direction to "find" people.
The laws surroundings them are surprisingly forgiving / people have few protections. This step seems to just be to dump vast quantities of data they could just for anything they wish from departments that had rules for how they can use that data ... to a group that has few rules ...
To a group with few rules, lots of funding coming their way and building concentration camps. In a year I expect to hear they're just a paramilitary group removing undesirable people regardless of immigration status.
The FBI was also controversial in its early days. But at least their agents wore nice suits and were held to a standard of conduct. ICE agents wear masks over their faces and urinate in public.
The federal government loves to play this 'it's only civil, not criminal, therefor a loser set of rules apply' to lots of things. Knowing it's an end run around rights people/lawyers/courts have still let them get away with it because they support the final outcome or because it simplifies the process.
If they are serious, they'd be using taxpayer data not to find people to deport, but to audit those with labor expenses that don't map to American taxpayers. Many American business owners are getting rich on the back of "illegal" labor, and the US's enforcement efforts seem to be willingly ignoring the demand side of the equation.
they're not trying to solve the problem (they know the economy depends on illegal labor), they're trying to provide the _appearance_ of solving the problem
once this system is up and running, they can use it to harass and "deport" (rendition) anybody they want based on what tax-deductible contributions they've made to various non-profits.
(it's rendition because a lot of these people are being sent to countries they're not even citizens of. obviously that pertains when sending people to prisons in El Salvador and Sudan. also, when deporting immigrant parents, they've "deported" US citizens who are children or infants to the countries of their parents' citizenship.)
I've wondered about it too, but I think it might just come down to it's far easier to say "papers, please" and verify them, versus auditing a business to understand where their payroll is going. You also need to account for people using stolen/borrowed credentials to appear to be able to work legally in the US(and generally verified by the federal government). If someone says they are Bob Jones, and they show you an ID, and you send that to the government and the government says Bob Jones can work for you, then you have no real way to tell that Bob Jones actually holds 40 different jobs simultaneously all over the country - but the government does.
Unfortunately going after the business owners that profit from cheap labor is the one place neither party can tread. Recently Trump said he wants exceptions made for farms, hotels, golf courses, and the like.
This is exactly the crux of it - why immigration reform has repeatedly failed for the past several decades, why people are so increasingly upset about it, and why Trump is going to do absolutely nothing to change the status quo beyond upping the fascism.
Elimination of the incentives is the correct solution, yet solving the problem correctly is often harder and more time consuming than just saying you solved it. These raids are public and chaotic and easy, and then you can just claim to have solved the problem, which works just fine for them. You see, politically, the incentives are not to solve the problem because we believe the lies they tell.
It's not even just the "incentives", but rather the main issue that people have a legitimate problem with - depression of the labor market. Regardless of the viciousness signalling, Trump always backs down when posturing meets reality - he was certainly bound to do so on an issue directly affecting his business empire! His only real skill is being a really good con artist. He is not even good at running businesses, hence the simplistic fascism of just ordering people around.
And so, if you actually care about addressing illegal immigration, or any other issue that requires a competent government, then Trump has been a step backwards for you regardless of how you may feel. Your first step is now admitting your mistake and working to get rid of Trump, alongside every other American.
You're effectively asking where do they find people keen to be enforcement goons against mostly-foreigners, with minimal oversight and no need for identification. There's a large number of guys ready to join this one - they're in local fascist groups in all the cities.
That’s one way to push generally law abiding, tax paying people into the black market where they won’t pay taxes, and have a higher likelihood of dabbling in criminal enterprise.
Honest question: What is the plan for all these "illegals" once they're rounded up and sent to "Alligator Alcatraz" or whatever detention facility? Are they just gonna be held indefinitely? Is there gonna be some sort of court proceeding to determine their "legality"?
And I think their argument is that the detainees (the "illegal aliens") are not US citizens (according to them), therefore US laws and courts are not applicable.
In case you're serious about the question, the answer is a yes.
Emphasis mine.
> Seventy-five percent of the prisoners in U.S. Marshals custody are detained in state, local and _private_ facilities; the remainder are housed in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities.
> The U.S. Marshals Service detains about 60,000 people a day who are awaiting federal trial or sentencing. While it doesn't operate jails, it does partner with public and private detention facilities. The service assesses detention conditions at these facilities.
> We found shortcomings in its oversight. For example, many deputies who reviewed state and local facilities hadn't received required training. Additionally, some facilities didn't meet some standards for 3 years in a row, including food safety standards.
