Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

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Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by Batgirl III »

Ares wrote: Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:15 pm I don't want to have to constantly updating folks as to the changes RPG.net makes, but I feel this is relevant to make:

As an update to the aforementioned rules, RPG.net has updated their policy again regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration.

It is as follows:

There's a new policy announcement in Trouble Tickets regarding GAs on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department (ICE); specifically, fuck ICE, fuck anybody who doesn't fuck ICE, fuck anybody who doesn't put lights in his window and stay up all night fucking ICE. Border Patrol too, while we're at it.

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?83 ... st21953863
After consultation between the staff, we've realized a strong majority of us are no longer willing to mod group attacks against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is not an open license for revenge porn or personal attacks on specific posters or the like, but we aren't going to pretend any more that they're within the bounds of civility, or that they deserve to be treated as if they were. If you don't understand the basis for this policy, read the news. If you have read the news and still think we need to clarify why we've done this, please find a qualified professional to administer a Voight-Kampff examination at your earliest opportunity.

In conclusion: If you support ICE at this point, you would have called the Gestapo on the people surreptitiously moving into your neighbor's attic and huffed that you were only following the law.

- TheRPGnet Moderation Team
So if you post on RPG.net, regardless of your feelings on the matter, please be aware of this change.
So, I’m about to break Ares’ rules about profanity, a lot. But that’s not the worst part of what I’m about to write. I am not a fan of “trigger warnings,” but I’m about to describe some very nasty things. Sensitive sorts might want to skip this post.

Are any of you familiar with what an intermodal container or “ISOtainer” is? You’ve all seen them in movies and tv shows, there’s probably a few thousand rolling around your town as we type this... They’re the standardized shipping crates used by pretty much everyone these days. Big steel boxes that come in a 6.1 m standard or 12.2 m double length, a 2.6 m standardized height, standardized attachment points for securement, lift trucks, and cranes. Hold damn near anything. Stack like LEGO. A true wonder of modern international commerce.

There also virtually waterproof, poorly ventilated, windowless, and dark.

Twice in my life I’ve been on scene when United States Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection cutting one of these twenty-foot by eight-foot portable tombs open to find several dozen women from Southeast Asian locked inside. The smell alone will be haunting me until the day I die. I cannot bring myself to describe the sight inside.

The Guardsmen and CBP officers rushed into action to provide much needed medical attention, give water, give food, whisper reassurances and calming words in a half-dozen dialects... and to respectfully and gently remove the deceased.

“Human trafficking” has become something of a buzzword these days, used by overzealous prosecutors and moral-crusader politicians interested in cracking down on prostitution and sex work. They want to try to conflate the two in the public mind... But actual human trafficking is real (albeit thankfully rare). There are international criminal cartels who shove men, women, and children about the globe as if they were commodities.

Shoved into metal boxes like so much canned tuna. Spending weeks to months in ocean crossings... Or stuffed into thinly walled boxcars rumbling through the Canadian Rockies... Stuffed inside unventilated semitrucks in the California or Arizona desert... Two hundred men clinging to a passenger ferry rated to hold fifty, crossing several thousand nautical miles of Mediterranean Sea when it was designed to putter across an urban river...

Malnutrition and starvation are common. Dehydration should just be treated as a given. Most of the men will have been physically abused by the smugglers, most of the women will have been raped, many of the children too. These people will be poor beyond belief and they (and the families left behind) will have gone into deeper debts to pay (or promise to pay) the smugglers. The smugglers will often use them as pack animals to bring other contraband across the boarder, I’ve seen everything from pirated DVDs and untaxed cigarettes to automatic weapons and military-grade explosives. Oh, and drugs, obviously.

United States Customs and Border Protection agents and officers save lives every single day. As do the agents and officers of similar organizations in other nations.

Fuck you and your virtue signaling RPG.net. Fuck you hard.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Ares »

The border issue is such a hot topic because it is, unfortunately, very complex with no easy answers.

A good chunk of the people trying to enter the country are people fleeing violence and poverty in their own areas. In some cases, these people are being intimidated, abused, and exploited by criminals, and are victims of terrible crimes. And you have America, land of opportunity, in some cases literally within walking distance. It's understandable why they would want to flee those conditions.

But at the same time, well, no country is obligated to have an open border policy. Over on the other side of the pond, countries with open border policies have come to regret it as violence and crime have often risen in areas due to an influx of people from other lands, none of whom have been vetted, many of whom have no desire to assimilate to their new home, and some of which are dangerous individuals. As a nation, we have a right to decide who gets to live within our borders. And my understanding is that we have one of the most lax immigration policies in the world. We just have standards for "refugee status" and we do not consider someone looking for economic opportunity as a candidate for refugee status.

