In addition to the obvious problems of the US government illegally firing one family-member solely to punish a different family-member's constitutionally-protected free-speech... I'd also highlight these aren't even the same part of the federal government. ICE is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), whereas she is/was employed as a forensic accountant at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
To make an throw-back reference, this like the DOJ firing one of their forensic accountants just because her spouse gave out t-shirts at a convention with DeCSS source code on them and pissed off the Copyright Office.
The oath says "Support and Defend the Constitution", not "Support and Defend the Con". I really hope she can sue them for a ridiculous amount of damages.
Since when is dissemination of publicly facing information considered political action under the Hatch Act? The latter requires the person to use their influence or be on duty for it to count. The raids being reported by the app aren’t using insider information, they’re in progress and out in the open.
This situation is pretty clear cut. The administration isn’t being coy about purging anyone they think might be less than blindly loyal.
AFAIK, ownership interest in a company doesn't violate any of the Hatch restrictions, even on the "further restricted" category of employees. So unless she took specific political actions while on the job, using her authority, or using federal resources, this is not a Hatch violation.
According to this article, she self-reported to the DOJ ("Feinstein says that she took it upon herself to inform the DOJ of her relationship with Aaron after the backlash first kicked off more than three weeks ago.”). The people from the DOJ who contacted her initially were looking into ethical issues ("Within a week, she said that she was then contacted by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which said it was reaching out on behalf of an ethics committee.”).
She told the investigators that she didn’t have anything much to do with the app ("They asked me about my relationship to the ICEBlock App,” she said. “And I informed them in so many words that I really didn’t have any relationship or involvement in the app, I was married to the creator.”) However, she also admits to the journalist that she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company.
The Newsweek article on HN seems to have a lot less info than this one, though both have pretty inflammatory headlines.
> However, she also admits to the journalist that she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company.
That’s a lot more than a footnote. If the app development company owned the app and she had ownership in the app development company, there’s no way to argue she didn’t have an interest in the app.
Nobody can expect to have a side interest in an app that works against their employer and continue to keep their job. You have to be divested from one or the other. Due to the marriage, there likely any way to divest from the app unless her husband also divested from it. Even then, the damage was done.
> Nobody can expect to have a side interest in an app that works against their employer
Really? So if my wife works for Google and I work for Facebook, she has to get me to quit Facebook? Or if my wife works for Google and I found a start up making a search app, then she has to get me to wind up my start up?
Some employees may have contracts that have ethical clauses for outside activity.
The person in this case worked for the US Government, and is subject to ethics laws and agency policy.
In most cases, a mutual fund isn’t an ethical issue for most roles - although in a more normal time some elected officials would put investments in blind trusts to ensure there wasn’t an appearance of corruption.
Owning a portion of a private company run by your spouse whose principal activity is directly opposed to those to whom you serve at the pleasure of is going to be a problem. If you fail to report it, you’re going to get fired.
> she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company
Let's suppose this means she is directly linked to this anti-ICE app, profits from it (if it even has any revenue?) and is interested in the apps success. Does it mean that she has ethical conflict with her DOJ position?
- ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture
- while endangering the lives of ICE officers
- by disclosing their location.
- This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement
or law enforcement officers."
Reality speak:
- ICEBlock is an app used by citizens who reasonably want to
1) be aware of what their government does
2) provide the only known oversight of ICE agents
3) avoid areas where risky, hostile militaristic patrols operate
- The DOJ will not tolerate citizen empowerment that it does not
expressly approve of.
- This DOJ will disingenuously reframe any attempt at oversight
of LEO as "a threat to law enforcement officers" and will freely
deploy government resources as revenge against those citizens.
calling humans aliens is NEVER normal, this has always been racist discriminatory, de-humizing language.
and yes ICE has used such languages for a while, and they also have done things for a while which by international law (mainly the parts conveniently not recognized by the US) are crimes, some very heavy crimes, too (like when they split very young children of illegal immigrants from their parents and sold them to orphanages)
- being intentionally miss-translated to push political believes
- a lot of violent actions most western people would call barbaric and not acceptable today
and especially for the first point it's also not just the bible, many other religious texts have that problem, too
and neither change that today the word alien has not the annotation of "foreigner", but one which inherently de-humanizes the described group of people
Connotations of words change over time, that is normal, and it is possible that in the past alien really just meant foreigner.
But like I said elsewhere pretending that the connotation just means that today seems to me very hypocritical, at least close to no one under 40 will think about foreign people when hearing the word alien. Instead they will think of aliens, like extra terrestrial live.
> and neither change that today the word alien has not the annotation of "foreigner", but one which inherently de-humanizes the described group of people
No, it doesn't. You keep saying that, over and over, and people keep trying to correct you, over and over, and you keep not listening. It's you who has that connotation of dehumanizing associated with the word. You. And yes, I admit that some other people do, too. But it's your group, not society as a whole. And that means that all your outrage is misplaced, because the offense you're railing against is in your imagination.
But I will give you this much: I can imagine a future (maybe in 50 years, maybe in 10, maybe even in 2) where you are right, where that is the connotation of the society as a whole. But we aren't there yet, and I refuse to let one zealot on HN dictate my use of a perfectly reasonable word.
