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Obama years had also the same kind of abuse and killings by the border patrol. At least 56 recorded deaths of immigrants caused by ICE and custody[0]. Some murders were settled to avoid a trial.

Protests against ICE were much smaller then (billionaires didn't fund NGOs to organise them either), so it was easier for the agency to operate as well, and it was quickly memory-holed.

[0] https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/re...

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Any preventable death in custody is a tragedy, but there’s a major difference between a death due to inadequate precautions against suicide or due to inadequate medical care, and tacking someone to the ground in the street and shooting them ten times in the back. I really hope you understand that and are just pretending not to in order to score points.

Edit: also, why is it that whenever someone makes an "Obama did bad stuff too" argument, it's always with the intent of "so you shouldn't be upset about it now," rather than "you should have been upset then like I was, and I'm still upset about what's happening now"?


Regarding deportations, it's not "also bad stuff" - it's just an application of the law.

I don't see the problem with pointing out the hypocrisy where very wealthy democrat donors fund activist organizations to disrupt the ICE/Border patrol activity, while looking away when their guy is in power. Protests evolved as well, organized by professionals with the aim to escalate and disrupt ICE's activity, which leads to such tragic events.

In France, we are accustomed to the same kind of escalation, where antifa black blocks commonly throw molotov cocktails, leading to more violence and so on. Thankfully the riot police is well trained to avoid fatal incidents, which is clearly not the case of the current-day ICE (and generally in the police forces in the US).

After all the complaining, the solution is likely either to desescalate both sides, and ask for accountability and more training - bodycams are a good tool, for instance. But I guess that "better training for ICE" isn't a very entertaining slogan ;-)


Why are you talking about deportations again? The problem is the associated abuses.

What is the purpose of telling me that the same stuff happened under Obama? Let's say just for a moment that this is true, and that the difference in reactions is driven by some hypocritical activists. What sort of change are you hoping to induce in my mind by saying this? If that really was true, then the correct reaction would be to continue to be appalled by and oppose the current administration's actions, while also being careful to watch out for such things in the future by other administrations. But I'm going to do that anyway, so there isn't even any point to that.

It really looks like you're bringing this up with the intent that I should stop change my mind about what's happening now and think it's all just fine and dandy, which is ridiculous.


I was talking about the cause of the protests, which are primarily about the deportations, and started before the abuse took place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_mass_deportat...

As I explained before, two movements are at play: a drastic ramping up of the ICE, with some unexperienced agents behaving unprofessionally, and at the same time, billionaires funding NGOs to organize protests, coordinate media and harass the agencies in charge of the deportation.

Things such as blowing a whistle when ICE agents are intervening, doxxing agents or following their cars aren't going to help desescalate the situation or help create a sane culture in those agencies.


Which is it, did the protests start before the abuses, or are the abuses just a continuation of the Obama years?

It's not supposed to be up to the public to deescalate. Law enforcement needs to behave professionally even when facing people who don't like them. That is literally their job. If they can't handle it without committing some murders, then the agency should be torn down.




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