Looks like it is time to us to surveil the ICE.
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This shittyness is not unique to America.
Australian protests against the camps peaked around 2002. Actions there were not easy to organise; the government built the camps in the middle of the desert precisely in order to disrupt protests and keep them out of public view.
The Easter protest in 2002 was vigorous and large. A thousand people drove thousands of kilometres to camp on the desert stones for a week.
Anyway, in the years leading up to the 2002 protests, many of the refugees had gone on hunger strike. When that didnât work, some of them began sewing their lips together.
This was both a way to reinforce the hunger strike, and a symbolic protest about how they were silenced. There is virtually no outside access to the camps, journalists included.
Then some of their kids started doing it too.
The Australian right declared that this demonstrated why these people shouldnât be let into the country. The right wing media framed it as âviolent terrorist illegals trying to blackmail Australiaâ.
That was (and is) the view of about half of the country. Including some of my family.
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Why? Armies have used mercenaries since forever.
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As I recall from the dictionary definition, mercenaries are willing to lay down their lives for a paycheque thatâs substantially higher than that of the regular soldier. I have yet to see a mercenary worthy of the name who puts defending the national ideals of his client before the idea of getting paid.
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Oh, so American soldiers donât get paid but work for free?
Sorry, the argumentâs premise is faulty, as it hinges on the (admittedly apparently universally accepted in the US) that a soldier in the US military is there because it of the love for his country and he canât donât no wrong. Though it is totally in line with the vast majorities of TV and cinematic fiction.
Please quote where I said that.
Argue with the dictionary definition of âmercenary,â then. I said nothing about the priorities of American regular soldiers*, but unlike mercenaries none of them will admit publically that theyâre in it primarily for the big bucks.
[* in fact patriotism is often not the primary motivation for enlisting, military service being one of the few paths offered by this broken country out of poverty]
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American slavery never died, it just changed form.
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Does Australia still cap the number of seaborn asylum seekers allowed into the country at zero?
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No; it never did.
Any asylum seeker who reaches the Australian mainland can make an application for asylum.
The core bastardry of the Australian refugee program is:
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That it throws asylum seekers into privately-run inhumane concentration camps and drags out the legal process for years in an attempt to force them to abandon their claims, and
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The government has legally excised our island territories (which is where the boats mostly land) from the âAustralian immigration zoneâ, and claims that the treaties regarding asylum claims do not apply there. So, any asylum seekers landing in these territories are thrown into the camps with no way to apply for asylum.
If your point is that this is barbaric and monstrous, then I thoroughly agree.
Which is why I protested the camps until the government moved them into other countries to stop us. And why I used to campaign for the only local party that opposes this, until I became so sick that publicly associating myself with a cause was counterproductive.
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Wow. âClevermanâ makes a lot more sense now.
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I have lived in a town with a 50% Hispanic population for the last 10ish years.
The food is good and cheap. Also nobody has ever tried to run me over, unlike much wealthier places I have lived. (And I have been almost run over dozens of times over the years in wealthy, mostly white suburbs)
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To expand on the global nature of the issue:
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But the seaborne asylum seekers never reach the mainland, correct? Or has that changed?
Around 47 million people in the US were born in another country. Thatâs smaller by percentage than many countries (including yours), but more total immigrants than the next 5 countries put together. I think this is a great strength of my country (I support open borders), but some of the stories about immigrants here need to be viewed in the context of these numbers. ICE is badly run, overstaffed with poorly trained or frankly inappropriate people, understaffed altogether for the job theyâre given, but ultimately the real problem is weâve made a legislative decision to âcontrolâ this population, and nobody has yet found a correct/harm-free way to do that with a population this size. Even much smaller countries, whose approach likely wouldnât scale, have problems.
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Technically, if they make it to Australian land or Australian waters they can apply. However:
So, unless theyâre oppressed penguins, they need to make it to land. And Australia has a very good surveillance system on the northern coast, and the waters are heavily patrolled. Not by coast guard; by the RAN.
Itâs possible to get from PNG to Australia in a small open boat, but it ainât easy. The Navy intercepts everything they can, turning it back where possible. If the boat sinks, they ship the people direct to the offshore camps.
Again, I am thoroughly in agreement that this is a monstrous evil.
If it were just a matter of border control, then America would be relatively benign compared to Australia.
My issue with American immigration is the violence and danger of ICE, the persecution and exploitation of the eleven million undocumented Americans, and the imprisoned labor of the USAâs for-profit immigration detention system.
ICE is currently actively hunting undocumented Americans, separating them from their families and sending them into indefinite imprisonment as a captive workforce. This issue is serious and accelerating. The increasingly militarised surveillance and enforcement capabilities of the Border Patrol also represent a threat to all Americans.
The Australian situation is horrific, but regrettably stable. The US situation is dangerously deteriorating.
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The usual Australian centre-right spin is that we must make our asylum seeker processing system as harsh and inhumane as possible, in order to discourage others from attempting the dangerous crossing. Itâs for their own good, donât you see. 
The far right version is that theyâre all diseased terrorist vermin and the Navy should sink the boats on sight.
The centre-left ALP response is that itâs all very upsetting, but they might lose a vote or two if they actually opposed the detention system. So just make it a bit nicer instead.
The actual left (Greens) think itâs a crime against humanity.
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Quislings at the ready.
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If that isnât a bait and switch if I ever saw one. Legal status, but not citizenship?
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