If I illegally enter Japan or Mexico, am I not committing a crime? I would expect to (and both of these countries would) be arrested and returned to the US, usually after being fined and not allowed re-entry.
An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident.
Someone who illegally enters a country is an Illegal Alien.
Are Japan and Mexico on the verge of committing mass murder?
> An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident.
no it's not and never was
tourist aren't alias they are foreigners not aliens
illegal immigrants are immigrants even if they come in illegally
this always has been racist de-humanizing language used to make people not thing about this groups as humans which then is used to facilitate more extrem and violent actions against such groups
And yes you will probably find it in some laws, like especially from around the time the KKK had been big int he US. US problems with right wing extremism in forms looking quite similar to fascism predate the rise of fascism in Europe which lead to Nazis and WW2. (And lets also not forget there where quite a bunch of people in the US who wanted to join the Nazis not fight them and some companies have supplied Nazis Germany with resources (e.g. Oil) quite long into the war far beyond the "we didn't know better" point).
This kind of approach of tweaking language is btw. one of the major *parts* about how the Nazis managed to first put all Jews in Germany in Labor Camps and then later build Death Camps in Poland without it leading to a internal civil war, they used constant dehumanizing language to make people not think about Jews as humans and as such remove sympathy, pity and so on. This is also why you find stories of leading KZ personal saving some Jewish child or similar, because somehow they ended up seeing that individual child as human again and in turn started having feeling of sympathy, pity and in general "killing them being wrong". But only to that specific individual not the group of prisoner in general.
To be clear, that isn't supposed to say MEGA is Nazis, they probably are not. But this doesn't mean you can't compare things which have similarity, like MEGA leaning propaganda using increasingly more dehumanizing language and brutal/rule by force arguments, and MEGA associated politicians mostly just going "thumps up seems fine" wrt. this propaganda, or even repeat it them self. And that should still have you very worried. You don't need to go to Nazi level bs to have a very bad situation.
> Japan
1-to-1 translating words out of context tends to not work, as it loses suitability. Like you could translate "Fremder" to "alien" and then claim German is using that language, too. But it still would be wrong as in the given context the right translation would be "stranger" or "foreigner", and alien as close to never the right translation.
> Maxico
inmigrante ilegal, extraño, extranjero. And yes extranjero can be translated as alien _or foreigner_, but this again is where subtilities of languages and languages in general not having a perfectly 1-to-1 mapping words come in. Also the translation of illegal immigrant is still inmigrante ilegal, not extranjero ilegal. Also putting all that aside when was the last time mass murder wasn't quite frequent in Mexico? Like there is a good reason why people flee this country and try to immigrate into the US even today even if it's illegal and means being abused for cheap labor for the rest of your live.
Anyway in English Alien has a VERY different connotation then foreigner, immigrant etc. and administration pretending to not know that and that it's just a normal word for people-not-from-here is just hypocrisy.
What's "reliable indicator" here? That it happened once?
>if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm
The term "illegal alien" has been the norm in the United States my entire life and I'm 51. Only recently has it started to not become the norm, because the youngest generations have unbridled enthusiasm for the euphemism treadmill, so first they became "undocumented", and then lately differently-citizenated or whatever.
yes and the US has problem with right wing extremism in ways which have a lot of similarities to fascism since before you where born (or even before fascism rose in Germany)
like the KKK
or the non-negligible amount of people which wanted to join the Nazis instead of fight them (until the Nazis sunk a larger US civilian chip by accident)
or the endless amount of laws regulations tweaked in ways to systematically discriminate against (mainly) black people as enough with power didn't really want to fully let go of slavery
or the various variations of christian churches, which by US standards are sometimes just that, but by EU standards would be classified as cult (to be clear not all of them at all!!!, just some but still a surprising large amount), which not seldomly teach "conservative" values which often happen to have a large overlap with fascism
and the US had been very hands of about that, KKK crimes or that there where not few people which initially wanted to if join only on the Nazi side is mostly put under the rug to be forgotten. Similar the long trend of lynching of black people, including some gruesome mass murder is also is also mostly no thought in school or any state controlled sources, and the list goes one and one
yes not new language, but that doesn't make it wrong racist and de-humizing and pretending that "aliens" doesn't has such connotation (by administration/government) is IMHO just hypocrisy
the problem is less that ICE has always used it but how its becoming increasingly more normalized in common language and paired up with other new dehumanizing language, and more calls for more law enforcement violence and in general treating all the elements of society which are seen as harmful increasingly less as humans
and that should have you worried, as that in combination with other stuff (high polarization, quite dysfunctional government having trouble passing laws due having way to far apart world views, and the list goes one) are frighteningly very similar dynamics as you had in Germany which allowed the Nazis to size power
and it would be VERY absurd to say the US becomes another Hitler Germany, but it also is very worrisome anyway
I was over and over thought how the catastrophe of Hiterl Germany happened, what dynamics allowed the Nazis to size power, what dynamics allowed them to commit absurd crimes without the population raising up against it large scale etc. And I'm looking to the US and seeing the exact same kinds of dynamic and people being obvious and downplaying it and then I look at some always conservative but moderat-ish streamers I sometimes watched and see how this whole movement affect them how their language slowly and subtly morphs becoming increasingly more filled with dehumanizing aspects and normalization/acceptance of law enforcement violence. How again and again react to videos which pretend to be "centrist, purely objective" but are highly manipulative and dishonest but also _very_ good at it and every time more and more "Verrohung" (~brutalization, dehumanization, call for more policing with a iron fist etc.) seeps into their language. And you try to reach them and point out how they get manipulated in situations where they could see it just by closely looking at the actual video content, but you don't reach anyone anymore because the person which once was open for many honest discussions is now filled up by a righteous indignation instilled by constantly agitating them with propagandize which very clearly (from a external POV) in conflict with the US having a rule of law and non-make-pretense democracy).