A drug dealer who pays his taxes has committed less crimes than one who doesn't unless the IRS reports income to the DEA, then tax savings are a benefit of drug dealing as filing taxes becomes a violation of the 5th amendment.
That's a great point, and I didn't think of that. Taxes should allow you to admit to any crimes with zero repercussions. If you list income from your child prostitution ring, it should be illegal to save the children because it violates the sanctity of CPA-client privilege.
Ah yes, think of the children is always a good way to defend a country of laws from becoming a defensless emotional wreck that has a future worthy of no child.
I don't understand your convoluted question. In any case, I'm fairly certain it misses the point. Going after people via their taxes is not going to achieve the intended effect of kicking people out. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways, just like prohibition boosted and cemented organized crime in America.
Actually, NOT going after undocumented people via their taxes won't achieve the intended effect you're hoping for. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways even more.
Republicans would argue they are already dabbling in "criminal enterprise" by having trouble with ICE. You might then argue that "but they haven't been convicted" which is true, but you also know the republicans don't agree with that either.
(a)Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
Visa application forms are really long and complicated and it's easy to make a mistake somewhere. With some motivated investigation and sufficiently broad interpretation I expect you could accuse most foreign visitors of "misrepresentation and concealment of facts"
This is also exactly why the de-naturalization is such a scary threat, it's essentially impossible to be 100% truthful given how all the questions are worded on application forms.
For what it's worth, when denaturalization came up in the first Trump presidency, SCOTUS threw them out of court because they deemed the word "material" as... very material. Though who knows if they'll change their tune this time.
Not going to dig too far to try and find updated numbers, but as of 2014 about 2/3 of people who had entered the country illegally that year were people that overstayed their visa and the ratio had been on an upward trend for quite a while.
I'm sure you could torture that into applying to that situation, but at least on a very plain reading it doesn't sound like it applies generally to those people.
I guess they mean “in the country illegally” but I presume you could also argue that if they entered intending to overstay the visa, they entered illegally.
8 USC 1325 and 1326 represent a fraction of immigration cases, mostly Mexican or South American smuggling. There are many other categories of undocumented person.
Dreamers are not protected by congressional law, they're protected by an Obama executive order (DACA). Which means that protection could be removed by Trump at the stroke of a pen. Dreamers really entirely on the moral compass of Trump...
Depending on the circumstances, the mood of a Federal agent, and of a prosecutor it could be charged either civilly or criminally. The sibling comment explains this better than I could.
Stepping past the direct offense of being here, one must ask how are they supporting themselves financially? Assuming they are workers, they’re either not paying taxes (a crime) or stealing the identity of a citizen in order to fool an employer. Now they are at least paying taxes, but they’ve victimized a lawful resident or Citizen. This is far from a victimless crime, it took my mother two years to fully clear her name after this occurred to her identity. The IRS and credit agencies are not very understanding.
You should clarify what you mean by undocumented. "Oops I lost my passport somewhere" is very different from "I lack documentation because I crossed the border illegally."
Republicans will argue whatever orange Kim Jong Un and mass media tell them to this week, but this doesn't mean any of those arguments are logically sensible or connected to reality. As a libertarian I steelmanned Republican points for far too long, but at this point they're completely off the rails. All that remains is a fascist anti-American juche cult, and the main question is what are we going to do about it.
I completely agree that ICE, or anyone, having my tax info is a violation of my privacy and is of course total BS. However, as a legal worker in the US, I don't think ICE violating my privacy will push me toward the black market. Wouldn't moving from the legal workforce to the "black market" be a big risk on my part?
The IRS can audit a failure to file taxes without any time restriction. So if you think there's a decent chance that the US will ever again have a president that desires a functioning government, you should probably pay your taxes.
Beyond that, as we gradually slide towards having zero political representation and near-zero actual human rights, it becomes more and more questionable what we're getting for our tax dollars. The contract between the taxpayer and the government is being eroded.
There is no contract between taxpayer and government. We use "the social contract" as a polite euphemism for the terms of tyranny we live under.
Real contracts offer a chance for all signatories to consider the terms and the opportunity for either party to reject the terms and not be bound to them.
You'll note that you never had the choice to decline "the social contract", because again, it wasn't a contract you agreed to, it was the terms of tyranny you were being made aware of.
If I'm a US citizen what right does ICE have to my tax information? The article states that ICE made a request for 7.3 million taxpayer's information, citing ongoing criminal investigations. Given how this administration rides roughshod over the law it beggars belief that this dragnet hasn't also caught up "law abiding" people as you say.
