This kind of aggressive "enforcement" is provocative and I believe deliberately so; Trump's orcs, Miller, Noem and Homan, are itching for a fight and have apparently hit on the strategy of picking on the most vulnerable victims at their least defended moments as the surest way to start one. That's unspeakably evil, but completely predictable. They will escalate every chance they get. The whole exercise, I fear, is yet another attempt to distract public attention from Trump's more serious woes and failures -- Musk, Congress, the economy and the bizarre on-and-off invocation of tariffs, Trump's mental and emotional sunset and America's new irrelevance to the rest of the world. Not with a whimper but a bang.
To your point—he’s been cold-calling prominent DC reporters, to tell them how much he’s not thinking about Musk. While it’s always been ludicrous that the man with an admitted decades-long, close association with a convicted child sex trafficker would be the one to “crack down” on human trafficking, Musk’s revelation* that he is all over the Epstein (the most notorious underage sex trafficker in modern history) files—who’s DOGE team was given access to the most sensitive information and documents held by the US federal government—had to hit hard. (While of course this wasn’t a revelation to anyone paying attention—as news reports, video footage, primary sources, court filings and even Trump himself have attested to—but news to his hard-core base, where only the most trusted messenger could break through).
The siege is here in El Paso, with the newly declared military zones along the border. The Texas Defense Department soldiers have built ramparts along the Rio Grande and US soldiers with MRaps patrol the border. Tanks have been stationed along the border as well. Helicopters patrol every day.
The reasons this has not blown up is because this has been slowly building for two years. The border is turning into a war zone.
I take a number of newsletters on this portal that provide ongoing commentary on your current government. Yours is the only one that allows comments from the poor, and the only one with spelling errors. I'll take the spelling errors for the free comment any day. Thank you. I try to keep the comments relevant and thought-provoking.
At school, we were warned about a word that might come up in the history exam: the Oxbridge examiners had once asked "Was Metternich a mountebank chancellor?" So, it helps if you know what a mountebank is. A mountebank is a ringmaster in a circus. He entertains his audience with delectations and delights whilst, behind the scenes, the artistes prepare to draw sharp breaths from the assembled audience. No one ever knew what Metternich was really thinking, bar the shrewd count himself, but he did put on quite a show. So, I have some new history exam questions for the future students of American history (early 21st century):
1. Was Donald Trump a mountebank president?
2. Or was he a puppet?
3. And, if a puppet, and the puppeteer wasn't Vladimir Putin, was it Russell Vought?
4. Or was he a contortionist, who always knew how to wriggle out of his chains, but ultimately got locked in the toilet?
5. Or was he a conjuror, who was so skilled in diverting the audience's attention away from the trickery he was doing, he ended up giving them nothing of what they'd paid for, and they loved him so much, they put his face on Mount Rushmore?
It really feels like he's been trying to push this country into violence so he can declare Marshall law from the beginning. He is a big fan of Emergency Powers that can bypass the Courts and Congress.
When there was an actual insurrection on J6, there were police officers badly wounded, mobs chanting to kill the vice president and the speaker, and serious damage done to the Capitol, he watched TV and did not call out the National Guard. He subsequently pardoned the criminals who assaulted the police.
“Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order period the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.”
THIS MEANS;
The President MUST ISSUE a formal proclamation to disperse BEFORE DEPLOYING troops under
Title 10 §254.
Why is NO ONE reporting this.
This HAS NOT BEEN DONE!
This key fact is immensely important and MANDATORY. Without a proclamation, Trumps deployment of US troops is ILLEGAL.
Comparisons to Hitler are woefully overused, including here. Try an alternative, like Fujimori, Sukarno, or Chavez. No reason to waste more digital ink on the genocidal Austrian.
Here's a quick Fujimori summary if you want to branch out beyond the Mustache Man in your next post.
Elected democratically in 1990, President Alberto Fujimori faced a deep economic crisis and a brutal insurgency from the Maoist Shining Path. On April 5, 1992, citing legislative obstructionism and judicial corruption in the fight against terrorism, Fujimori appeared on television to announce he was dissolving Congress and suspending the judiciary. With military backing, he seized absolute power in an "auto-golpe" or self-coup. He later drafted a new constitution, ratified in a 1993 referendum, which concentrated power in the executive.
On Saturday evening, June 7, 2025, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, issued a presidential memorandum addressed to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security. One might call it the Usurpation Proclamation. And while this weekend’s mobilization of two thousand National Guard troops in Los Angeles has alarmed many observers, I suspect we aren’t alarmed enough by this presidential order, which has implications far beyond this one action in one place.
Let’s take a look at it. It consists of only three paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, the president asserts that “numerous incidents of violence and disorder have recently occurred and threaten to continue” in response to the execution of federal immigration laws. And, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
This claim of “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” establishes the legal predicate for his action announced in the next paragraph:
In light of these incidents and credible threats of continued violence, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. 12406 to temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations."
Thank you for your generous, respectful response. I'm new to SS. It's the - general - willingness of of others to approach disagreement open-mindedly, and with literacy and experience that distinguishes the forum. You are all of these and the reply has earned you yet another follower.
To your response. We clearly agree maintenance of the rule of law is the threshold concern. Execution of the law is - as you assert is the focus of this post - often the rub. These rules of engagement are your beef in LA.