People that enter this country without going through that process are committing a crime. Now, the first illegal crossing is just a misdemeanor, but they are still attempting to enter this country illegally. That's why we call it illegal immigration. I don't call them "undocumented migrants" because that to me is just word bending to try and downplay that they have entered this country without going through the proper channels.

I have even less respect for the most recent outrage because it's basically being politicized solely to be an anti-Trump message. I don't like Donald Trump. I didn't vote for Donald Trump (I didn't vote for Hillary either, but I did vote). But I find this constant need to demonize the man to be ridiculous. The current policy of deportation and child separation has been in effect since the Clinton administration. Obama allegedly deported more illegals than any other President in history. This Times cover has a clear message about the President, but they had to issue a retraction when it was discovered the girl in the image they'd used had not, in fact, been separated from her parents like the story claimed.

Speaking of which, my understanding is that child separation had occurred during this time as well, and is not done out of any malice or cruelty. It's done to ensure that the person with the child is actually their parent. Because in the past, human trafficers have tried to cross the border claiming one or more children are their own and then sell them into slavery once they got through. It's an unpleasant thing, but ICE and the Border Patrol are mostly just doing their due diligence in ensuring the child's safety. And within our own country, when parents commit felonies, their children are removed from their custody. It isn't some penalty being done solely to be cruel to illegal immigrants.

I have no problem believing that some ICE agents are corrupt, that some abuses happen in these detention areas. I do not believe that reflects the majority, however. In most cases, these people are housed, clothed, fed and cared for during the duration of their stay. Many of the times it is on simple cots or even mats on the floor, often they are in large holding areas separated by a fence, but I can't bring myself to vilify ICE or the Border Patrol for those conditions. Those conditions are often better than actual refugee camps, most of these people are being taken care of and are not being treated, as far as I can tell, inhumanely. For someone who essentially tried to break into our country, I can't say that's a terrible human rights violation.

Another part of the issue is this mass exodus of people from their own countries means the people who would be incentivized to make positive change there are gone. Part of me thinks we should really take a break from the Middle East and find some way to get more involved with Mexico and figuring out some way to weed the crime and corruption out of there. I'm not saying our own country is a paragon of virtue, but the amount of influence the various criminal groups have and the overall poverty/standard of living there is appalling.

Again, I don't think the current system is ideal. There are genuinely good people who came here just wanting to make a new life for themselves and are desperate to do better for themselves and their family. And desperate people don't care as much about what's legal or not. Many of them are making an honest living for themselves and trying to make a better future for their kids, and are frequently quietly ignored by law enforcement as long as they continue to do so. And some of these people are deported, because again, they are in this country illegally. And it ties my stomach in knots because I don't want to see genuinely good people leave a country that needs more hard working and good people. Hell, we could learn a lot from the work ethic and faith many of these people demonstrate. But at the same time, they are basically trespassing, and if they're allowed to stay without some consequence, then what do we tell the people who DID come here through the proper channels, did all the hard work, and became citizens the right way? What does their citizenship mean if they could have just snuck in quietly and avoided all of that for the same results?

Ideally, we'd have a program to deport people who have come here illegally who have committed crimes during their time here (apart from the obvious illegal entry). Those that have been here and been decent citizens should have to undergo a process to attain citizenship, possibly involving some community service. Maybe set up several super-sized "Ellis Island" style centers across the border where immigrants who wish to enter stay in a commune for a year within the country, being taught English and the laws of our country, being taught what it means to be a good citizen, having background checks made, psych evals, and even have a job training and placement program. Families are kept together, they live in their own little area, they do work for the installation and surrounding areas to earn themselves some money, and when they're made citizens, ideally there are job offers and places where they can move to start a new life.

So I can't dismiss the people who are sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants. I'm one of them. But I'm also aware what they're doing is, in fact, illegal, and by doing so they're setting themselves up for disappointment and abuse, if not from the minority of corrupt ICE Agents then criminals who will take advantage of them. I find the people who are using the status of these people to promote their own political agendas to be contemptible. And I find trying to compare the current situation on the border as being remotely close to Nazi Germany insanely disingenuous and incredibly disrespectful, both to the Border Patrol and the actual victims of Nazi cruelty.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Batgirl III »

I would like to see our immigration system reformed to make it easier to enter the country, I’d also like our borders to be more secure. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Ares »

Batgirl III wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:04 am I would like to see our immigration system reformed to make it easier to enter the country, I’d also like our borders to be more secure. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Agreed.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Batgirl III »

It just really gets to me when people decide to pile on the law enforcement officers, federal agents, and military personnel that enforce the laws and execute the missions given to them by others.