But, more importantly, there's an underlying assumption to your question: the sharp end of the law only strikes people that have done wrong _and_ the laws won't shift to put you on the wrong side of it. Authoritarian governments redefine legality at whim. Compliance is a moving target: think of all the law abiding Japanese folks that were suddenly in internment camps in 1942.
In the United States we have historically accepted the dictum that the best government is that which governs the least. For a good, pragmatic reason: the concentration of power is corrupting to those that wield it and the actions of a government of the corrupt will not be square to the will of the people. Limiting what the government can do, especially those parts that seek to act in secret, is in the service of liberty for all.
Just to be clear, you're preaching to the choir. My preference would be for the entire intelligence community along with the rest of the entirety of the US federal government being dismantled as swiftly as is peacefully possible.
That said, most people here do not agree with me, most are statists who fundamentally enjoy kissing a boot stamping on the face of human freedom, they just have the delusion that their tribe is the good one and they're engaged in a fundamentally righteous and just conquest to crush the evildoers in the other tribe.
So we'll keep playing this stupid game where each side takes turns whacking the other side with the stick of government power, rather than acknowledging that we'd all be better off if we grew up, acted like adults, threw the stick away, and stopped taking turns trying to injure the other with it.
This is a hopelessly naïve viewpoint. A strong, liberal federal government is the only guarantor of civil rights nationally. If you get rid of it, it won't be replaced by enlightened anarchism, it will be replaced by oligarchs like Peter Thiel and fundamentalist Christians who have no qualms about using violence to impose their morals on the rest of us.
The criminal justice system does not prevent crimes, they just investigate a small handful of crimes, arrest even fewer, and prosecute even fewer.
The federal government, further, has almost zero role in policing. Unless you live in DC, there is a >99% chance that any time you interact with a member of law enforcement, they are state/county/city.
The histrionics over fundamentalist Christians, who make up less than 15% of the country anyway (not some rabid majority trying to stamp out the rights of the minority - they are the minority; most Americans who call themselves "Christian" are closer to atheists in terms of church attendance than the tiny subset of fundamentalists), and are not some dangerous threat.
I grew up in a repressive, fundamentalist evangelical southern Baptist household as a non-hetereosexual. I'm very familiar with that world in the worst of ways, including the loosely regulated Christian boarding schools.
These people are a pain in the ass, but they're not a real danger. To insist otherwise is to critically misunderstand reality, crime rates, and really the general intent of that subset of the population.
Edit for reply: As for the comparison with prohibition, I don't quite agree. The clampdown on CP, despite being just images and data as much as regular P, has thankfully been very successful. The government actually can clamp down on things, even purely digital information, when it has the will.
Yes, and the goal of prohibition was to end alcohol consumption. Instead it cemented organized crime in America.
There is an unmistakable hint of cognitive dissonance when the administration believes that the best way to get at "freeloading" illegal immigrants is through their taxes.
If you're an American, you're living in the "before times". You need to take action to preserve your freedom, or you'll find yourself in an Orwellian hell hole wondering why you didn't do something when it was much easier to take political action.
I would recommend reading Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell if these types of thing concern you. A relevant passage:
"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."
It just adds an extra step that keeps the general public away from your PII. The post office knows who owns that PO box and where that person actually lives. A simple subpoena makes that information available to whatever arm of enforcement needs it.
Yeah, I know. It's disturbing to say the least. The thinking with PO Boxes is just left over from a time when it was possible to use them as an extra layer of protection. It's barely an inconvenience to anyone who wants to get your address, anymore.
I've been using PMBs for about 20 years. If you don't own real estate it can definitely help anonymize your location, even to the government. You rent one home, get a PMB using that location as your home, then move. Use the PMB for everything and never give out your new home address.
If you own real estate it's much harder, especially now that companies have to report their owners and directors.
At the very least PMBs help protect your home address from companies and the public.
PO boxes have stricter address information requirements but there are other services that are more lax and can pass with a utility bill from a previous rental address. Thus, obfuscating the real address.
Does this work in practice? Historically my actual residence is needed for tax reasons, i.e. properly tracking what state I owe income tax in for cash compensation and stock options.
Yeah I don't see how this works. Got a mortgage, you're going to report info that lead them to your financial institution who knows the address and so on. Insurance, any other financial service that did some data checks / credit checks.
I don't buy into the idea that you can magically hide your home address, this info is already out.
It might help obscure your physical address in public records and keep private companies from finding it as easily, but yeah, it's not going to keep the government-wide database from locating you.
