Americans Are Destroying Flock Surveillance Cameras 155
An anonymous reader shares a report: Brian Merchant, writing for Blood in the Machine, reports that people across the United States are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras, amid rising public anger that the license plate readers aid U.S. immigration authorities and deportations.
Flock is the Atlanta-based surveillance startup valued at $7.5 billion a year ago and a maker of license plate readers. It has faced criticism for allowing federal authorities access to its massive network of nationwide license plate readers and databases at a time when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly relying on data to raid communities as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Flock cameras allow authorities to track where people go and when by taking photos of their license plates from thousands of cameras located across the United States. Flock claims it doesn't share data with ICE directly, but reports show that local police have shared their own access to Flock cameras and its databases with federal authorities. While some communities are calling on their cities to end their contracts with Flock, others are taking matters into their own hands.
Flock is the Atlanta-based surveillance startup valued at $7.5 billion a year ago and a maker of license plate readers. It has faced criticism for allowing federal authorities access to its massive network of nationwide license plate readers and databases at a time when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly relying on data to raid communities as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Flock cameras allow authorities to track where people go and when by taking photos of their license plates from thousands of cameras located across the United States. Flock claims it doesn't share data with ICE directly, but reports show that local police have shared their own access to Flock cameras and its databases with federal authorities. While some communities are calling on their cities to end their contracts with Flock, others are taking matters into their own hands.
Title Correction: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Americans Are Destroying Privacy Rapist's Surveillance Cameras"
There FTFY.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't think of them as people. (Score:2)
Sometimes direct action is the best action.
So typically American.
First solution to any problem is violence.
Makes it easy to dismiss your complaints as that of a raving mad man and all it results in are more sales of the surveillance cameras and the corporation being more ambiguous about what they're really doing once they've done the rebrand. You're not actually punishing the people violating your privacy, you're rewarding them.
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The likleyhood that Congress will act? (Score:5, Insightful)
Destroying surveillance camera contracted out to the government by private corporations carries a mandatory $250K fine and 20 years in supermax federal prison for the first offense and for the second offense, death.
I find it concerning that the Federal Government is using private companies to make an end-run around the 4th Amendment. This needs to be shot down by the courts. This is effectively the same as a blanket search warrant against the citizenry. The government should have to specifically name the party that they want to track, and the rest of us should not be tracked.
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Destroying surveillance camera contracted out to the government by private corporations carries a mandatory $250K fine and 20 years in supermax federal prison for the first offense and for the second offense, death.
Interesting how you advocate for this type of punishment for replaceable hardware (max fine should be replacement cost, period), but none of the current Pedros* in the top offices of the nation get anything even close to this as their punishment.
* the 'r' is slient.
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I'm not advocating for such a law, only pointing out how the government tramples all over the 4th amendment.
It isn't the hardware cost, it is the lack of having something equivalent to a blanket search warrant taken away from the government's crime solving toolbox. The government sees this data as more valuable than the cost of the hardware as it saves them on gumshoe salaries and makes policing easier.
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I'm not advocating for such a law, only pointing out how the government tramples all over the 4th amendment.
My bad - misread that (guess they are advocating for such brutal punishments).
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Destroying surveillance camera contracted out to the government by private corporations carries a mandatory $250K fine and 20 years in supermax federal prison for the first offense and for the second offense, death.
So... free food, housing and healthcare? :-)
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Destroying surveillance camera contracted out to the government by private corporations carries a mandatory $250K fine and 20 years in supermax federal prison for the first offense and for the second offense, death.
I suspect zero. Congress is doing fuck all at the moment, good or bad. That's the problem with kings running the show. E.g. look at the tariffs. If congress were an automatically evil aligned with the dictator running the country they could just wave a pen an put tariffs in place in a legally binding way. They aren't.
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Rather than destroying them, we could jam them. People have experimented with patterned clothing that makes AI recognize it as a mass of faces. Screens are cheap too, you could make one that blasts out randomly generated faces. Stuff the database with junk data.
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This needs to be shot down by the courts.
I don't think we are in Kansas any more Toto
(CAPTCHA thieve, lol)
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Putting aside all of the other stuff surrounding this opinion...