So I take that up. As your response concedes, Little Rock and Selma were the same in a critical way: POTUS invoked the IA and/or Title 10 over a Governor's objection, indeed, over black letter state laws (I think) that defied federal law. This crucial truth is getting lost in much of the MSM reportage and it is infuriating. This is NOT a one-off. But it is here where your argument, your comparison, fails. There, the marginalized were not the agents of the clear and present danger; there, the agents of contempt were the majority. Here, it is your "marginalized" - and their ostensible interlocutors (I'm usually unwilling to cede that noble ground to Soros and Antifa, but I'm feeling magnanimous today...) - who are plainly, simply, flatly the clear and present danger. In several ways.
The "illegal immigrant community" is simply without standing, morally or legally, to be in my country, much less to physically interfere with law enforcement. It is here your argument devolves into Bork's conclusory stampede. I don't care how long they've been here. And neither does an honest broker of the law - state or federal. The citizens Black Selma and Black Little Rock were custodians of this profound distinction, and it is here I found your conflation in your OP and your response rather elliptically pitched, adroitly assumed as a given. It's not. Further, that people of good conscience are willing to share the phrase "marginalized community" with a people who are here ab initio in violation of our law, who studiously avoid our law for as long as decades, who according to reams of data are largely living off the largesse of my country's good will [...this is me declining to rattle off the economic detriments the country suffers due to this...please challenge me on this....] to then have the unbridled arrogance to take to the streets with violence and tell us they are offended by efforts to remove them.... No.
It is conclusory and untrue to compare today's Illegals to the marginalized US citizens of Selma [Black people voting, Black women refusing to take a back seat] and LR [Black kids going to public schools. It is an abject gaslighting to compare the violence of today's illegals burning and looting and violence in "defense" of their "rights" to the truly peaceful protest of 1960's Blacks. 1960's Blacks were....wait for it..... wait...citizens! Frankly, I find it offensive to breathe the words Selma and Little Rock in the same sentence as a "community" of committed lawbreakers as illegal aliens by definition are.
LA's illegals are without justification to do anything but say to my country, "Thank you very kindly for your generosity, we will take the spirit of your citizens and your Constitution with us when we return to that place from which we illegally entered your country and try to fix it." Afford them what DP my country so generously affords them on the way out the door, for sure. But that is the extent of what's left of the entitlement to which this "marginalized community" is so very indignantly braying about.
Thanks Don. What really strikes me about your reply is how we differ on a abasic assumption about undocumented residents. You write: "The "illegal immigrant community" is simply without standing, morally or legally, to be in my country, much less to physically interfere with law enforcement. " That is a pretty profound assumption. I think a lot of us in California just see this fundamentally in a different way. We don't see them as unwaned intruders -- we see them as part of the mix, mindful that everything from agriculture to services to the apparel industry--really couldn't exist at present without hardworking undocumented workers who pay taxes, obey the law, and are our neighbors. So on a gut level, what we feel to be a moral level, we don't see them like you do. And a lot of what follows flows from that. As to their "legal" or "illegal" status, a lot of what the constitution addresses are the rights of "persons" physically in the US, not just citizens. Again, we feel that they are entitled constitutionally to due process and many of the protections that citizens have, though not all. So anyway -- I think there is a sort of "different underlying reality" in the way we see and approach the situation. I hope you also understand I'm not trying to delegitimize your approach to it, I'm just trying to point out that our point of divergence is very far upstream. Also I know you're a criminal defense lawyer....LOL we should talk, in my day job as an investigator almost all my clients are criminal defense laywers and the their clients. But my point mentioning that is that this issue exists on a lot of levels -- the legal, constitutional level is one. But obviously it also exists on a visceral, emotional level that has to do with what people feel and how they act based on that. My post the other day showed a video of the San Diego protest that preceeded the LA ones, and I talked about it being a Rohrschach test -- what do you feel when you see this? A lot of us felt solidarity with protestors, who weren't doing any violence, just standing up and shouting "Shame!" But others--and I think you would fall into this group--looked at it and saw federal officers under siege for doing their job to rid the country of unwelcome intruders. Anyway, I enjoy your comments and am happy to have you in the mix. Goodnatured disagreement is kind of an anachronism, but I enjoy it.
I exactly agree that we diverge at how we each "see" the illegal community in this country - and before I move to directly address your reply on this divergence - I repeat this also exactly where your comparison of 2025 LA and 1960's civil rights Executive interventions fails: immigrants simply do not enjoy - as a matter of black latter law and as a matter of playground-level morality - the same rights as do citizens.
I take your last observations one at a time. First, it is flatly untrue our economy crumbles w/o illegals. Your claim that our ag economy fails is demonstrably untrue: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers . Further, it is really beyond economic dispute that illegal labor "crowds out" citizen labor in every industry you list. These people synthetically lower the market clearing wage in every industry they work b/c employers leverage their legal status with a below market wage. Moreover, b/c these employers are likewise violating a black letter federal law when they employ these illegals, they most often simply pay cash off the books. Where do they report their wages, they can only do so by abetting their misrepresentation of status to the Feds. All of which is to say, your advocacy of illegal labor is your advocacy of a black market for labor. This market diminishes the tax revenue that would otherwise result from higher wages paid to citizens, first, and to a greater number of tax payers, number two b/c citizen workers dont fear ID with the feds.