And that frightens me, because that is exactly the dynamics Nazis used to size power and normalize putting Jews in Labor Camps (and later death camps, but the labor camps also used calculated mal nutrition to slowly kill them while extracting money through forced labor). And again not saying they will turn into a new Nazi country, this are different times, people, goals, discrimination, even the racism is different. BUT it's still very dangerous anyway.
And the US has a tendency to try to export force their current ideology/shit onto other western nations. Which is why people outside of the US should have all reason to worry even through they don't really have any right to get involved into US inner politics.
the app is protected by free speech so using it isn't illegal
"ICEBlock is a free speech protected app that illegal immigrants in the US use to evade capture"
would be more precise and still objective
would explain why the government used questionable (and actual illegal) roundabout ways to "punish" the creator instead of normal legal actions
there is no problem with saying illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants, the problem is with removing the human factor, by calling them aliens, or by pretending all are supper criminal gang members etc.
that ICE also goes after people with legal status is another problem
and the argument of "it's aliens because they are foreigner non residents" also falls apart because many illegal immigrants have become residents. Not citizens, and not always with legal status. But they are 1) civilians 2) long term residing in the US so residents anyway. What ICE does here beside hypocritically pretending alien doesn't has de-humanizing connotations is expanding the term from "foreigners trying to illegally enter the US" to people living in the US for years and often are also in the process to try to get legal status even through they entered illegally.
anyway illigal immigrants are still illegally so no need to reduce it to just people
It's funny how fascistic people want to destabilize and exploit other countries but not bear the consequence of having the now poor and desperate population migrating to the country they see as responsible for their misery.
We have the same in Europe with african immigration, we exploited these people for hundreds years, become rich on their backs and now some people want everyone out ? That's hypocrisy if I've ever seen any.
I mean for the refuges coming to the EU it often is that simple. But most of the refuges of countries systematic destabilized by the US for greed (often with the help of EU-countries, not always knowingly tho) end up in the EU not the US.
And the relationship between the US and many of the countries where most illegal immigrants in the US come from are a bit more complex.
That doesn't change that they (the politicians, not necessary the voter) have for years no only been quite fine with it (and publicly, too) but in some cases (e.g. stereotype Indian IT workers) outright goaded people to come to the US temporary and now are surprised that some staid longer then allowed and brought friends (which is pretty much the expected outcome when you consult history).
So IMHO they should take responsibility for it, and kicking everyone out by force at the cost of even hurting your own citizens isn't really a good way to solve that.
- persecute people which have integrated well and are hard working
- tear apart family without care for the child
- severely undermine the US constitution and put _supposed_ "organized crime" criminals basically into life long forced labor prison without trial in some far way country outside of the eyes/oversight of US citizens (the constitutional right for a fair trail says _anyone accused_, not just US citizens!!)
There is also the whole thing that the situation of illegal immigrants was for a long time tolerated and even wanted by politicians of _both side_ (but not voters of both sides). And funnily it matches the "American Dream", i.e. you come to the us and will have a shit live by being abused for labor no one else will do without being able to call in any labor rights BUT int turn you children can have a better future. And how is that so different to the initial US settlers which came to America knowing their live will be shit but in turn they can create a better future for their children, which also technically where illegal immigrants in many situations.
So what did change outside of a very very far right fraction in the republican party taking over, and more populism and more fear mongering?
1. the new US citizens (e.g. children of immigrants) tend to not vote republican anymore with increasingly little chance to convince many of them
2. the left tries to extend worker rights to illegal immigrants
3. for quite a while having lost nearly every presidential election, if they where concluded by majority vote (which they aren't, but it still sets a clear trend for your party and yes, except for the elections Trump won), it shows shitty stuff like biased Gerry meandering will be increasingly not enough anymore to reliably secure future wins
so in other words the right wing realized that they where losing power badly; realized that one group they could push all the blame (IMHO mostly undeserved) and villainify (also IMHO mostly undeserved) and also act ruthless/inhuman against to show they do something (even if it isn't fixing issues) are illegal immigrants. And the best tool to archive this turned out to be a populist named Trump, problematically for them that populist also took over their party/camp and now not falling out of line with him might risk their carrier more then the Democratic party ever had or would.
And that's where we are today and that's why it's dangerous.