It’s obviously an extremely efficient way to identify those in the country illegally as it will provide their address, work location, information that can be easily, whether they’ve stolen someone’s identity and quickly linked to another database that can verify work authorization. Third parties like employers/banks/payors have to provide the information that they have into the system.
Whether you like it or not, it totally makes sense that ICE would want information from the IRS.
as for the illegals, if they're in the IRS database that means they're paying taxes -- which means they're contributing positively to the economy; give them legal status so they can continue contributing -- all this does is push them to _not_ file
the country would be much better off if engineers' time was spent building systems to catch the large amount of tax fraud by the wealthy -- IRS estimated a tax gap of $700 billion.
Any existing theories where all this is going? What’s the long term play here?
When Bush Jr. was president, he grabbed so much power. Didn’t make sense he would just hand that power over to the next guy, but he indeed have a peaceful transfer of power.
I’m not sure Democrats would want to give this much power to ICE. Not really thinking about Trump as a third term, but maybe we’re just doomed to have Republicans in power - forever being elected?
IIRC the free tax filing thing being killed is just classic lobbying, the owners of Intuit and other paid tax filing companies have myriad political connections and spend a lot of money to protect their interests.
No, it was DOGE and Musk that killed it [1], Elon even bragged about "deleting" [2] the team that created it. If you want to argue that lobbying got DOGE/Musk to do it that's fine but they're responsible for its death.
It's the same conversation every year, well before Elon came along. The big players are TurboTax and H&R Block. TurboTax specifically has led the charge for over two decades to prevent you from ever filing your taxes for free. It's a racket, and an extremely profitable one for them, so there's no way they're going to willingly give that up without some new and enforceable laws being passed.
Wasn't it auto-filling that got killed recently? IIRC TurboTax has to provide free filing service along with their paid services, but they employ a ton of dark patterns to steer people into the paying parts
I think so? I'd have to look it up, but I believe you're right.
They _definitely_ employ a lot of dark patterns, though. Glad you brought that up, because not enough people are taking the "dark patterns" thing seriously enough, in my opinion. It is absolutely wild what you can get people to do without even realizing it with some good front-end development, and none of us are immune to those tricks.
ICE just seems to be a setup for "federal personal thugs".
We've seen them now threatening not just American citizens, other politicians, judges. ICE has been given instructions to simply go operate on their own without direction to "find" people.
The laws surroundings them are surprisingly forgiving / people have few protections. This step seems to just be to dump vast quantities of data they could just for anything they wish from departments that had rules for how they can use that data ... to a group that has few rules ...
To a group with few rules, lots of funding coming their way and building concentration camps. In a year I expect to hear they're just a paramilitary group removing undesirable people regardless of immigration status.
The FBI was also controversial in its early days. But at least their agents wore nice suits and were held to a standard of conduct. ICE agents wear masks over their faces and urinate in public.
the FBI doesn't have unfettered access to IRS data
They regularly imprison people for days, weeks, or months without trial that they know are US citizens.
What are the stats, how regularly?
Hard to say without due process. Takes time to go through courts if it even does.
https://www.openice.org/
Illegally detaining a single US citizen is one too many.
Illegally detaining anyone is one too many.
Here is an article about the topic: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/tracking-us-citizens...
There's a 2011 study linked there but as others mentioned, hard to track without due process.
Thanks. At the end it links to a study that estimates citizens at 1-1.5% of removals.
https://jacquelinestevens.org/StevensVSP18.32011.pdf
I mean that's kind of the problem of avoiding the court system as much as they can. There is no stats, who knows
The federal government loves to play this 'it's only civil, not criminal, therefor a loser set of rules apply' to lots of things. Knowing it's an end run around rights people/lawyers/courts have still let them get away with it because they support the final outcome or because it simplifies the process.
If they are serious, they'd be using taxpayer data not to find people to deport, but to audit those with labor expenses that don't map to American taxpayers. Many American business owners are getting rich on the back of "illegal" labor, and the US's enforcement efforts seem to be willingly ignoring the demand side of the equation.
they're not trying to solve the problem (they know the economy depends on illegal labor), they're trying to provide the _appearance_ of solving the problem
no, they're serious, but they're not sincere.
once this system is up and running, they can use it to harass and "deport" (rendition) anybody they want based on what tax-deductible contributions they've made to various non-profits.
(it's rendition because a lot of these people are being sent to countries they're not even citizens of. obviously that pertains when sending people to prisons in El Salvador and Sudan. also, when deporting immigrant parents, they've "deported" US citizens who are children or infants to the countries of their parents' citizenship.)