You will appreciate that I am acutely aware of your XIV Amendment language citation to the extension of rights to those merely "physically" present, not just to citizens. But I'm likewise certain you're aware those rights are a mere subset of the rights - XIV A and otherwise - conferred on citizens. This is as it should be. Anything position to the contrary necessarily results in the abrogation of the nation/state as a legit polity, and I give you all of Europe today as Exhibits 1-30 for the profound implications of that path.
You acknowledge this much above, so I fail to grasp your point: an illegal is in this country unlawfully and subject to removal at any time. Yes, she gets a hearing. But as you full well know, the mere fact that citizens "feel" is legally meaningless....that is. it's not an affirmative defense to being out of status. Try that argument in any of your client's courtrooms - "Your Honor, my client felt like his GF dissed him so blacking her eye was ...." You get the picture.
We agree that our divergence hinges almost entirely on this take on the standing - the legal and even moral claims - illegals have to even be here. For myriad legal, economic, cultural, and other reasons , they are without any standing and I am profound offended when I see them bray with such manufactured indignity about it.
Don, You're absolutely right that our divergence lies not in a minor policy quibble, but in fundamental differences over the legal, moral, and economic standing of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Let me take up your points in the spirit of respectful disagreement.
1. The Economic Impact of Undocumented Labor
You cite the H-2A program to argue that our agricultural economy doesn’t depend on undocumented workers. But the empirical reality on the ground tells a more complicated story. According to the USDA and the Department of Labor, more than half of all U.S. farmworkers are undocumented, even as the H-2A program grows. H-2A is cumbersome, underfunded, and fails to meet peak seasonal demand in many sectors. Employers who rely on it often complain of bureaucratic delays and excessive costs. That’s why many growers, particularly in California’s Central Valley, continue to rely on undocumented labor—not out of preference, but out of necessity.
It’s not just agriculture. The construction, hospitality, elder care, food service, and janitorial industries all draw heavily on undocumented labor. You argue that this labor "crowds out" citizen workers. But that assumes a static labor market. In reality, multiple economic studies—including from the National Academy of Sciences and the Cato Institute—have found that undocumented immigrants tend to complement, rather than replace, native-born workers, particularly in low-skill sectors where citizen labor supply is limited. Yes, there are downward pressures on wages—but those pressures are driven more by employer impunity than immigrant presence. If enforcement focused on wage theft and labor violations rather than immigration status alone, the distortion would lessen considerably.
And as to the black market argument: I fully agree it exists. But the way to dismantle it is not through mass removal, but through legal pathways that bring this labor market above board, generate tax revenue, and hold employers accountable. That is not advocacy for a black market. It's advocacy for ending one.
2. Constitutional Standing and the Fourteenth Amendment
You’re absolutely correct that non-citizens do not enjoy all the rights of citizens. But they do enjoy many. The Supreme Court has long held that anyone “personally present in the United States” is entitled to due process, equal protection, and basic civil liberties, regardless of immigration status. That’s not a progressive fever dream—it’s black-letter law affirmed in cases like Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), Plyler v. Doe (1982), and more recently in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001).
Undocumented immigrants cannot vote, run for office, or claim certain benefits. But they do have standing, both legally and morally, to protest, to speak, to demand fair treatment, and—yes—to criticize the government that taxes, polices, and detains them. To say they are "without standing" is to ignore both constitutional jurisprudence and the real-world dynamics of how civil rights in this country have historically been won—not just by citizens, but by those deemed outsiders: slaves, freedmen, Chinese railroad workers, Japanese internment survivors, and yes, undocumented workers today.
3. Feelings, Legality, and Human Worth
You close with a provocative analogy—mocking the idea that a person’s feelings could constitute a defense to illegal behavior. But that's a straw man. No one is arguing that a "feeling" of being marginalized constitutes a legal defense to being out of status. What I am arguing is that the way we treat people in that position—whether we regard them as parasites or participants—speaks to our collective values. Due process exists not just to weigh facts, but to acknowledge dignity even in the face of removal.
And that brings me to where we truly diverge: I do not view undocumented immigrants as braying with "manufactured indignity." I see them as human beings—some of whom were brought here as children, others who overstayed visas, many of whom live in legal limbo for decades, contributing to a society that asks for their labor while denying them status. You see a body of law being broken. I see a system that’s been broken—and people stuck in the breach.
We may never agree on that. But hey, it's a good debate. It’s the kind of disagreement our public sphere could use more of.
I do not dispute the humanity of anyone. I've saved more dissolute lives than I can shake a stick at - black, white, brown - and I'm good at it. I often do it for less than an AV Rated lawyer might expect.
But after 30 years at it, I'm also the guy who grabs the tab when i see cops at lunch. They stand between us and Laken Riley's murderer. In point of fact, my first jury trial was a court appointment to defend a black man heralded by the TV show America's Most Wanted. I got paid all of $4500 total to try Earnest Jackson to acquittal in a conservative Oklahoma courthouse. I am intimately in touch with the line you describe between humanity and accountability. I know DP. I defend it daily. But that does NOT mean I reject the value of accountability for those who genuinely break the law - illegal immigrants included. Not a straw man. A man sophisticated enough to acknowledge Emerson's value in two opposing ideas at once.