Gaining election through populism and fear mongering and blaming most issues on a minority(1) which might be tangentially related to some of the issues but isn't the root cause and claiming you fix it by ruling with a iron fist i.e. fear (of retaliation), violence(of law enforcement) and disregard (of the actual meaning of laws and the humanity of whoever you victim is) instead of ruling by law and order has in history very seldomly ended well.
(1) This is slightly oversimplified, modern media allows quite a flexible multi prong propaganda warfare where you can use information overload and targeted advertisement and information bubbles to victim blame the right group for every recipient in a automatized scaling way where you don't need to manually target any individuals (so it scales to US population size and beyond). You are jobless -> it's the immigrants, you have a job but children and are religious -> the evil LGBTQ people want to brain wash them, etc. etc.
> This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified.
A lot of the action taken are NOT the law. They often are incompatible with the law, sometimes even the constitution. And often based on a pretty despotic reinterpretation of law and abusing some very old very badly written laws meant for other situations. Its a pretty common opinion of lawyers that, when it comes to civil rights, the US is no longer a state of law and order but one, not half a step, but half a pinky toe away from being fully despotic and autocratic
if you tolerated illegal immigrants for decades and even incorporated them into you economy then you have to take responsibility for that,
And taking a baseball bat and hitting your problem until it stops twitching seems to be pretty much the worst possible solution.
Its not that there aren't human solutions to the problem, it's just that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, because they don't really fix _their_ problem (the one I listed at the beginning). Problem is that this a problem of a small circle of politicians, not the people as a whole. But the side-effects of their approach to fix it has long eclipsed just being a problem for illegal immigrants. And now causes suffering for many US Citizens too in all kinds of way.
So it's very egoistic, egocentric and short sighted to a point I personally would call it evil, some others wouldn't.
The philosopher who created the quote "the end justifies the means" made it very clear that this is only true if you act selfless for the grater good and all other solutions will lead to far more suffering. So even under the standard of the "end justifies the means" the current means aren't justified (as the actions aren't done selfless and there are alternatives).
Reality is more than large enough for it to both be used my "citizens who reasonably want to provide oversight" and be used by criminals who will use it to evade capture and target ICE agents. It is even reasonable for someone who works for that agency to wonder if such citizen activism might not be turned (in the future, I have not heard of specific incidents so far) to threats against its agents.
If there were a SWAT raid in progress, with officers sneaking up behind a building blaring "Oh no, the popo's here!" on a loudspeaker might well be judged to put their lives at risk. Not only would I expect it to lead to criminal charges (and past that, conviction), I don't much imagine anyone here would argue that the punishment was unwarranted. This doesn't change just because you have a different opinion about illegal immigration than a bank hostage situation or illicit meth factories.
> Reality is more than large enough for it to both be used my "citizens who reasonably want to provide oversight" and be used by criminals who will use it to evade capture and target ICE agents. It is even reasonable for someone who works for that agency to wonder if such citizen activism might not be turned (in the future, I have not heard of specific incidents so far) to threats against its agents.
That's a pretty broad brush, all sorts of free speech could (and is) used by criminals to evade capture or target law enforcement agents. Are you proposing that we should ban phone and chat applications?
More specifically aren't there apps in the US that report the location of speed cameras, breath testing stops etc? I thought I even heard this being broadcasted on the radio. Are you arguing this is illegal?
Go ahead and see with your own eyes what a lot of HN commenters really think about other humans. It’s pretty plain to see and very sad. They’re the folks flagging everything.
Husband wasn't endorsing candidates. Hatch Act does not forbid activism. Clarence Thomas' wife was very active in conservative causes including explicit support for Trump's candidacy and the Jan 6 insurrection. No charges have ever been filed against her or Justice Thomas.
Happy for her. She can retire early with an excellent settlement or get another job she is passionate about without worrying about money. It's pretty despicable, but I think in the end it will turn out for the better.
The DOJ told Newsweek: "For several weeks, the Department of Justice inquired into this former employee's activities and discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock. ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location. This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers."
Identifying and catalog law enforcement actors are not threats. Certainly, they feel threatened by the threat of current or future accountability, but that is their feeling.
> Surveilling the police obviously enables crime, and in this case is specifically intended to enable crime.
Sure, some kinds of crime would be easier when we can track the police. However, crime caused by police is a real threat to people and they are right to be worried. We don't want a world where the people with the badge and the gun cannot be held accountable at all.
And, let's be super clear, there is no "crime" that can be committed by knowing the location of ICE agents, particularly in the middle of a city.
ICE's jurisdiction is specifically over immigration and border control. They aren't going to stop a robbery, murder, or theft. They won't save someone from a kidnapping. The extent of their legal power is to terrorize undocumented individuals.
In fact, this ICE crackdown is very likely to make everyone less safe. Someone who's undocumented or, frankly, just a latino will need to think twice before they ever want to interact with any police force. That means less witnesses to crimes, less reports of crimes, less cooperation to stop crime. They won't want to engage in the justice system and in some cases might end up getting violent for fear of being sent to a sweltering hot torture tent in florida for the crime of speeding.
And, when there's a protection vacuum, what inevitably happens? People turn to gangs for security and justice. So many violent groups started because the Justice system decided they didn't need justice.
I know and have known undocumented workers that have lived in the US for decades as valued community members. By and large these are not dangerous people and they should get citizenship.