I've wondered about it too, but I think it might just come down to it's far easier to say "papers, please" and verify them, versus auditing a business to understand where their payroll is going. You also need to account for people using stolen/borrowed credentials to appear to be able to work legally in the US(and generally verified by the federal government). If someone says they are Bob Jones, and they show you an ID, and you send that to the government and the government says Bob Jones can work for you, then you have no real way to tell that Bob Jones actually holds 40 different jobs simultaneously all over the country - but the government does.
Unfortunately going after the business owners that profit from cheap labor is the one place neither party can tread. Recently Trump said he wants exceptions made for farms, hotels, golf courses, and the like.
This is exactly the crux of it - why immigration reform has repeatedly failed for the past several decades, why people are so increasingly upset about it, and why Trump is going to do absolutely nothing to change the status quo beyond upping the fascism.
Elimination of the incentives is the correct solution, yet solving the problem correctly is often harder and more time consuming than just saying you solved it. These raids are public and chaotic and easy, and then you can just claim to have solved the problem, which works just fine for them. You see, politically, the incentives are not to solve the problem because we believe the lies they tell.
It's not even just the "incentives", but rather the main issue that people have a legitimate problem with - depression of the labor market. Regardless of the viciousness signalling, Trump always backs down when posturing meets reality - he was certainly bound to do so on an issue directly affecting his business empire! His only real skill is being a really good con artist. He is not even good at running businesses, hence the simplistic fascism of just ordering people around.
And so, if you actually care about addressing illegal immigration, or any other issue that requires a competent government, then Trump has been a step backwards for you regardless of how you may feel. Your first step is now admitting your mistake and working to get rid of Trump, alongside every other American.
Worth reminding that the ICE budget is expanding to $28 billion. This is bigger than the budget of the FBI and DEA combined.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/us/politics/ice-expansion...
Where do they find so many people to work for ICE in this short time?
You're effectively asking where do they find people keen to be enforcement goons against mostly-foreigners, with minimal oversight and no need for identification. There's a large number of guys ready to join this one - they're in local fascist groups in all the cities.
perhaps recruitment among the Proud Boys and similar groups
By lowering their standards a lot.
"3 5 0 1 2 5 Go!" was not meant to be taken this literally.
What does this mean?
Quick google found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_(song)
Never listened to this song though.
That’s one way to push generally law abiding, tax paying people into the black market where they won’t pay taxes, and have a higher likelihood of dabbling in criminal enterprise.
Perfect way to fill up the for-profit prisons and get that unpaid workforce that will replace all the migrants.
Honest question: What is the plan for all these "illegals" once they're rounded up and sent to "Alligator Alcatraz" or whatever detention facility? Are they just gonna be held indefinitely? Is there gonna be some sort of court proceeding to determine their "legality"?
Plan?
Slave labor, perhaps: https://snyder.substack.com/p/concentration-camp-labor
This seems like the most likely thing to me, in no small part that it’s already why American prisons exist in the first place.
no, they're (illegally) using a private intake system to bypass the courts.
And I think their argument is that the detainees (the "illegal aliens") are not US citizens (according to them), therefore US laws and courts are not applicable.
Do the feds still use for-profit prisons?
In case you're serious about the question, the answer is a yes.
Emphasis mine.
> Seventy-five percent of the prisoners in U.S. Marshals custody are detained in state, local and _private_ facilities; the remainder are housed in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities.
https://www.usmarshals.gov/what-we-do/prisoners/operation/cu...
Here is another source:
> The U.S. Marshals Service detains about 60,000 people a day who are awaiting federal trial or sentencing. While it doesn't operate jails, it does partner with public and private detention facilities. The service assesses detention conditions at these facilities.
> We found shortcomings in its oversight. For example, many deputies who reviewed state and local facilities hadn't received required training. Additionally, some facilities didn't meet some standards for 3 years in a row, including food safety standards.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106348
No, but the feds still rent prisoners out for forced labor. The profits merely go to someone else.
Stopped via EO (Biden) in November 2022.
Trump can easily start using them again, should he care to do so.
Most if not all of those were revoked by Trump EOs.
What other regulations do you think people should get to avoid under threat of not paying their taxes if forced to follow them?
A drug dealer who pays his taxes has committed less crimes than one who doesn't unless the IRS reports income to the DEA, then tax savings are a benefit of drug dealing as filing taxes becomes a violation of the 5th amendment.
That's a great point, and I didn't think of that. Taxes should allow you to admit to any crimes with zero repercussions. If you list income from your child prostitution ring, it should be illegal to save the children because it violates the sanctity of CPA-client privilege.