The facts of it are false. Flock's contracts with the various companies/individuals purchasing their cameras are with that individual/company, and specifically state that the cameras belong to them. These customers can be private individuals and HOAs, are businesses like Home Depot and Lowes, and local governments. None of these are contracted to the Fed. Flock Safety collects the data and will share it with the government, but the cameras are
Re: 4th amendment? (Score:2)
4th Amendment text: âoe The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violatedâ. The âoepersonsâ part covers tracking of movement (according to SCOTUS precedent) while the âoeand effectsâ part covers what we do when having a reasonable expectation of privacy given historic norms.
Re: 4th amendment? (Score:2)
This may not really apply to the current discussion but your statements about precedent and norms caught my attention.
Relying on SCOTUS precedent and historical norms, as has been seen the last several years, is a weak and ambiguous way to govern. The only way something should be expected to be legislated long-term is to write a law explicitly addressing the issue.
Abortion: It was supported by Roe v. Wade. Well SCOTUS revisited the ruling and look what happened. If the political left wanted abortion to be s
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The Roe decision (even though I liked it) was based on shaky ground to begin with....even Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated as such, and she even thought it would be rolled back if challenged properly.
If you have a problem with flock (Score:5, Interesting)
And of course you're not going to do shit at the federal level especially right now since the vice president is basically best friends with the guy who runs Planitir. The Republican party is all in on surveillance. And the Democrat party is busy trying to get ice to stop deporting American citizens or just shooting them dead.
What's more you probably are only going to be able to do this in places where you can put things directly on the ballot that bypass the legislation because you are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars to force this surveillance on you. Even politicians that oppose it can't really do anything or they will face a big money primary Challenger and unfortunately voters are not smart enough to see through a slick high volume add campaign.
Yes, but the feds could enact a law (Score:2)
which prohibits State governments from banning flock cameras if the federal government is a customer for the data. This would essentially bypass the will of the voters attempting to use Initiative and Referendum to ban flock cameras.
Of course, such a law would get tested in Federal Court.
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yo silver-trump. there is no such thing as the DEMOCRAT party. stop imitating the idiot-in-chief. it is the democratic party.
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What happens to the cameras afterward, are they switched off and sold?
They're going to get turned on you.
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There was a left winger who interviewed a right-wing shock jock named Tim pool. After the interview was over Mr pool asked if the interviewer. would hang out with him.
He could not understand why she told him to take a hike.
That's because Mr pool doesn't believe anything he says, he's just saying shit for money and internet points. So to him all the terrible things he spo
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It's like that for most of the right wing. They don't actually believe anything they say
If that's what you see, you're most likely getting trolled. Or, of course, there are represent and speak to entire viewpoints and political outlooks they don't believe in, but it's done for money, not some idea of power and heirarchy.
You Americans are so extreme in your political dichotomy now that you literally see everything (bad) you want to see in the other side, and of course your side is the paragon of virtue and intelligence.
Hate to break it to you, as an outsider looking in who could really gi
Re: If you have a problem with flock (Score:3)
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Those cameras were primarily there to monitor law abiding citizens, not illegals.
I look forward (Score:5, Insightful)
I look forward to all the solar panel and other DIY parts that are about to flood eBay. #FUCKFLOCK
Re:I look forward (Score:5, Funny)
Haven't you heard, solar panels make you woke and gay.
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Oh noes!
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You must be fun at all the parties you likely get offended at for getting invited to...
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Project much?
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People here said the same thing about all those damn dockless scooters that are cluttering up the sidewalks of every major city: lithium-ion batteries and brushless motors o'plenty.
Turns out the people with the skills to utilize this stuff tend to already earn decent incomes and don't want to risk federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison over some parts "harvested" from the streets.
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Always amazes me what motivates people to care.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Camera systems like this literally give authorities the ability to track your whereabouts, every place you choose to travel. And on top of that? It allows them to preserve that info as a historical record. But the reason people are angry enough to destroy them now is because of the hate for Trump's immigration stance; not what it means for freedom for actual American citizens.
Regardless of how you feel about ICE and its enforcement tactics and decisions? It seems to me like people should have been fighting these technologies LONG ago. Why are there still red light and speed cameras littered all over the landscape of American roads?