1. I would guess that ICE agent isn't even in the top 20 most dangerous occupations in the US.
2. If knowing the location of law enforcement endangers their lives, why do the great majority of law enforcement officers wear distinctive uniforms and drive around in clearly marked vehicles?
The "massive (percentage) increase" in assaults on ICE officers is a good example of How to Lie with Statistics * (1954, still a good book, worth a read).
For comment, see:
We now know that an “830% increase” is an increase from 10 assaults in 6 months to 93 assaults in 6 months, at a time when DHS has *massively* increased at-large arrests and officers deployed in the community.
For comparison, NYPD is averaging 194 assaults on officers per MONTH.
from:
DHS Still Pretending 15 Assaults A Month Is Evidence Of Widespread Violence Against ICE Officers
To make an throw-back reference, this like the DOJ firing one of their forensic accountants just because her spouse gave out t-shirts at a convention with DeCSS source code on them and pissed off the Copyright Office.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they start firing anyone who even downloaded the app.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/us/politics/fbi-polygraph...
> "Some senior officials who have taken the test have been asked whether they said anything negative about the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel."
You lot are in a lot of trouble.
It'd be great if you didn't take us with you, or leave some other peanut dictatorship to take over.
Best Regards, the world.
"discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock"
I'm not sure what hen's employee contract reads.
There are some limitations on US government employees engaging in political action though (Hatch act).
Perhaps hen sent a text relating to All U during work hours?
This situation is pretty clear cut. The administration isn’t being coy about purging anyone they think might be less than blindly loyal.
In both terms, the Trump Administration has been full of top-to-bottom, flagrant violations off the Hatch Act by loyalists.
According to this article, she self-reported to the DOJ ("Feinstein says that she took it upon herself to inform the DOJ of her relationship with Aaron after the backlash first kicked off more than three weeks ago.”). The people from the DOJ who contacted her initially were looking into ethical issues ("Within a week, she said that she was then contacted by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which said it was reaching out on behalf of an ethics committee.”).
She told the investigators that she didn’t have anything much to do with the app ("They asked me about my relationship to the ICEBlock App,” she said. “And I informed them in so many words that I really didn’t have any relationship or involvement in the app, I was married to the creator.”) However, she also admits to the journalist that she is a ‘minority shareholder’ in the app development company.
The Newsweek article on HN seems to have a lot less info than this one, though both have pretty inflammatory headlines.
That’s a lot more than a footnote. If the app development company owned the app and she had ownership in the app development company, there’s no way to argue she didn’t have an interest in the app.
Nobody can expect to have a side interest in an app that works against their employer and continue to keep their job. You have to be divested from one or the other. Due to the marriage, there likely any way to divest from the app unless her husband also divested from it. Even then, the damage was done.
Really? So if my wife works for Google and I work for Facebook, she has to get me to quit Facebook? Or if my wife works for Google and I found a start up making a search app, then she has to get me to wind up my start up?
This administration sucks, but being a shareholder isn’t the same as your spouse just working on a project. She should have resigned a long time ago.
The person in this case worked for the US Government, and is subject to ethics laws and agency policy.
In most cases, a mutual fund isn’t an ethical issue for most roles - although in a more normal time some elected officials would put investments in blind trusts to ensure there wasn’t an appearance of corruption.
Owning a portion of a private company run by your spouse whose principal activity is directly opposed to those to whom you serve at the pleasure of is going to be a problem. If you fail to report it, you’re going to get fired.
Because I work for a tech company, and some of the stocks I own could, tangentially or otherwise, be competitors to my employer.
Let's suppose this means she is directly linked to this anti-ICE app, profits from it (if it even has any revenue?) and is interested in the apps success. Does it mean that she has ethical conflict with her DOJ position?
> ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture
is highly dehumanizing language you normally find only and autocratic regimes ruled by force and despotism instead of law
if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm you alarm bells should ring in overdrive
historically speaking language like this has pretty reliably an indicator of a country going to commit mass murder (lets hope it doesn't come to this)
calling humans aliens is NEVER normal, this has always been racist discriminatory, de-humizing language.
and yes ICE has used such languages for a while, and they also have done things for a while which by international law (mainly the parts conveniently not recognized by the US) are crimes, some very heavy crimes, too (like when they split very young children of illegal immigrants from their parents and sold them to orphanages)
You are very mistaken in your interpretation of the word "alien".
- being intentionally miss-translated to push political believes
- a lot of violent actions most western people would call barbaric and not acceptable today
and especially for the first point it's also not just the bible, many other religious texts have that problem, too
and neither change that today the word alien has not the annotation of "foreigner", but one which inherently de-humanizes the described group of people
Connotations of words change over time, that is normal, and it is possible that in the past alien really just meant foreigner.
But like I said elsewhere pretending that the connotation just means that today seems to me very hypocritical, at least close to no one under 40 will think about foreign people when hearing the word alien. Instead they will think of aliens, like extra terrestrial live.
No, it doesn't. You keep saying that, over and over, and people keep trying to correct you, over and over, and you keep not listening. It's you who has that connotation of dehumanizing associated with the word. You. And yes, I admit that some other people do, too. But it's your group, not society as a whole. And that means that all your outrage is misplaced, because the offense you're railing against is in your imagination.
