“In September, Lizzie Dearden and Thomas Gibbons-Neff wrote for The New York Times about the worldwide proliferation of designs for the FGC-9, a partially 3D-printed weapon that can “be built entirely from scratch, without commercial gun parts, which are often regulated and tracked by law enforcement agencies internationally.”
As one expert told the reporters: “Now you have something that people can make at home with unregulated components. So from a law enforcement perspective, how do you stop that?””
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“Another mass-deportation program—known by the offensive title of “Operation Wetback,” referencing a slur about Mexicans who got wet illegally crossing the Rio Grande—took place during the Eisenhower administration. That operation, which was backed by Mexican authorities who faced a labor shortage per the same report, didn’t directly use the military. But the Border Patrol used military techniques—and it ensnared many U.S. citizens.
I doubt politicians who have engaged in rhetorical attacks on immigrants will worry about their hardships, but shouldn’t they be concerned about what it will mean for U.S. citizens? During the 1950s operation, “Border agents raided Mexican American neighborhoods, demanded ID from ‘Mexican-looking’ citizens in public, invaded private homes in the middle of the night and harassed Mexican-owned businesses,” according to Axios.
Our Constitution upholds due process. The government cannot simply grab people off the street. It needs to follow a legal process. Every accused person gets their day in court to make their case. As George Washington famously said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force.”
Unleashing such force on a broad scale will not result in precise, humane, and just results. Government agents will conduct raids. Illegal residents often live among legal ones. Wide swaths of the population will get caught up in the dragnets.”
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“As someone who has hired construction workers in towns without large immigrant labor pools, I’m skeptical that large numbers of native-born Americans will jump at these newfound opportunities. The incoming administration embraces the Lump of Labor Fallacy—the idea that jobs are a zero-sum game where one person’s job comes at the expense of another’s job. In reality, more labor spurs economic growth and business development. That’s how market economies work.”
https://reason.com/2024/12/13/mass-deportations-are-bad-for-everyones-liberty