Re:Always amazes me what motivates people to care. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's silly.
The largest objection is the panopticon, and people's nose in others business with out the warrant or need. Remember probable cause?
What about liberty and freedom? Freedom of association? Oh, wait, that must be another constitution.
Speed cameras, red light cameras, cameras in general need to go. Raise taxes, employ competent LEOs to give fat tickets for witnessed offenses. Soon, you're going to be convicted based on AI, which as a non-human, is unable to be challenged in a court because it can't be cross-examined. What of that constitution?
This'll happen while the kleptoclass are flying over you in their drones or private jets, as you battle the streets, waiting for you to spit, so you can be fined because you're the new profit center. Yes, you.
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What about liberty and freedom?
Your freedom to break the law ends when you put other's lives in danger.
Speed cameras, red light cameras, cameras in general need to go.
Nope. What we need is strict laws on the retainment of information. Something that allows punishing those who break the law in an automated way while not invading privacy. There's no reason for any camera to store any license plate information unless an infraction occurs. That is what you should be pushing for.
Focusing on the hardware completely ignores the underlying sickness in America - that your personal data is for sale to any bidd
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What we need is strict laws on the retainment of information. Something that allows punishing those who break the law in an automated way while not invading privacy.
You seem to have forgotten about selective enforcement.
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Selective enforcement is a subject for humans not for a camera.
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Selective enforcement is a subject for humans not for a camera.
It's a subject you clearly don't understand if you think it isn't a reasonable reply to your thoughts and prayers statement.
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Camera systems like this literally give authorities the ability to track your whereabouts, every place you choose to travel.
Cell phones have made this level of tracking possible for quite awhile already. Of course, you could leave your phone at home, but arguably that's even more inconvenient than leaving your car at home.
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Cell phones have made this level of tracking possible for quite awhile already. Of course, you could leave your phone at home, but arguably that's even more inconvenient than leaving your car at home.
Seems like the type of logic ICE agents would employ when shooting civilians. Our victim already has one bullet hole in them so what's a few more?
By law and legal precedent (e.g. Carpenter v. USA) carrier cell phone tracking requires a judicial warrant and .. drumroll...you can always just turn off the cellular radio.
With this shit since it is all private they can do whatever the heck they want and the person being surveilled has no feasible choice.
What if... (Score:5, Funny)
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These cameras already come in many different configurations and shapes. As they become threatened, there will be future models that are overtly disguised.
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Right like those hilarious fake traffic cone cameras near the border inland. Like people can't tell. As a ham triangulation is like a major sport for us, fox hunting we call it. All that little puppy has to do is just transmit low power, eventually more than once. You would be *real* surprised how well these people can zero in on a random radio signal sometimes down to a direct lat-long street address from miles and miles away. Some of the best I met were blind and dedicated their entire lives to ham radio.
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someone were to post an image of exactly what a Flock Surveillance camera looks like in this very comments section.
Like on this site? https://deflock.org/ [deflock.org]
Not Really (Score:5, Informative)
This story keeps being retold, as if it is some wide spread or growing epidemic. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There have been a slim few -- a handful -- of incidents where Flock cameras have been destroyed. But, not nearly enough have been impacted so as to have any effect. Nor is this a widely growing trend. No matter how much I wish it were.
There are tens of thousands of Flock cameras across the United States [deflock.org]. The limited amount of vandalism being re-reported in this story isn't even a significant fraction of a percent of them.
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And it's not like ICE needs to use those cameras to do their job...
And ... (Score:3)
Americans Are Destroying Flock Surveillance Cameras
And nothing of value was lost...
Mostly Harmless.... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Milwaukee officer charged with misconduct for allegedly using police plate reader to track love interest"
https://www.tmj4.com/news/milw... [tmj4.com]
Not all heroes wear capes (Score:2)
ronswanson.gif (Score:2)
I'm really proud of you.
What is wrong with deporting illegals? (Score:2)
When Obama (aka "deporting in chief") was doing it, the left was fine with it.
Obama deport twice as many illegals as Trump.
Politicians which have spoken out strongly in favor of secure borders include: Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Dianne Finstein - among many others.