If you have a problem with immigration law, the fault doesn’t lie with individual ICE, CPB, TSA, or USCG personnel. It doesn’t even lie with the President. It lies with Congress.
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Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by Ares »

Based on this post, I've decided to start a topic here for any and all discussions that people want to have, so as to not have the original thread become this debate. Carry on.
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by BriarThrone »

I agree with more or less everything our locals have posted in this thread, except that we probably need to slow immigration to a trickle for a while, give our economy and infrastructure a chance to catch up and account for the uncontrolled mess we've had for the last few decades. A broader immigration policy after that, sure, maybe.

The thing that gets me is that the people complaining right now don't really care about the people they're virtue signalling about. If they did, they would have objected during the Obama Administration. Maybe they'd get the facts right, place blame appropriately, and advocate for policies that try to stop the ultimate cause of these conditions - illegal border crossing. But no. To them, this is an opportunity to scream "FUCK TRUMP," and that's their very favorite thing.

Also, I see RPG.net hasn't improved. Fuck that place with a burning pine cone.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Davies »

Batgirl III wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:31 am It just really gets to me when people decide to pile on the law enforcement officers, federal agents, and military personnel that enforce the laws and execute the missions given to them by others.
Of course, they're just following orders, and as we all know, that justifies everything. </sarcasm>
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by FuzzyBoots »

The current situation is indeed a mess. Our current administration (which includes both the President and the Congress, as well as all of the cabinet members who weren't elected into office) is currently allowing almost no one in from these affected countries, and the rules are being strictly enforced for the purpose of scaring people off (and they have admitted as much).

One the flip side of things, there's a lot of misinformation being thrown around. No, people are not being arrested for seeking asylum. No, the media did not claim that the famous girl from the Times magazine cover was separated from her parents; that's Facebook that spread that tale. People are not being jailed indefinitely, but rather held for a day or so at most if they get caught making an illegal crossing, then turned back across the border. The really tricky part is that they're strictly following the laws for hearings for minors (by law, all minors are given a full hearing and, unlike adults, they can't skip it by essentially "pleading guilty"). Because these hearings take weeks normally, the system is overloaded, and their parents are being deported within a day's time, we have a growing number of children who are being held for processing, poorly documented, and when they do get their hearing, the system has forgotten, or never recorded, who their parents were (and said parents are now back in their home country, and often unable to get into contact), so they're getting funneled into the foster/adoption system, which was already pretty overloaded.

So yes, this is a legal situation. Yes, the current administration is intentionally exacerbating the problem and then trying to pretend it's not their fault because they are, technically, just following the law. The ICE agents defending the border have very little latitude to do much other than turn people away, and by doing so, they are potentially liable for more severe crimes than the misdemeanor that the illegal border-crossers face. So they are indeed stuck between a rock and a hard place. Frankly, the main problem is higher up than them.
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by BriarThrone »