Your economic argument is common but it is going to prove fallacious as illegals are cleared out of the labor market. In fact, my argument relies not on a dynamic labor market to observe they crowd out domestic labor. In fact, my argument requires an elastic labor market that enjoys domestic labor coming off the sidelines when illegals leave, jobs open and wages rise. As I suspect you are aware, the labor statistics calculation of unemployment - now 4.2% - simply ignore those people out of work but not looking for work. I suspect a man as well read and informed as I think you are is aware of the ink spilled in our cultural moment over the many, many men who've simply defected from the labor market. A majority of Americans has been heard on immigration enforcement - the selective enforcement you'd apparently support, where we ignore status enforcement but NTL enforce prohibitions of employers....I'm unsure what exactly you have in mind here. Do you mean we should force employers to pay illegals a specific wage? That is not the law and you and I both know there will never be a rewriting of immigration law like this in our lifetime. It's pretty hard to get a U Chicago Econ guy to ignore the premise that The Invisible Hand will reallocate resources so to clear every market. Illegals leave the labor market, I'm confident resources will adjust to satisfy the change in supply and demand.
I reject this view of immigration out of hand. The Founders rejected it. The black letter law rejects it. Classical econ rejects it. And fundamental notions of fair play reject it. I am beyond pleased with my government's adamant commitment to clearing out LA and everywhere else illegals exist in my country.
Graham, you expressed interest in the contours of the fiscal consequences of illegal labor. Michael, OTOH, contends that US illegal labor is a net economic benefit to the US economy. It is in these veins I share this development on this aspect of the taxation question. I mentioned these remittances out of the country earlier. Now this.
Can I ask a question? How can you pay tax (apart from indirect tax on purchases, I guess) if you're undocumented? Surely undocumented means the tax authority doesn't know you're there?
Put me in the grey zone on this, because I think Don may have a point, if, and only if, the undocumented migrant lies outside the system of communal contribution, thus benefiting from security etc. within the community, without contributing to it.
But if your and Don's views differ to that extent, then there is a fundamental difference in social attitudes where you are and where I am (Europe) to immigration that has not been consummated through official channels (asylum/residence of choice), whereby you, Michael, seem to express a view that stems more from agricultural necessity and/or custom/habit, whereas Don looks at the letter of the law, regardless of what might have been tolerated in the past. The only comparable situation that Europe would have with that is with prostitution, where it's allowed where it's not allowed as long as it doesn't get to the point that's "simply not allowed".
Thanks Graham, always great to hear from you. To your core question: how do undocumented immigrants pay taxes? The short answer is: many do, and often at higher rates than people realize. Here’s how:
--Payroll taxes: A large number of undocumented immigrants work using false or borrowed Social Security numbers or Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). Employers withhold federal and state income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare—just as they would for any employee. These taxes go into the system, even though the worker will never collect Social Security benefits or receive refunds.
--ITINs: The IRS created ITINs in the 1990s so that individuals who are not eligible for a Social Security number can still file taxes. Millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns using ITINs each year. According to the Treasury Department, ITIN filers contribute billions annually in income taxes.
Sales, property, and excise taxes: Like everyone else, undocumented immigrants pay indirect taxes—sales tax on every purchase, gas tax, utility fees, and property tax (either directly or indirectly through rent).
So while it's true that the IRS doesn't know an undocumented person is undocumented, that’s not the same as saying they are invisible to the tax system. Many undocumented immigrants participate in the economy in ways that generate tax revenue—yet without access to the full benefits those taxes support. For example, they pay into Social Security, but cannot claim retirement. They help fund public schools, but cannot receive federal tuition aid. In this sense, they are often net contributors to public goods from which they are partially or wholly excluded.
That leads to your broader point—the “grey zone,” as you call it—about communal contribution versus legal status. I think you’re absolutely right that this is where U.S. and European sensibilities often diverge. In much of Europe, immigration is approached more through a statutory lens: the law defines the terms of inclusion. In the U.S., especially in the agricultural and service economies, there's long been a tacit tolerance of de facto inclusion, even as de jure exclusion remains. That’s partly because our immigration system—particularly after 1996—closed legal pathways while still relying economically on immigrant labor.
This duality—welcoming labor but denying status—creates the very “grey zone” you're describing. It’s a zone that’s simultaneously morally fraught and economically indispensable. And it leaves many undocumented people in a paradox: they're inside the system enough to be taxed and targeted, but outside it when it comes to rights and recognition.
So yes, Don may have a point if we assume undocumented immigrants operate entirely outside the system. But in the U.S., that’s rarely the case. The tragedy is that many are within the system just enough to be useful, but not enough to be protected.
Thanks again for the question. It’s one of the few that helps get at the underlying structure of the debate, rather than just the surface slogans.
Very useful insight, and now I understand more. I can compare it to - oddly - the voting system in the UK: first past the post generally favours the main two parties: the current Labour government holds about 65 pc of the seats, with about 34 pc of the votes. Reform UK has 5 seats with half that number of votes. Reform UK might want to table a bill to alter the voting to proportional representation - it would benefit them. But it would only benefit them now. If they got to a position of predominance, they would oppose PR. In short, measures to accord justice to those who are disadvantaged by a de facto system tend not to be favoured by those who are benefiting from precisely that system.
This mismatch in understandings of the quandary of those who need an ITIN to even be able to work (which was the entire point of coming, I assume) but haven't a hope of acquiring status will never resolve itself. Don seems to be adamant about the letter of the law, and that has its merits. Except that it doesn't, because "law" is no longer something that can be relied on by the common citizen (if it ever was). The laws cited to deport the Latins to Salvador are laws, yes, but not for deportations of this order. The rule of law, a great phrase, means to run a country according to its laws, and that applies whether its laws are just or unjust. So, America has the rule of law. What's changed is its interpretation of what the law means. Well, they're not unique in that, but if they do that, what does "rule of law" ultimately mean? If it's tantamount to "the primacy of politics", that the party in power does what it has a "mandate" to do, regardless of statute, rule of law is just words. If DT doesn't abrogate the constitution or some part of it, I'll eat my hat.