Ah yes, think of the children is always a good way to defend a country of laws from becoming a defensless emotional wreck that has a future worthy of no child.
When in doubt just appeal to people's sense of morality by telling them children are getting touched or something.
[dead]
I don't understand your convoluted question. In any case, I'm fairly certain it misses the point. Going after people via their taxes is not going to achieve the intended effect of kicking people out. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways, just like prohibition boosted and cemented organized crime in America.
Actually, NOT going after undocumented people via their taxes won't achieve the intended effect you're hoping for. Instead it will backfire in unintended ways even more.
There, now we've made equally irrefutable claims.
https://www.openice.org/ covers lost tax revenue
Republicans would argue they are already dabbling in "criminal enterprise" by having trouble with ICE. You might then argue that "but they haven't been convicted" which is true, but you also know the republicans don't agree with that either.
Being undocumented is a civil offense, not a criminal one. The distinction is relevant, and important.
US Code appears to disagree:
8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien
(a)Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts
Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
Ref: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
Visa application forms are really long and complicated and it's easy to make a mistake somewhere. With some motivated investigation and sufficiently broad interpretation I expect you could accuse most foreign visitors of "misrepresentation and concealment of facts"
This is also exactly why the de-naturalization is such a scary threat, it's essentially impossible to be 100% truthful given how all the questions are worded on application forms.
> concealment of a material fact
For what it's worth, when denaturalization came up in the first Trump presidency, SCOTUS threw them out of court because they deemed the word "material" as... very material. Though who knows if they'll change their tune this time.
Not going to dig too far to try and find updated numbers, but as of 2014 about 2/3 of people who had entered the country illegally that year were people that overstayed their visa and the ratio had been on an upward trend for quite a while.
I'm sure you could torture that into applying to that situation, but at least on a very plain reading it doesn't sound like it applies generally to those people.
> 2/3 of people who had entered the country illegally that year were people that overstayed their visa
That doesn't make sense. If you overstayed the visa then you (probably?) entered legally, not illegally. Did you mean something else?
I guess they mean “in the country illegally” but I presume you could also argue that if they entered intending to overstay the visa, they entered illegally.
8 USC 1325 and 1326 represent a fraction of immigration cases, mostly Mexican or South American smuggling. There are many other categories of undocumented person.
What are the categories you're thinking of and what % fit into each?
Would that apply to dreamers (people who were brought into the US by their parents when they were minors)?
Dreamers are not protected by congressional law, they're protected by an Obama executive order (DACA). Which means that protection could be removed by Trump at the stroke of a pen. Dreamers really entirely on the moral compass of Trump...
Depending on the circumstances, the mood of a Federal agent, and of a prosecutor it could be charged either civilly or criminally. The sibling comment explains this better than I could.
Stepping past the direct offense of being here, one must ask how are they supporting themselves financially? Assuming they are workers, they’re either not paying taxes (a crime) or stealing the identity of a citizen in order to fool an employer. Now they are at least paying taxes, but they’ve victimized a lawful resident or Citizen. This is far from a victimless crime, it took my mother two years to fully clear her name after this occurred to her identity. The IRS and credit agencies are not very understanding.
Improper entry is a criminal offense (crossing the border illegally, etc.)... unlawful presence (overstaying a visa, etc.) is a civil offense.
You should clarify what you mean by undocumented. "Oops I lost my passport somewhere" is very different from "I lack documentation because I crossed the border illegally."
Republicans will argue whatever orange Kim Jong Un and mass media tell them to this week, but this doesn't mean any of those arguments are logically sensible or connected to reality. As a libertarian I steelmanned Republican points for far too long, but at this point they're completely off the rails. All that remains is a fascist anti-American juche cult, and the main question is what are we going to do about it.
I completely agree that ICE, or anyone, having my tax info is a violation of my privacy and is of course total BS. However, as a legal worker in the US, I don't think ICE violating my privacy will push me toward the black market. Wouldn't moving from the legal workforce to the "black market" be a big risk on my part?
Honestly why are any of us paying taxes? The probability of future IRS enforcement has never been lower than it is right now.
The IRS can audit a failure to file taxes without any time restriction. So if you think there's a decent chance that the US will ever again have a president that desires a functioning government, you should probably pay your taxes.
But the possibility for selective enforcement against perceived enemies of the state is still present.
Beyond that, as we gradually slide towards having zero political representation and near-zero actual human rights, it becomes more and more questionable what we're getting for our tax dollars. The contract between the taxpayer and the government is being eroded.
There is no contract between taxpayer and government. We use "the social contract" as a polite euphemism for the terms of tyranny we live under.