But I will give you this much: I can imagine a future (maybe in 50 years, maybe in 10, maybe even in 2) where you are right, where that is the connotation of the society as a whole. But we aren't there yet, and I refuse to let one zealot on HN dictate my use of a perfectly reasonable word.
If I illegally enter Japan or Mexico, am I not committing a crime? I would expect to (and both of these countries would) be arrested and returned to the US, usually after being fined and not allowed re-entry.
An Alien is the correct and proper name for a non-resident.
Someone who illegally enters a country is an Illegal Alien.
Are Japan and Mexico on the verge of committing mass murder?
no it's not and never was
tourist aren't alias they are foreigners not aliens
illegal immigrants are immigrants even if they come in illegally
this always has been racist de-humanizing language used to make people not thing about this groups as humans which then is used to facilitate more extrem and violent actions against such groups
And yes you will probably find it in some laws, like especially from around the time the KKK had been big int he US. US problems with right wing extremism in forms looking quite similar to fascism predate the rise of fascism in Europe which lead to Nazis and WW2. (And lets also not forget there where quite a bunch of people in the US who wanted to join the Nazis not fight them and some companies have supplied Nazis Germany with resources (e.g. Oil) quite long into the war far beyond the "we didn't know better" point).
This kind of approach of tweaking language is btw. one of the major *parts* about how the Nazis managed to first put all Jews in Germany in Labor Camps and then later build Death Camps in Poland without it leading to a internal civil war, they used constant dehumanizing language to make people not think about Jews as humans and as such remove sympathy, pity and so on. This is also why you find stories of leading KZ personal saving some Jewish child or similar, because somehow they ended up seeing that individual child as human again and in turn started having feeling of sympathy, pity and in general "killing them being wrong". But only to that specific individual not the group of prisoner in general.
To be clear, that isn't supposed to say MEGA is Nazis, they probably are not. But this doesn't mean you can't compare things which have similarity, like MEGA leaning propaganda using increasingly more dehumanizing language and brutal/rule by force arguments, and MEGA associated politicians mostly just going "thumps up seems fine" wrt. this propaganda, or even repeat it them self. And that should still have you very worried. You don't need to go to Nazi level bs to have a very bad situation.
> Japan
1-to-1 translating words out of context tends to not work, as it loses suitability. Like you could translate "Fremder" to "alien" and then claim German is using that language, too. But it still would be wrong as in the given context the right translation would be "stranger" or "foreigner", and alien as close to never the right translation.
> Maxico
inmigrante ilegal, extraño, extranjero. And yes extranjero can be translated as alien _or foreigner_, but this again is where subtilities of languages and languages in general not having a perfectly 1-to-1 mapping words come in. Also the translation of illegal immigrant is still inmigrante ilegal, not extranjero ilegal. Also putting all that aside when was the last time mass murder wasn't quite frequent in Mexico? Like there is a good reason why people flee this country and try to immigrate into the US even today even if it's illegal and means being abused for cheap labor for the rest of your live.
Anyway in English Alien has a VERY different connotation then foreigner, immigrant etc. and administration pretending to not know that and that it's just a normal word for people-not-from-here is just hypocrisy.
>if you read that in you country and it's not a exception but the now norm
The term "illegal alien" has been the norm in the United States my entire life and I'm 51. Only recently has it started to not become the norm, because the youngest generations have unbridled enthusiasm for the euphemism treadmill, so first they became "undocumented", and then lately differently-citizenated or whatever.
like the KKK
or the non-negligible amount of people which wanted to join the Nazis instead of fight them (until the Nazis sunk a larger US civilian chip by accident)
or the endless amount of laws regulations tweaked in ways to systematically discriminate against (mainly) black people as enough with power didn't really want to fully let go of slavery
or the various variations of christian churches, which by US standards are sometimes just that, but by EU standards would be classified as cult (to be clear not all of them at all!!!, just some but still a surprising large amount), which not seldomly teach "conservative" values which often happen to have a large overlap with fascism
and the US had been very hands of about that, KKK crimes or that there where not few people which initially wanted to if join only on the Nazi side is mostly put under the rug to be forgotten. Similar the long trend of lynching of black people, including some gruesome mass murder is also is also mostly no thought in school or any state controlled sources, and the list goes one and one
yes not new language, but that doesn't make it wrong racist and de-humizing and pretending that "aliens" doesn't has such connotation (by administration/government) is IMHO just hypocrisy
the problem is less that ICE has always used it but how its becoming increasingly more normalized in common language and paired up with other new dehumanizing language, and more calls for more law enforcement violence and in general treating all the elements of society which are seen as harmful increasingly less as humans
and that should have you worried, as that in combination with other stuff (high polarization, quite dysfunctional government having trouble passing laws due having way to far apart world views, and the list goes one) are frighteningly very similar dynamics as you had in Germany which allowed the Nazis to size power
and it would be VERY absurd to say the US becomes another Hitler Germany, but it also is very worrisome anyway
I was over and over thought how the catastrophe of Hiterl Germany happened, what dynamics allowed the Nazis to size power, what dynamics allowed them to commit absurd crimes without the population raising up against it large scale etc. And I'm looking to the US and seeing the exact same kinds of dynamic and people being obvious and downplaying it and then I look at some always conservative but moderat-ish streamers I sometimes watched and see how this whole movement affect them how their language slowly and subtly morphs becoming increasingly more filled with dehumanizing aspects and normalization/acceptance of law enforcement violence. How again and again react to videos which pretend to be "centrist, purely objective" but are highly manipulative and dishonest but also _very_ good at it and every time more and more "Verrohung" (~brutalization, dehumanization, call for more policing with a iron fist etc.) seeps into their language. And you try to reach them and point out how they get manipulated in situations where they could see it just by closely looking at the actual video content, but you don't reach anyone anymore because the person which once was open for many honest discussions is now filled up by a righteous indignation instilled by constantly agitating them with propagandize which very clearly (from a external POV) in conflict with the US having a rule of law and non-make-pretense democracy).