The proposition that illegals do not access US and state level welfare and other benefits is demonstrably untrue. The SS retirement system is an exception to this vast rule.
This is not a secret. It is true the media buries it. Neither is this fiscal reality inadvertent. This is a well-documented scheme decades old and well afoot in Europe.
Of course, I am ashamed to know my U Chicago Econ Dept. conferred Piven's Ph.D. She's alive and kicking and clearly pleased with her emerging success in the dismantling of the West and capitalism. In any event, mass migration has a pivotal role and, contrary to Michael's suggestions, my links demonstrate this.
I'm a trial lawyer for 27 years but in my first life I was bond, currency and derivatives trader at large banks. I dealt in SWIFT currency txfers daily, advised corporates how to admin cross border money deals, etc. What I know about the answer to your good question about taxes stems from those years. Illegal labor generally works two ways: under the table in which event they pay zero taxes to any local, state or fed collector, or they work under the ruse of fraudulently collected documentation and do pay taxes. Both ways jeopardize both the illegal and the employer, but for different reasons. And in both ways, the tax authority collects less than it would from analogous legal labor. Moreover, illegals are notorious for sending a great deal of their wages to family "left behind". This is of course untrue for legal, citizen labor and the consequence on the US economy is obvious: those wages earned do not contrubute to the velocity of money in the US economy, hence, to its GDP, as do dollars earned by legal labor.
Yes there are employers who pay undocumented under the table. But there are who paid taxes nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue in 2022 while many are shut out of the programs their taxes fund. They're also paying 46% of their state and local tax payments through sales and excise taxes. Over a third of their tax payments go toward social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare, unemployment from which many are excluded. They also contribute to consumer spending, paying taxes on their business, and to their mortgage according to the American Immigration Council. 1/2
And they consume immense government txfrs in myriad anchor baby benefits like SNAP, free health care, housing subsidies, etc. Illegals are a net drain on the American economy.
Interesting. I am also a former trial lawyer, so that's the CVs dealt with.
When someone, anyone, does something that not only they have never done before, but that no one has done before, not in the form now observed, that fact raises in me one of two expectations, depending on whether I am acting for the defender or the pursuer. If the defender, it was utterly out of character and not an indication of some permanent change of heart in the defender's general demeanour. A quirk, a chance aberration. If for the pursuer, it was a sign of worse things to come.
We both know that workers have rights, for instance, which they can cite in pursuit of an action against their employer. But most don't, because they know that rights are worth nothing if the employer wants to fire you. If he wants that, he'll find a way. It's this familiarity we have with the law, its letters and its spirits, and how the law is applied that leads you and me to consider each other's answers as disingenuous: you consider that, as long as the actual Constitution is not breached, an act cannot be seen as a portent of future possible acts. Whereas I consider that it can. And that one should brace for those possible future acts. Like in a crashing airliner.
On the matter in question here, the relative contributions to a community by those who work in it either legally or illegally, and the relative benefits to the systems that sustain that community, ditto, I have no further comment, except to say this: I feel compassion for them, and you know which ones I mean, and compassion is a great weakness. It is a token of my gullibility, and my softness. I am easily persuaded by tales of woe, and therefore useless to the less-compassionate. I believe that the signal feature of a civilised country is one where it would sooner be defrauded a hundred times than refuse the just supplications of a single citizen; that it would rather let a hundred criminals go free than execute a single innocent man, and will institute systems not to strive towards that but to guarantee it 100 pc, by abolishing death penalties. I see my own country as a rapist, a coloniser. It considers it owes no debt to anyone for the atrocities it committed in the names of queens and country over many centuries. Your country, by contrast, was stolen. Not from mine, but from its true owners. You took it all, bar a few pockets. Have you nothing, not a red cent, left in your purse for an ounce of compassion? Must your laws be adhered to come what may?
The quantum of my country’s magnanimity dwarfs - dwarfs - that of any other country in the history of human civilization. We keep Europe afloat. And have for decades. We keep the undeveloped world alive. And have for decades. I’ve linked this thread to tons of data on the US taxpayers largesse when it comes to illegal alien livelihood. I’m wholly immune to your Dickensian pleas for more. Once again, these claims better resemble punchlines than arguments.
What a disappointing post. I started reading this with the expectation that the experienced LE author would offer an unbiased look at the law involved. And I was not disappointed in the first few paragraphs: he lays out the law, the table was helpful.
But hereafter, his didactic march stumbled to a conclusory stampede [Thank you, Justice Bork]. The remainder is littered with conflicting, misleading and even flatly untrue framing. This writer adroitly frames the burning, looting and assaulting of law enforcement as an heroic exercise of civil rights, suffering the unjust heavy hand of the law, as opposed to those in Selma and Little Rock who rather enjoyed the protection of a POTUS' invocation of the IA and/or Title 10. According to this writer, these admirable souls - with their concrete blocks, their burning cars and their looted businesses - have been abandoned by their country and merit our support for soldiering on as the Chief Executive flouts the will of Cali's Governor.