FuzzyBoots wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 12:34 pm The current situation is indeed a mess. Our current administration (which includes both the President and the Congress, as well as all of the cabinet members who weren't elected into office) is currently allowing almost no one in from these affected countries, and the rules are being strictly enforced for the purpose of scaring people off (and they have admitted as much).
This baffles me. What's the point of having rules if you don't enforce them? Failing to enforce the law encourages lawbreaking. Enforcing the law discourages lawbreaking. In this case, breaking the law involves a dangerous journey where you are almost guaranteed to meet some truly vile predators along the way, and people bring children along in an effort to use them as legal shields. And no, we can't just do away with the law, because the law determines who we can afford to let in. We couldn't let in everyone who shows up, for the exact same reason you can't personally put them all in your house.
FuzzyBoots wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 12:34 pmOne the flip side of things, there's a lot of misinformation being thrown around. No, people are not being arrested for seeking asylum. No, the media did not claim that the famous girl from the Times magazine cover was separated from her parents; that's Facebook that spread that tale.
Weird that retractions were issued on that subject, then. The news organizations issued blatant untruths.
FuzzyBoots wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 12:34 pmPeople are not being jailed indefinitely, but rather held for a day or so at most if they get caught making an illegal crossing, then turned back across the border. The really tricky part is that they're strictly following the laws for hearings for minors (by law, all minors are given a full hearing and, unlike adults, they can't skip it by essentially "pleading guilty"). Because these hearings take weeks normally, the system is overloaded, and their parents are being deported within a day's time, we have a growing number of children who are being held for processing, poorly documented, and when they do get their hearing, the system has forgotten, or never recorded, who their parents were (and said parents are now back in their home country, and often unable to get into contact), so they're getting funneled into the foster/adoption system, which was already pretty overloaded.
BEFORE the executive order, there were two situations in which children were separated from their parents. First, if there's some reason to suspect that the person claiming to be the child's parent really isn't, and more research into the matter needs to be done. Not a foolproof system, because many don't bring any sort of identification, but considering the human trafficking and the sexual abuse that happens, I think it's a pretty important one. Second, if there is an application for asylum, it takes longer to process than the 20 days allowable to keep a child in those conditions. To keep them together would be to keep a child in an adult detention center or to let potential predators hang out at a kids' boarding school/summer camp. No. Unacceptable. I'm not even sure what the executive order changed that would be acceptable.
FuzzyBoots wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 12:34 pmSo yes, this is a legal situation. Yes, the current administration is intentionally exacerbating the problem and then trying to pretend it's not their fault because they are, technically, just following the law. The ICE agents defending the border have very little latitude to do much other than turn people away, and by doing so, they are potentially liable for more severe crimes than the misdemeanor that the illegal border-crossers face. So they are indeed stuck between a rock and a hard place. Frankly, the main problem is higher up than them.
Do you know that Mexico has one of the most lax illegal immigration policies of Latin America? If you're caught without ID proving that you're a legal resident or visitor there, it's two years in prison, minimum, first offense, last I heard. Why? Because illegal immigration is costly to a government and imposes all sorts of costs on the citizenry that the illegal has managed to dodge contributing toward. There is the possibility of violent fugitives from other countries trying to dodge prosecution. There is smuggling and human trafficking. There is the transfer of infectious diseases. There is the possibility of access by agents of foreign powers or terrorist organizations through this avenue. For these reasons, Obama helped Mexico build a southern border wall for themselves. The Mexican government is right to exercise their right to secure borders. Now we want secure borders, and Mexico is furious. Why? Because their government is in the pocket of the drug cartels, and political discontents flee the country instead of overturning their government and instating a legitimate one. We want to turn off their political pressure relief valve.

We have no responsibility to take in immigrants. Every nation in the world turns those away. These days, the potential immigrants try to get around this by claiming refugee status. If we're accepting refugees a place, we ought to be making an effort to resolve the problem so we can eventually let them go home. That's what a refugee system is - a temporary measure. I don't see a policy of regime change and military targeting of cartel holdings going on. For the first time in forever, such a move would actually be justified, as our actual neighbor, with whom we share an actual border, is suffering because of the cartels, and it's directly affecting our own citizens.
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Re: To anyone who posts on RPG.net, they have recently updated their rules. *UPDATE* 2/26/18

Post by Ken »

Batgirl III wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:04 am I would like to see our immigration system reformed to make it easier to enter the country, I’d also like our borders to be more secure. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Also agreed.
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by Ken »

BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:12 am Also, I see RPG.net hasn't improved. Fuck that place with a burning pine cone.
Or better, a burning pineapple.
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by FuzzyBoots »

BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 pmThis baffles me. What's the point of having rules if you don't enforce them? Failing to enforce the law encourages lawbreaking. Enforcing the law discourages lawbreaking. In this case, breaking the law involves a dangerous journey where you are almost guaranteed to meet some truly vile predators along the way, and people bring children along in an effort to use them as legal shields. And no, we can't just do away with the law, because the law determines who we can afford to let in. We couldn't let in everyone who shows up, for the exact same reason you can't personally put them all in your house.
That's an interesting question. The simple answer is that if every law was enforced, every single one of was would likely be in jail for a felony charge. The United States law system has evolved over the years, and what was intended to be corner cases have proven pretty broadly applicable. For example, if a bird flew over your yard and dropped a feather, and you made that feather into an earring, would you expect to be charged with trafficking in endangered animals? It's a real case brought against a woman who was unaware that the feather was from an endangered hawk. Or what if we actually enforced jaywalking vigilantly, immediately charging people if they crossed against the light, or outside of the crosswalk (admittedly, something I have fantasies about occasionally, currently living in Pittsburgh, where people can't seem to understand the concept of crosswalks)? It is illegal, after all. And we are just protecting these people by ensuring that they stop that unsafe behavior.