And that frightens me, because that is exactly the dynamics Nazis used to size power and normalize putting Jews in Labor Camps (and later death camps, but the labor camps also used calculated mal nutrition to slowly kill them while extracting money through forced labor). And again not saying they will turn into a new Nazi country, this are different times, people, goals, discrimination, even the racism is different. BUT it's still very dangerous anyway.
And the US has a tendency to try to export force their current ideology/shit onto other western nations. Which is why people outside of the US should have all reason to worry even through they don't really have any right to get involved into US inner politics.
the app is protected by free speech so using it isn't illegal
"ICEBlock is a free speech protected app that illegal immigrants in the US use to evade capture"
would be more precise and still objective
would explain why the government used questionable (and actual illegal) roundabout ways to "punish" the creator instead of normal legal actions
there is no problem with saying illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants, the problem is with removing the human factor, by calling them aliens, or by pretending all are supper criminal gang members etc.
that ICE also goes after people with legal status is another problem
and the argument of "it's aliens because they are foreigner non residents" also falls apart because many illegal immigrants have become residents. Not citizens, and not always with legal status. But they are 1) civilians 2) long term residing in the US so residents anyway. What ICE does here beside hypocritically pretending alien doesn't has de-humanizing connotations is expanding the term from "foreigners trying to illegally enter the US" to people living in the US for years and often are also in the process to try to get legal status even through they entered illegally.
anyway illigal immigrants are still illegally so no need to reduce it to just people
This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified.
We have the same in Europe with african immigration, we exploited these people for hundreds years, become rich on their backs and now some people want everyone out ? That's hypocrisy if I've ever seen any.
I mean for the refuges coming to the EU it often is that simple. But most of the refuges of countries systematic destabilized by the US for greed (often with the help of EU-countries, not always knowingly tho) end up in the EU not the US.
And the relationship between the US and many of the countries where most illegal immigrants in the US come from are a bit more complex.
That doesn't change that they (the politicians, not necessary the voter) have for years no only been quite fine with it (and publicly, too) but in some cases (e.g. stereotype Indian IT workers) outright goaded people to come to the US temporary and now are surprised that some staid longer then allowed and brought friends (which is pretty much the expected outcome when you consult history).
So IMHO they should take responsibility for it, and kicking everyone out by force at the cost of even hurting your own citizens isn't really a good way to solve that.
- de-humanize people
- use over the top violence
- persecute people which have integrated well and are hard working
- tear apart family without care for the child
- severely undermine the US constitution and put _supposed_ "organized crime" criminals basically into life long forced labor prison without trial in some far way country outside of the eyes/oversight of US citizens (the constitutional right for a fair trail says _anyone accused_, not just US citizens!!)
There is also the whole thing that the situation of illegal immigrants was for a long time tolerated and even wanted by politicians of _both side_ (but not voters of both sides). And funnily it matches the "American Dream", i.e. you come to the us and will have a shit live by being abused for labor no one else will do without being able to call in any labor rights BUT int turn you children can have a better future. And how is that so different to the initial US settlers which came to America knowing their live will be shit but in turn they can create a better future for their children, which also technically where illegal immigrants in many situations.
So what did change outside of a very very far right fraction in the republican party taking over, and more populism and more fear mongering?
1. the new US citizens (e.g. children of immigrants) tend to not vote republican anymore with increasingly little chance to convince many of them
2. the left tries to extend worker rights to illegal immigrants
3. for quite a while having lost nearly every presidential election, if they where concluded by majority vote (which they aren't, but it still sets a clear trend for your party and yes, except for the elections Trump won), it shows shitty stuff like biased Gerry meandering will be increasingly not enough anymore to reliably secure future wins
so in other words the right wing realized that they where losing power badly; realized that one group they could push all the blame (IMHO mostly undeserved) and villainify (also IMHO mostly undeserved) and also act ruthless/inhuman against to show they do something (even if it isn't fixing issues) are illegal immigrants. And the best tool to archive this turned out to be a populist named Trump, problematically for them that populist also took over their party/camp and now not falling out of line with him might risk their carrier more then the Democratic party ever had or would.
And that's where we are today and that's why it's dangerous.