As we say in the courtroom, there's a distinction with a difference between the 1960's et al and LA today. I'm a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer of thirty years and inure unapologetically to Justice Learned Hand's view on free speech: "In the end, it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy." But as the comparison between the back of the 1960's bus and Paramount in 2025 fails vis-a-vis Executive action, so does comparison between this weekend's mayhem and free speech. This is the failed analogy that this writer elliptically urges here.
I'd rather the writer stuck to his lane and shared with us the benefit of his experience with and insight into Title 10 and the IA rather than gaslit me with the admonition I not believe my lying eyes.
Thanks for the challenging comment--always welcome here.
First, you make a familiar point about the distinction between free speech and violent conduct, and I agree that the law requires us to make that distinction carefully. My analysis does not excuse violence, nor does it suggest that looting or attacks on law enforcement are protected under the First Amendment or beyond legal consequence. I wasn't focusing on that, though -- I was focused on the pont that the federal government response must be grounded in law, proportionate, and constitutionally sound. I'm not excusing violent behavior - but there a rules of engagement for how the government can and should respond. That is where my concern lies.
The comparison with the 1950's stands in my view: In both Little Rock and Selma, federal power was invoked against the will of the states and in that sense is similar to this situation -- but....and it's a huge but ....in those instances it was invoked to protect marginalized communities not suppress them. In Los Angeles, we are again seeing federal power invoked against the will of the state, but in this case it's not to protect rights but arguably to suppress protest—some of which is unlawful, but much of which is protected. And even if there is protest behavior that crosses the line into lawlessness and therefore needs to be suppressed -- the President was extremely quick to override local authorities and federalize the guard. The moral and legal symmetry is not perfect, but the structural echo is real.
You write that the post “frames the burning, looting and assaulting of law enforcement as an heroic exercise of civil rights.” Come on, that's not accurate. What I have attempted to frame is that the protests themselves began as a justifiable reaction to deeply provocative government conduct—namely, sweeping ICE raids that resulted in family separations, conducted in working-class neighborhoods, in broad daylight. Some elements escalated into violence—but that’s not the same as saying all protesters are violent or that all protest is illegitimate. A core democratic principle is that the government must be held to higher standards of restraint and legality than the people protesting it. It's the government, after all.
Anyway -- I welcome your further thoughts. It's offered as an open forum, not an echo chamber.
When Israel reacted to Hamas, one commentator, Norman Finkelstein, made an allusion that could be considered apropos here as well. He referred to the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion, which I'd never heard of, on which William Garrison's comment was tantamount to "What else did you expect?"
So, what do you expect of those who risk their all, including their lives, to escape the horrors of home and find relative calm in your land (I might add: just as had many of your forebears), who seek out and find such employment as they can with their parlous social standing, and stand facing off LEA who now want to return them to exactly where they started, or worse? How do I know they're not gang members? Look at ICE. Look at gangs. Gang members don't loot shops: they pay off the ICE men. Just like their boss has.
I take no sides, but there comes a point when the ante needs to be upped to something more than a broad march down a main street, even with 100,000 people, but with no focused demand. It's clear to me as an observer that "legality" is contemptuously being wielded by your government not as the tool ordained by the people for the good of its common weal, but as a limp, far-fetched excuse for acts that, by any other name, are themselves unlawful. So, here too, "what else did you expect"?
Heaven's no! No hitman for thee, Dear Graham. I ask only to help situate my feeble mind around the perspective a European must have in order to muster the moxy to challenge the US' commitment to fundamental civil rights. After all, isn't the UK imprisoning people for mean tweets? For silently praying on the street - or even in one's home if the prayer's sinister conduct can be viewed through his window? And isn't it all of Europe that's been savaged by rapes and knife crimes committed by the beneficiaries of its open border policies?
I disagree with some of your assertions. I found Sellers' background info on Title 10 and Insurrection Act clarifying.
Though I am just a citizen, not a lawyer, I understand the difference between lawful protest and unlawful violence. Understanding the key issue -- the legal precedents and rationale why the President nationalized control of the Guard against the wishes of the State -- is essential in assessing the threat profile of these actions. Are they setting a precedent for even more Federal intervention in local police matters?
I believe that neither the author nor I, a reader, would support violence or destructive acts against lawful acts by the authorities, but we need to recognize when efforts to suppress unlawful disorder may have crossed a line to become a threat to our constitutionally-protect rights. At that point, civil disobedience and even physical resistance may be called for,
Please to describe with as much factual precision as you can when and how the Executive's responses to the illegal immigrants of LA and the LA riots became a threat to our Constitutionally protected rights.
The strongarm response is an indication that adherence or otherwise to constitutional rights is not foremost on your government's mind. Or is the National Guard regularly called out to respond to a protest? The distinction between the forces of civil law and order, and those who fight in international conflicts is plain. It's in every constitution in the world. Police here, army there. It's in your constitution all because of the indiscretions of an English king, and precisely in order to avoid another head of state having to lose his head. Your challenge is specious.
Your government's lawyers are not checking on whether they adhere to law, they are seeking routes around the law that cite law as their authority, and then refusing to correct their acts when ordered to do so by the courts. If that's constitutional, then it's not a very good constitution.
Thanks for your thoughts. Once again, I seek clarity and precision wrt your claims this Executive has in any form or fashion violated the civil, Constitutional or state or federal statutory rights of anyone in these LA riots. I'm a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. I sue cops for a living. It is my own careful observation that none of the armed forces - state police, local police, otherwise - has detained, much less arrested, a single person for merely protesting. Full stop.