In actuality, of course, law enforcement is selective. If a cop catches a kid shoplifting, they might be forced to give the item back and then let go. Someone attempting to cross the border illegally may just be turned back. The person caught speeding may just get a warning. Ideally, it's done in a manner where every aspect of it from officer to D.A. to prosecutor decides whether a crime has both action and intent, and whether it's worth the time and effort, and punitive action. In actuality, selective enforcement of laws tends to be pretty racist. As people have pointed out over and over again, white people serve less time than black people for the same crime. And it's not even large crimes either. Black and Latino kids in Texas are about ten times more likely to be cited for bicycle helmet violations than white kids. Sadly, humans are far from ideal.
BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 pmWeird that retractions were issued on that subject, then. The news organizations issued blatant untruths.
I'll admit that I misremembered it. The original story indicated that she was with her mother (she still is, detained in Texas). Time ran it with the wrong facts and admitted it a few days later. The other media outlets did a better job of looking up the original story. :-D
BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 pmBEFORE the executive order, there were two situations in which children were separated from their parents. First, if there's some reason to suspect that the person claiming to be the child's parent really isn't, and more research into the matter needs to be done. Not a foolproof system, because many don't bring any sort of identification, but considering the human trafficking and the sexual abuse that happens, I think it's a pretty important one. Second, if there is an application for asylum, it takes longer to process than the 20 days allowable to keep a child in those conditions. To keep them together would be to keep a child in an adult detention center or to let potential predators hang out at a kids' boarding school/summer camp. No. Unacceptable. I'm not even sure what the executive order changed that would be acceptable.
Yup. More or less what I said. The system was already broken and all that was happening was that the zero tolerance policy was stuffing a broken system with even more kids, making it more broken.
BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 pmDo you know that Mexico has one of the most lax illegal immigration policies of Latin America? If you're caught without ID proving that you're a legal resident or visitor there, it's two years in prison, minimum, first offense, last I heard. Why? Because illegal immigration is costly to a government and imposes all sorts of costs on the citizenry that the illegal has managed to dodge contributing toward. There is the possibility of violent fugitives from other countries trying to dodge prosecution. There is smuggling and human trafficking. There is the transfer of infectious diseases. There is the possibility of access by agents of foreign powers or terrorist organizations through this avenue. For these reasons, Obama helped Mexico build a southern border wall for themselves. The Mexican government is right to exercise their right to secure borders. Now we want secure borders, and Mexico is furious. Why? Because their government is in the pocket of the drug cartels, and political discontents flee the country instead of overturning their government and instating a legitimate one. We want to turn off their political pressure relief valve.
I'm assuming that you didn't mean to call that "lax". :) You're also quoting a law that was overturned in 2011. But yes, I totally agree that completely open borders generally are a problem because, well, different countries and different laws, and the difficulties of pursuing cases that cross borders.
BriarThrone wrote: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 pmWe have no responsibility to take in immigrants. Every nation in the world turns those away. These days, the potential immigrants try to get around this by claiming refugee status. If we're accepting refugees a place, we ought to be making an effort to resolve the problem so we can eventually let them go home. That's what a refugee system is - a temporary measure. I don't see a policy of regime change and military targeting of cartel holdings going on. For the first time in forever, such a move would actually be justified, as our actual neighbor, with whom we share an actual border, is suffering because of the cartels, and it's directly affecting our own citizens.
Eyeh... yes, some people are falsely attempting to claim asylum status. But that's kind of like arguing that "People try to get out of shooting other people by claiming 'self defense'." Sure, there's fraudulent cases, but there are a lot of legitimate ones too. As to whether we can take everyone in... well, we do have a lot of land. And these people are willing to do labor that the average US citizen turns their nose up at. They commit fewer crimes than the average US citizen. If we do a bit of elementary screening for known criminals and infectious disease, then we're probably just making our nation stronger. :) But aside from that, yes, we do not have an obligation to take people in. I do think that we have an obligation to establish a process that is fair and doesn't cause pain and fear because we find that preferable to the idea of immigrants.
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Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by Hawk »

Batgirl III wrote: Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:50 pm
Ares wrote: Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:15 pm I don't want to have to constantly updating folks as to the changes RPG.net makes, but I feel this is relevant to make:

As an update to the aforementioned rules, RPG.net has updated their policy again regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration.