Real contracts offer a chance for all signatories to consider the terms and the opportunity for either party to reject the terms and not be bound to them.
You'll note that you never had the choice to decline "the social contract", because again, it wasn't a contract you agreed to, it was the terms of tyranny you were being made aware of.
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If I'm a US citizen what right does ICE have to my tax information? The article states that ICE made a request for 7.3 million taxpayer's information, citing ongoing criminal investigations. Given how this administration rides roughshod over the law it beggars belief that this dragnet hasn't also caught up "law abiding" people as you say.
But, more importantly, there's an underlying assumption to your question: the sharp end of the law only strikes people that have done wrong _and_ the laws won't shift to put you on the wrong side of it. Authoritarian governments redefine legality at whim. Compliance is a moving target: think of all the law abiding Japanese folks that were suddenly in internment camps in 1942.
In the United States we have historically accepted the dictum that the best government is that which governs the least. For a good, pragmatic reason: the concentration of power is corrupting to those that wield it and the actions of a government of the corrupt will not be square to the will of the people. Limiting what the government can do, especially those parts that seek to act in secret, is in the service of liberty for all.
Why should they have access? ICE has no legitimate use for citizens tax returns. We have a right to privacy.
Just to be clear, you're preaching to the choir. My preference would be for the entire intelligence community along with the rest of the entirety of the US federal government being dismantled as swiftly as is peacefully possible.
That said, most people here do not agree with me, most are statists who fundamentally enjoy kissing a boot stamping on the face of human freedom, they just have the delusion that their tribe is the good one and they're engaged in a fundamentally righteous and just conquest to crush the evildoers in the other tribe.
So we'll keep playing this stupid game where each side takes turns whacking the other side with the stick of government power, rather than acknowledging that we'd all be better off if we grew up, acted like adults, threw the stick away, and stopped taking turns trying to injure the other with it.
You might find your rhetorical success is improved if you, in general, say what you mean instead of what you don't mean.
This is a hopelessly naïve viewpoint. A strong, liberal federal government is the only guarantor of civil rights nationally. If you get rid of it, it won't be replaced by enlightened anarchism, it will be replaced by oligarchs like Peter Thiel and fundamentalist Christians who have no qualms about using violence to impose their morals on the rest of us.
The criminal justice system does not prevent crimes, they just investigate a small handful of crimes, arrest even fewer, and prosecute even fewer.
The federal government, further, has almost zero role in policing. Unless you live in DC, there is a >99% chance that any time you interact with a member of law enforcement, they are state/county/city.
The histrionics over fundamentalist Christians, who make up less than 15% of the country anyway (not some rabid majority trying to stamp out the rights of the minority - they are the minority; most Americans who call themselves "Christian" are closer to atheists in terms of church attendance than the tiny subset of fundamentalists), and are not some dangerous threat.
I grew up in a repressive, fundamentalist evangelical southern Baptist household as a non-hetereosexual. I'm very familiar with that world in the worst of ways, including the loosely regulated Christian boarding schools.
These people are a pain in the ass, but they're not a real danger. To insist otherwise is to critically misunderstand reality, crime rates, and really the general intent of that subset of the population.
The goal is to force self-deportation. Whether this will be successful is too early to say.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/27/immigrants-s...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/self-de...
Edit for reply: As for the comparison with prohibition, I don't quite agree. The clampdown on CP, despite being just images and data as much as regular P, has thankfully been very successful. The government actually can clamp down on things, even purely digital information, when it has the will.
Yes, and the goal of prohibition was to end alcohol consumption. Instead it cemented organized crime in America.
There is an unmistakable hint of cognitive dissonance when the administration believes that the best way to get at "freeloading" illegal immigrants is through their taxes.
Like lighting your house on fire to get an unwanted party guest to leave.
Going by the track record of their other so-called "plans" - no, this will not be successful.
If you're an American, you're living in the "before times". You need to take action to preserve your freedom, or you'll find yourself in an Orwellian hell hole wondering why you didn't do something when it was much easier to take political action.
As an outsider is is difficult to watch Americans do nothing while their vaunted freedoms are stripped away one at a time.
I would recommend reading Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell if these types of thing concern you. A relevant passage:
"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."
This feels like one of those bits of security tips / infotainment that IRL provides no value.
It just adds an extra step that keeps the general public away from your PII. The post office knows who owns that PO box and where that person actually lives. A simple subpoena makes that information available to whatever arm of enforcement needs it.
Every info aggregator (including ones that post crap online) already has both bits of info and associates them.