So the government's benign on this? You don't see this as an escalation? You don't think that it could form part of a step-plan to a police state? In Europe, we would think this. We would fear for our constitutions, but if that's what you feel there, then your constitution, and the court that defends it, must be very robustly in favour of the ordinary citizen. I envy you.
With respect, Europe is so vastly headlong into the police state that a Euro's admonitions about surveillance and authoritarianism more closely resemble a punchline than an argument.
Are there conclusions to draw from your resistance to sharing that precision and clarity I seek about the U.S. Executive's alleged violations of illegals' rights? When, how? Do you reject the duty of the Executive to enforce the nation's laws?
You folks seem to often reach a time deficit in these discussions. Carry on.
Meanwhile, this border - unlike Graham's - is closed. The rub is that, in my country at least, we've recognized the "shiite" show for what it is and we are fixing it. It's now a one way street out. The grift is over. That is to say, the American democratic electoral apparatus appears to be in full form. My country has raised its democratic voice and it has been heard - quite unlike the EU leadership's response to its own vox populi. In the EU, France has tried to imprison its own anti-open border candidate, Le Pen. It is ignoring the Irish resistance to the throngs of Muslim interlopers. The EU simply rejected the democratically elected Romanian, an anti immigration pol. So, the real red herring here was Mr. Vincent's effort to attribute a US duty to accept illegals to a colonial original sin, a sin he claimed we share with our colonialist English forefathers. That common ground ends at each polity's commitment to democratic principles, doesn't it seem so?
And yet. Despite my best, good faith efforts at understanding them, I've heard not one jot, not one persuasive tiddle from those here in opposition to border enforcement. Saved by the bell!
This kind of aggressive "enforcement" is provocative and I believe deliberately so; Trump's orcs, Miller, Noem and Homan, are itching for a fight and have apparently hit on the strategy of picking on the most vulnerable victims at their least defended moments as the surest way to start one. That's unspeakably evil, but completely predictable. They will escalate every chance they get. The whole exercise, I fear, is yet another attempt to distract public attention from Trump's more serious woes and failures -- Musk, Congress, the economy and the bizarre on-and-off invocation of tariffs, Trump's mental and emotional sunset and America's new irrelevance to the rest of the world. Not with a whimper but a bang.
To your point—he’s been cold-calling prominent DC reporters, to tell them how much he’s not thinking about Musk. While it’s always been ludicrous that the man with an admitted decades-long, close association with a convicted child sex trafficker would be the one to “crack down” on human trafficking, Musk’s revelation* that he is all over the Epstein (the most notorious underage sex trafficker in modern history) files—who’s DOGE team was given access to the most sensitive information and documents held by the US federal government—had to hit hard. (While of course this wasn’t a revelation to anyone paying attention—as news reports, video footage, primary sources, court filings and even Trump himself have attested to—but news to his hard-core base, where only the most trusted messenger could break through).
The siege is here in El Paso, with the newly declared military zones along the border. The Texas Defense Department soldiers have built ramparts along the Rio Grande and US soldiers with MRaps patrol the border. Tanks have been stationed along the border as well. Helicopters patrol every day.
The reasons this has not blown up is because this has been slowly building for two years. The border is turning into a war zone.
I take a number of newsletters on this portal that provide ongoing commentary on your current government. Yours is the only one that allows comments from the poor, and the only one with spelling errors. I'll take the spelling errors for the free comment any day. Thank you. I try to keep the comments relevant and thought-provoking.
At school, we were warned about a word that might come up in the history exam: the Oxbridge examiners had once asked "Was Metternich a mountebank chancellor?" So, it helps if you know what a mountebank is. A mountebank is a ringmaster in a circus. He entertains his audience with delectations and delights whilst, behind the scenes, the artistes prepare to draw sharp breaths from the assembled audience. No one ever knew what Metternich was really thinking, bar the shrewd count himself, but he did put on quite a show. So, I have some new history exam questions for the future students of American history (early 21st century):
1. Was Donald Trump a mountebank president?
2. Or was he a puppet?
3. And, if a puppet, and the puppeteer wasn't Vladimir Putin, was it Russell Vought?
4. Or was he a contortionist, who always knew how to wriggle out of his chains, but ultimately got locked in the toilet?
5. Or was he a conjuror, who was so skilled in diverting the audience's attention away from the trickery he was doing, he ended up giving them nothing of what they'd paid for, and they loved him so much, they put his face on Mount Rushmore?
So, is Mr Trump a shrewd count?
It really feels like he's been trying to push this country into violence so he can declare Marshall law from the beginning. He is a big fan of Emergency Powers that can bypass the Courts and Congress.
When there was an actual insurrection on J6, there were police officers badly wounded, mobs chanting to kill the vice president and the speaker, and serious damage done to the Capitol, he watched TV and did not call out the National Guard. He subsequently pardoned the criminals who assaulted the police.
I've muted you.
TITLE 10 OF CHAPTER 13, § 254 CLEARLY STATES:
“Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order period the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.”
THIS MEANS;
The President MUST ISSUE a formal proclamation to disperse BEFORE DEPLOYING troops under
Title 10 §254.
Why is NO ONE reporting this.
This HAS NOT BEEN DONE!