Gaining election through populism and fear mongering and blaming most issues on a minority(1) which might be tangentially related to some of the issues but isn't the root cause and claiming you fix it by ruling with a iron fist i.e. fear (of retaliation), violence(of law enforcement) and disregard (of the actual meaning of laws and the humanity of whoever you victim is) instead of ruling by law and order has in history very seldomly ended well.
(1) This is slightly oversimplified, modern media allows quite a flexible multi prong propaganda warfare where you can use information overload and targeted advertisement and information bubbles to victim blame the right group for every recipient in a automatized scaling way where you don't need to manually target any individuals (so it scales to US population size and beyond). You are jobless -> it's the immigrants, you have a job but children and are religious -> the evil LGBTQ people want to brain wash them, etc. etc.
> This is the law. It is finally being enforced. Force is justified.
A lot of the action taken are NOT the law. They often are incompatible with the law, sometimes even the constitution. And often based on a pretty despotic reinterpretation of law and abusing some very old very badly written laws meant for other situations. Its a pretty common opinion of lawyers that, when it comes to civil rights, the US is no longer a state of law and order but one, not half a step, but half a pinky toe away from being fully despotic and autocratic
if you tolerated illegal immigrants for decades and even incorporated them into you economy then you have to take responsibility for that,
And taking a baseball bat and hitting your problem until it stops twitching seems to be pretty much the worst possible solution.
Its not that there aren't human solutions to the problem, it's just that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, because they don't really fix _their_ problem (the one I listed at the beginning). Problem is that this a problem of a small circle of politicians, not the people as a whole. But the side-effects of their approach to fix it has long eclipsed just being a problem for illegal immigrants. And now causes suffering for many US Citizens too in all kinds of way.
So it's very egoistic, egocentric and short sighted to a point I personally would call it evil, some others wouldn't.
The philosopher who created the quote "the end justifies the means" made it very clear that this is only true if you act selfless for the grater good and all other solutions will lead to far more suffering. So even under the standard of the "end justifies the means" the current means aren't justified (as the actions aren't done selfless and there are alternatives).
Reality is more than large enough for it to both be used my "citizens who reasonably want to provide oversight" and be used by criminals who will use it to evade capture and target ICE agents. It is even reasonable for someone who works for that agency to wonder if such citizen activism might not be turned (in the future, I have not heard of specific incidents so far) to threats against its agents.
If there were a SWAT raid in progress, with officers sneaking up behind a building blaring "Oh no, the popo's here!" on a loudspeaker might well be judged to put their lives at risk. Not only would I expect it to lead to criminal charges (and past that, conviction), I don't much imagine anyone here would argue that the punishment was unwarranted. This doesn't change just because you have a different opinion about illegal immigration than a bank hostage situation or illicit meth factories.
That's a pretty broad brush, all sorts of free speech could (and is) used by criminals to evade capture or target law enforcement agents. Are you proposing that we should ban phone and chat applications?
More specifically aren't there apps in the US that report the location of speed cameras, breath testing stops etc? I thought I even heard this being broadcasted on the radio. Are you arguing this is illegal?
Is this because readers don’t want to be reminded how absurd the world outside has become?
Users flagged the post as breaking the guidelines or otherwise not belonging on HN.
Moderators sometimes also add [flagged] (though not usually on submissions), and sometimes turn flags off when they are unfair.
The "someone fact checking my political propaganda is not okay" people?
Or like the "objective facts are not neutral because they they imply I'm probably fascist when spreading fascist leaning propaganda" people?
The DOJ told Newsweek: "For several weeks, the Department of Justice inquired into this former employee's activities and discovered she has a sizable interest in All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock. ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers by disclosing their location. This DOJ will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers."
https://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-sections/right-to-r...
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police
Sure, some kinds of crime would be easier when we can track the police. However, crime caused by police is a real threat to people and they are right to be worried. We don't want a world where the people with the badge and the gun cannot be held accountable at all.
ICE's jurisdiction is specifically over immigration and border control. They aren't going to stop a robbery, murder, or theft. They won't save someone from a kidnapping. The extent of their legal power is to terrorize undocumented individuals.
In fact, this ICE crackdown is very likely to make everyone less safe. Someone who's undocumented or, frankly, just a latino will need to think twice before they ever want to interact with any police force. That means less witnesses to crimes, less reports of crimes, less cooperation to stop crime. They won't want to engage in the justice system and in some cases might end up getting violent for fear of being sent to a sweltering hot torture tent in florida for the crime of speeding.
And, when there's a protection vacuum, what inevitably happens? People turn to gangs for security and justice. So many violent groups started because the Justice system decided they didn't need justice.
I know and have known undocumented workers that have lived in the US for decades as valued community members. By and large these are not dangerous people and they should get citizenship.
1. I would guess that ICE agent isn't even in the top 20 most dangerous occupations in the US.
2. If knowing the location of law enforcement endangers their lives, why do the great majority of law enforcement officers wear distinctive uniforms and drive around in clearly marked vehicles?
For comment, see:
from:DHS Still Pretending 15 Assaults A Month Is Evidence Of Widespread Violence Against ICE Officers
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/23/dhs-still-pretending-15-...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics