Subject: Re: Minnesota 1, Spankee 0
As noted before, we are, increasingly, seeing how much USian "justice" and "rule of law" depends on the actors being people of good will, as it is apparent, there are holes in the laws large enough to fly a 747 full of brown people in chains through.

No, there are not. Those folks were deported contrary to the law, not because the law has a hole in it. And doing so was a gross injustice, and deserves resistance and accountability.

But the point I have been trying to make is that the Administration doesn't need to be doing stuff like that. It's not necessary, since virtually all folks who are here without authorization can be deported if you just go through the right process. Not because those laws are fascist or authoritarian, but because it is the general law that if you're here unlawfully you don't acquire a right to stay here.

Yes, the cruelty is the point. And that's why the faction that favors those big showy visible cruelties has been able to set policy for the most part. But the Administration is starting to see that the cruelty is also very counterproductive. For example, the nine individuals who were unlawfully sent to Cameroon are going to consume massive amounts of DOJ resources in trying to fight that, and eventually unwind it (once the judge reaches whatever sanctions force compliance, like hauling the ICE agency director). The Administration is short on DOJ immigration resources. So wasting them on just nine people like this is pretty dumb.

There are people in the administration that have argued for a smarter approach to hardline immigration enforcement, meaning not "surging" more arresting agents into an area than the infrastructure can handle, not taking shortcuts, not failing to comply with court orders, and not patently violating due process. I don't know whether that faction will prevail in the internal debates - but it's possible that they might, which is why I raise the possibility that we might not see a repeat of Chicago/Minnesota. Not because I think they've become more sensitive to immigrants, but because it didn't get a desirable outcome for the Administration.