Go ahead, do some searches on yourself - I had accurate addresses and poboxes I’d long since forgotten about.
Yeah, I know. It's disturbing to say the least. The thinking with PO Boxes is just left over from a time when it was possible to use them as an extra layer of protection. It's barely an inconvenience to anyone who wants to get your address, anymore.
A simple what? "subpoena"? Is that like a new term for a bulk database retrieval?
I've been using PMBs for about 20 years. If you don't own real estate it can definitely help anonymize your location, even to the government. You rent one home, get a PMB using that location as your home, then move. Use the PMB for everything and never give out your new home address.
If you own real estate it's much harder, especially now that companies have to report their owners and directors.
At the very least PMBs help protect your home address from companies and the public.
PO boxes have stricter address information requirements but there are other services that are more lax and can pass with a utility bill from a previous rental address. Thus, obfuscating the real address.
A lot of rich and famous do this, keeps the “riffraff” off their ass. Not meant to be bulletproof but can be useful.
Some rich folks trying to avoid random googlers isn't quite the same as trying to avoid ICE's ire.
Many famous people have stalkers. And not the point of this subthread.
Does this work in practice? Historically my actual residence is needed for tax reasons, i.e. properly tracking what state I owe income tax in for cash compensation and stock options.
Yeah I don't see how this works. Got a mortgage, you're going to report info that lead them to your financial institution who knows the address and so on. Insurance, any other financial service that did some data checks / credit checks.
I don't buy into the idea that you can magically hide your home address, this info is already out.
A step further, homeowners are public information. You can even look up the records online for free on county treasurer websites.
Not everybody owns a home, particularly the transient workers who would be concerned with ICE.
I don't think an apartment / renting would be much different.
No. What he's describing is like covering your face with your hands and thinking that you're invisible.
It might help obscure your physical address in public records and keep private companies from finding it as easily, but yeah, it's not going to keep the government-wide database from locating you.
get a PMB in your state (or county even). You'll be surprised how many PMBs exist
What is a PMB?
Private Mail Box (i.e. a PO Box like product at your local UPS store/etc).
Thank you.
It’s obviously an extremely efficient way to identify those in the country illegally as it will provide their address, work location, information that can be easily, whether they’ve stolen someone’s identity and quickly linked to another database that can verify work authorization. Third parties like employers/banks/payors have to provide the information that they have into the system.
Whether you like it or not, it totally makes sense that ICE would want information from the IRS.
ICE is the new gestapo
as for the illegals, if they're in the IRS database that means they're paying taxes -- which means they're contributing positively to the economy; give them legal status so they can continue contributing -- all this does is push them to _not_ file
the country would be much better off if engineers' time was spent building systems to catch the large amount of tax fraud by the wealthy -- IRS estimated a tax gap of $700 billion.
A system that matches by name rather than a unique ID is wild. It could easily identify the wrong people.
Any existing theories where all this is going? What’s the long term play here?
When Bush Jr. was president, he grabbed so much power. Didn’t make sense he would just hand that power over to the next guy, but he indeed have a peaceful transfer of power.
I’m not sure Democrats would want to give this much power to ICE. Not really thinking about Trump as a third term, but maybe we’re just doomed to have Republicans in power - forever being elected?
Is this why Elon killed the free direct tax filing?
IIRC the free tax filing thing being killed is just classic lobbying, the owners of Intuit and other paid tax filing companies have myriad political connections and spend a lot of money to protect their interests.
No, it was DOGE and Musk that killed it [1], Elon even bragged about "deleting" [2] the team that created it. If you want to argue that lobbying got DOGE/Musk to do it that's fine but they're responsible for its death.
[1] https://www.livenowfox.com/news/irs-direct-file-doge-cuts
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/05/business/musk-irs-direct-file
Correct.
It's the same conversation every year, well before Elon came along. The big players are TurboTax and H&R Block. TurboTax specifically has led the charge for over two decades to prevent you from ever filing your taxes for free. It's a racket, and an extremely profitable one for them, so there's no way they're going to willingly give that up without some new and enforceable laws being passed.
Wasn't it auto-filling that got killed recently? IIRC TurboTax has to provide free filing service along with their paid services, but they employ a ton of dark patterns to steer people into the paying parts
I think so? I'd have to look it up, but I believe you're right.
They _definitely_ employ a lot of dark patterns, though. Glad you brought that up, because not enough people are taking the "dark patterns" thing seriously enough, in my opinion. It is absolutely wild what you can get people to do without even realizing it with some good front-end development, and none of us are immune to those tricks.