Don't forget about Persistent Surveillance System (Score:2)
No physical object needed. No local government needed. No way for the citizens to stop it.
I'll take a swing from the back side. (Score:2)
That way, they'll never know what hit them...
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Try it and find out. Just like all the idiots who think people can vote twice or get government benefits without any documentation. You should try it and see what happens. I genuinely wonder whats its like to be so detached from reality.
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where you can rape their kids and they'll die to keep you in the country
Or in one of the red states, where they'll elect you President.
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Oops.
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Informative)
Does that work for teenage girls? https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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Hmm, you can't abuse the willing
Oh ya? Acolyte of the late, great, Jeffrey Epstein, I see.
One of these days, you're going to have to make peace with your cognitive dissonance.
Re: So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Informative)
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Women are not weak and powerless either. They should (are) taught to say no to any unwanted contact, regardless of money or perceived "power" (probably mostly applies to police and/or guards). Women are also just as capable as men of lying, and too broad (no pun intended) a d
Re: So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:2)
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Informative)
You mean these two best buds? https://static01.nyt.com/image... [nyt.com]
Epstein was jailed under Trumps first term and suspiciously died while under 24 hour surveillance.
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Oh, did you know the guy on the left called the cops on the other one?
I'm not saying that is true or false, but it's not a good look that Trump's own administration can't/won't confirm it to be true.
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, did you know the guy on the left called the cops on the other one? And when Epstein's victim's lawyers were trying to depose people so Epstein could be taken to court, only the guy on the left was willing to help? Not only willingly, but enthusiastically?
*Citation needed.
Come on. I know you aren't blind. I know you aren't stupid. But you're acting like the one guy who wanted to help take Epstein down was flying down to the island with him. And I think we both know which President actually did that.
But don't think I'm accusing Bill Clinton of diddling kids. I'm not. For all I know it was all perfectly innocent, and I won't allege otherwise without good reason. There was testimony against Andrew Windsor, I don't recall hearing any against Clinton, and there was none against Trump.
Lock up Bill if he's guilty. See how easy that was? The Clintons also want the hearing to be made public https://www.pbs.org/newshour/p... [pbs.org] James Comer wants it done behind closed doors.
Personally, I do think Epstein killed himself. My wife doesn't, but when I see a guy who had everything, then quickly lost it all and was facing life in prison as a pedophile, die by apparent suicide... I figure it was suicide. Furthermore, I suspect the claims that he was running a blackmail ring were entirely made up.
Suicide, but the cameras stop working right before he dies. Can you explain why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a minimum security jail? They even had to make a special exemption for her to allow a sex offender in minimum security.
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Are you waiting to jump all over someone who holds his nose and defends Trump, by pointing out the inconvenient fact (for you) he banned him from his resort after he was recruiting young women?
Trump is a pathological liar. Just because he makes an assertion doesn't make it a fact "inconvenient" or otherwise. For example Trump also said "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Perhaps he knew Epstein was a "creep" all along and was just spewing lies when he said that too.
And good lord, moving someone to minimum security is some massive conspiracy? Like 99.99999% of the time that happens it's because of the assessed low risk of the inmate to harm anyone or escape.
In the 2006 interview with FBI Trump called Maxwell "evil" and then recently he said "
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:5, Informative)
"Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump"
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/24... [npr.org]
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I'm going to need some context on this one.
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Still, maybe if you come across from Canada into Minnesota, where you can rape their kids and they'll die to keep you in the country.
What is this in reference to?
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I almost wonder if a no-standards appeal to put a baton and gun in the hands of every person with a tiny dick is going to attract a certain kind of individual. When did you join?
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You can find numbers for immigrant rates, which are ~30/100k (non-Immigrant Americans came out to ~60/100k)
Then you can find numbers for ICE and CBP agents, then the total amount of ICE and CBP agents, which comes out to about ~75/100k
So ICE and CBP agents seem to concentrate a proclivity for underage sex crimes and trafficking within their ranks vs. the regular po
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I told you how you can reconstruct the data (do your own work). For someone interested in good faith, that would have been enough.
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You can just stay in Canada, we'll pay you and feed you forever, too. Just be non-white and bring 7 or 8 kids and don't speak english.