It is as follows:

There's a new policy announcement in Trouble Tickets regarding GAs on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department (ICE); specifically, fuck ICE, fuck anybody who doesn't fuck ICE, fuck anybody who doesn't put lights in his window and stay up all night fucking ICE. Border Patrol too, while we're at it.

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?83 ... st21953863
After consultation between the staff, we've realized a strong majority of us are no longer willing to mod group attacks against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is not an open license for revenge porn or personal attacks on specific posters or the like, but we aren't going to pretend any more that they're within the bounds of civility, or that they deserve to be treated as if they were. If you don't understand the basis for this policy, read the news. If you have read the news and still think we need to clarify why we've done this, please find a qualified professional to administer a Voight-Kampff examination at your earliest opportunity.

In conclusion: If you support ICE at this point, you would have called the Gestapo on the people surreptitiously moving into your neighbor's attic and huffed that you were only following the law.

- TheRPGnet Moderation Team
So if you post on RPG.net, regardless of your feelings on the matter, please be aware of this change.
So, I’m about to break Ares’ rules about profanity, a lot. But that’s not the worst part of what I’m about to write. I am not a fan of “trigger warnings,” but I’m about to describe some very nasty things. Sensitive sorts might want to skip this post.

Are any of you familiar with what an intermodal container or “ISOtainer” is? You’ve all seen them in movies and tv shows, there’s probably a few thousand rolling around your town as we type this... They’re the standardized shipping crates used by pretty much everyone these days. Big steel boxes that come in a 6.1 m standard or 12.2 m double length, a 2.6 m standardized height, standardized attachment points for securement, lift trucks, and cranes. Hold damn near anything. Stack like LEGO. A true wonder of modern international commerce.

There also virtually waterproof, poorly ventilated, windowless, and dark.

Twice in my life I’ve been on scene when United States Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection cutting one of these twenty-foot by eight-foot portable tombs open to find several dozen women from Southeast Asian locked inside. The smell alone will be haunting me until the day I die. I cannot bring myself to describe the sight inside.

The Guardsmen and CBP officers rushed into action to provide much needed medical attention, give water, give food, whisper reassurances and calming words in a half-dozen dialects... and to respectfully and gently remove the deceased.

“Human trafficking” has become something of a buzzword these days, used by overzealous prosecutors and moral-crusader politicians interested in cracking down on prostitution and sex work. They want to try to conflate the two in the public mind... But actual human trafficking is real (albeit thankfully rare). There are international criminal cartels who shove men, women, and children about the globe as if they were commodities.

Shoved into metal boxes like so much canned tuna. Spending weeks to months in ocean crossings... Or stuffed into thinly walled boxcars rumbling through the Canadian Rockies... Stuffed inside unventilated semitrucks in the California or Arizona desert... Two hundred men clinging to a passenger ferry rated to hold fifty, crossing several thousand nautical miles of Mediterranean Sea when it was designed to putter across an urban river...

Malnutrition and starvation are common. Dehydration should just be treated as a given. Most of the men will have been physically abused by the smugglers, most of the women will have been raped, many of the children too. These people will be poor beyond belief and they (and the families left behind) will have gone into deeper debts to pay (or promise to pay) the smugglers. The smugglers will often use them as pack animals to bring other contraband across the boarder, I’ve seen everything from pirated DVDs and untaxed cigarettes to automatic weapons and military-grade explosives. Oh, and drugs, obviously.

United States Customs and Border Protection agents and officers save lives every single day. As do the agents and officers of similar organizations in other nations.

Fuck you and your virtue signaling RPG.net. Fuck you hard.
My question for them would be, Do you leave your doors unlocked at all times? If not, then f you. There are homeless people that could use the help. They should allow people to come in and just get what they want or need. They are just "undocumented family".
BriarThrone
Posts: 460
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:33 am

Re: Regarding ICE, the Border Patrol and Illegal Immigration

Post by BriarThrone »

I'ma go back and respond to FuzzyBoots too, but...
Hawk wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:35 pm My question for them would be, Do you leave your doors unlocked at all times? If not, then f you. There are homeless people that could use the help. They should allow people to come in and just get what they want or need. They are just "undocumented family".
Eyup. There's no such thing as burglary - it's an "undocumented transaction!" Rape? "Undocumented lover!"

There's a reason all the celebrities and politicians pushing for open borders for us plebs live in gated communities with armed security. Enforcing a border for the nation is racist and inhumane and terrible, but enforcing a border on your neighborhood is just good sense.
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