Thread by @alexthechick

🧵On immigration, original sources, de facto repeal, and the inability to even begin reaching conclusions if people will not accept the legitimacy of previously negotiated compromises. Get your caffeine conveyance of choice, you're going to need it.

And. Here. We. Go.

I decided to find the source of there are 1.2 million people in the US with final orders of deportation that are not in custody. I've seen this number thrown around and, per usual, the articles saying this provide no cite, let alone a link, to the original source of that number.

After some digging (presume rant about how search engines are utterly broken here), it's from here. The ICE Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report.



The best way to review is to click to read the report and look at the pdf.ice.gov/features/2023-…

Here are the relevant parts. Looking at only non detained with final orders of removal, as of October 3, 2023, that number is 1,292,830. So, as of a year ago, that number was closer to 1.3 million and it is fair to presume it is above that now.

As noted in the report, a final order means that a non-citizen has completed the legal process and has been ordered removed. So, per ICE's own admission, there are about 1.3 million people not in detention who have exhausted the legal process and are to be removed.

According to the US Census, that amount is larger than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont, District of Columbia, Alaska. North Dakota. South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Montana.


(screenshot is of the Excel chart sorted by population) census.gov/data/tables/ti…

So. What we have are nearly 1.3 million people who, under the terms of the currently enacted immigration statutes, are under final order of removal. Those people have been through the process. The final order is issued. They are to be removed. There is no question there.

Yet Trump's proposal to start with those people, the one for whom the process is final, is being met with outrage. Why? Because the process is flawed, it's not practical, it is disruptive, not all of them are criminals, pick your argument.

The situation as it currently exists already is a de facto repeal of all the various and sundry immigration laws. Once you hit the number of people larger than eight states and the District of Columbia, it cannot possibly be said that the statutes are being enforced.

Contra all the shrieking, the immigration laws currently enacted are the result of intense and heated negotiations over decades. Those laws are on the books. That one side's preferred amendment failed does not mean those laws are invalid.

This attempt to achieve repeal de facto via the Cloward Piven strategy that which could not be achieved de jure destroys the entire legislative process.

The legislative process works only if the side that did not achieve its preferred legislation accepts the the legislation that did pass or that remains after a failed amendment attempt is valid. We wanted X amended and it failed doesn't mean that X is invalid. It means try again.

But alex, that law is immoral and wrong and should not be obeyed! I'm not talking morality. I'm talking legality. There are laws that I think are horrible COUGH FACE ACT COUGH that I also accept are the current law on the books and violation thereof means prison time.

It is imperative that people accept that laws that they do not like cannot simply be ignored. It is imperative that people accept that when they lose on passing/appealing legislation, they must accept that loss and then try try again. If not? Then there is no way forward.

The laws I want will not always pass. The laws I hate remain on the books. Fine. I accept that because I am an adult who know history and does not want the alternatives. I despair that my view that the legislative process must be respected is somehow controversial. /fin