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Well, you missed your opportunity to get paid to do it. Still, maybe if you come across from Canada into Minnesota, where you can rape their kids and they'll die to keep you in the country.
Did you confuse Minnesota with Washington DC again?
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Let's see, Canada is famous for its politeness. I can't even conceive of how you can come up with this - are you maybe Russian?
Or maybe that's what you'd like to do, but you're too chicken to join ICE.
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Insightful)
That means you must have solved:
Inflation
Jobs
Healthcare
Education
Infrastructure
What a time to be alive!
After all the people in the country illegally are gone, then what? Has your life situation improved any? Did you get a raise? Are grocery prices lower? Do you get better health benefits?
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And let's not forget how that flips around. If the supply of cheap labor rapidly increases, wages go down. First at the low end of the economy, then it creeps up.
Here's an
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:4, Informative)
Trump can't even hire good MAGA citizens to work at his tacky country club. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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Trump can't even hire good MAGA citizens to work at his country club
Ohhh, burn!
Then let's stick it to Orange Man(TM) and deport every illegal!
The more we can deport, the more it hurts Orange Man(TM).
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The data comes from the Department Of Labor. https://www.forbes.com/sites/z... [forbes.com]
Here's Fox reporting it back in 2018 https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
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How about Forbes? Is that sufficiently billionaire boot-licking for you?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/11/12/trump-organization-record-foreign-workers-visas-2025/ [forbes.com]
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Stands to reason, the counter to factual, mostly unbiased news is typically made up partisan bullshit, so I see the balance.
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Specifically, the supply of housing, education, healthcare, jobs, and infrastructure.
If someone is here illegally, their employment options are severely limited. They might be somewhat contributing to demand for space on the roadways and the high cost of groceries, but they're not buying up houses in the good parts of suburbia (that'd be real estate investment firms doing that), and healthcare in the USA is just expensive because we have a system designed to produce maximum profit rather than healthy citizens.
That being said, countries with strict immigration policies aren't exactly rare o
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(Let me reiterate... https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org])
Better chance of finding jobs (less preferential hiring, due to EEO, of underqualified people), fewer unknowledgeable drivers causing accidents with absolutely no repercussions, fewer 'new arrivals' being given cars, underpriced housing, tax-free everything, all the benefits (General Assistance, SNAP for family of six when five of those kids are actually their friend's kids, insurance), less of the immigrants taking over whole sections of town to become
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Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:5, Informative)
So can I come to the US illegally...?
50 million already have.
Current best estimate (March, 2025) is 18.6 million, against a total 343 million population of the US. Source https://www.fairus.org/issue/h... [fairus.org]
The Department of Homeland Security's most recent estimate was a bit smaller, 11.0 million, but their most recent report was in 2024 reporting on data as of 2022: https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/def... [dhs.gov]
Re:So can I come to the US illegally...? (Score:5, Informative)
So can I come to the US illegally...?
50 million already have.
We need to be dismantling the illegals, not the cameras that are catching them.
And when you succeed, you will find the illegal immigrants were not the cause of society's problems.
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So can I come to the US illegally...?
50 million already have.
We need to be dismantling the illegals, not the cameras that are catching them.
And when you succeed, you will find the illegal immigrants were not the cause of society's problems.
Martin Niemöller still said it best even if he did not explicitly mention Mexicans.
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So can I come to the US illegally...?
50 million already have.
We need to be dismantling the illegals, not the cameras that are catching them.
And when you succeed, you will find the illegal immigrants were not the cause of society's problems.
They'll find someone else to blame... never admitting that they got it wrong... or that they are actually the cause of many of society's problems.
The solution to tribalism is never the eradication of the other tribe, those racists... Sorry, "legitimate concern about immigration types", once the foreigners are gone, they'll just move onto the next favourite target (Irish, Catholics/Prods, Jews, Northerners/Southerners, so on and so forth) as the next cause of all their problems. You know, the people they
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Is it wrong to ask foreign visitors to follow US laws and come here legally? Is that evil or racist?
Not wrong. Naive. You can be right all day and not get the outcome you imagine being right will get you.
Re: Privacy is important (Score:3)
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