This key fact is immensely important and MANDATORY. Without a proclamation, Trumps deployment of US troops is ILLEGAL.
Comparisons to Hitler are woefully overused, including here. Try an alternative, like Fujimori, Sukarno, or Chavez. No reason to waste more digital ink on the genocidal Austrian.
Here's a quick Fujimori summary if you want to branch out beyond the Mustache Man in your next post.
Elected democratically in 1990, President Alberto Fujimori faced a deep economic crisis and a brutal insurgency from the Maoist Shining Path. On April 5, 1992, citing legislative obstructionism and judicial corruption in the fight against terrorism, Fujimori appeared on television to announce he was dissolving Congress and suspending the judiciary. With military backing, he seized absolute power in an "auto-golpe" or self-coup. He later drafted a new constitution, ratified in a 1993 referendum, which concentrated power in the executive.
Here is what it means. It means that Trump has established the predicate for totalitarian control of the country using the military as his instrument.
Copy and paste from :
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/its-always-darkest-before-it-goes-pitch-black-los-angeles-national-guard-troops-deportation-protests?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=87281&post_id=165541096&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=9q8rt&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
"
On Saturday evening, June 7, 2025, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, issued a presidential memorandum addressed to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security. One might call it the Usurpation Proclamation. And while this weekend’s mobilization of two thousand National Guard troops in Los Angeles has alarmed many observers, I suspect we aren’t alarmed enough by this presidential order, which has implications far beyond this one action in one place.
Let’s take a look at it. It consists of only three paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, the president asserts that “numerous incidents of violence and disorder have recently occurred and threaten to continue” in response to the execution of federal immigration laws. And, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
This claim of “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” establishes the legal predicate for his action announced in the next paragraph:
In light of these incidents and credible threats of continued violence, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. 12406 to temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations."
arrest these people. Dems most probably
MS,
Thank you for your generous, respectful response. I'm new to SS. It's the - general - willingness of of others to approach disagreement open-mindedly, and with literacy and experience that distinguishes the forum. You are all of these and the reply has earned you yet another follower.
To your response. We clearly agree maintenance of the rule of law is the threshold concern. Execution of the law is - as you assert is the focus of this post - often the rub. These rules of engagement are your beef in LA.
So I take that up. As your response concedes, Little Rock and Selma were the same in a critical way: POTUS invoked the IA and/or Title 10 over a Governor's objection, indeed, over black letter state laws (I think) that defied federal law. This crucial truth is getting lost in much of the MSM reportage and it is infuriating. This is NOT a one-off. But it is here where your argument, your comparison, fails. There, the marginalized were not the agents of the clear and present danger; there, the agents of contempt were the majority. Here, it is your "marginalized" - and their ostensible interlocutors (I'm usually unwilling to cede that noble ground to Soros and Antifa, but I'm feeling magnanimous today...) - who are plainly, simply, flatly the clear and present danger. In several ways.
The "illegal immigrant community" is simply without standing, morally or legally, to be in my country, much less to physically interfere with law enforcement. It is here your argument devolves into Bork's conclusory stampede. I don't care how long they've been here. And neither does an honest broker of the law - state or federal. The citizens Black Selma and Black Little Rock were custodians of this profound distinction, and it is here I found your conflation in your OP and your response rather elliptically pitched, adroitly assumed as a given. It's not. Further, that people of good conscience are willing to share the phrase "marginalized community" with a people who are here ab initio in violation of our law, who studiously avoid our law for as long as decades, who according to reams of data are largely living off the largesse of my country's good will [...this is me declining to rattle off the economic detriments the country suffers due to this...please challenge me on this....] to then have the unbridled arrogance to take to the streets with violence and tell us they are offended by efforts to remove them.... No.
It is conclusory and untrue to compare today's Illegals to the marginalized US citizens of Selma [Black people voting, Black women refusing to take a back seat] and LR [Black kids going to public schools. It is an abject gaslighting to compare the violence of today's illegals burning and looting and violence in "defense" of their "rights" to the truly peaceful protest of 1960's Blacks. 1960's Blacks were....wait for it..... wait...citizens! Frankly, I find it offensive to breathe the words Selma and Little Rock in the same sentence as a "community" of committed lawbreakers as illegal aliens by definition are.
LA's illegals are without justification to do anything but say to my country, "Thank you very kindly for your generosity, we will take the spirit of your citizens and your Constitution with us when we return to that place from which we illegally entered your country and try to fix it." Afford them what DP my country so generously affords them on the way out the door, for sure. But that is the extent of what's left of the entitlement to which this "marginalized community" is so very indignantly braying about.
Thanks Don. What really strikes me about your reply is how we differ on a abasic assumption about undocumented residents. You write: "The "illegal immigrant community" is simply without standing, morally or legally, to be in my country, much less to physically interfere with law enforcement. " That is a pretty profound assumption. I think a lot of us in California just see this fundamentally in a different way. We don't see them as unwaned intruders -- we see them as part of the mix, mindful that everything from agriculture to services to the apparel industry--really couldn't exist at present without hardworking undocumented workers who pay taxes, obey the law, and are our neighbors. So on a gut level, what we feel to be a moral level, we don't see them like you do. And a lot of what follows flows from that. As to their "legal" or "illegal" status, a lot of what the constitution addresses are the rights of "persons" physically in the US, not just citizens. Again, we feel that they are entitled constitutionally to due process and many of the protections that citizens have, though not all. So anyway -- I think there is a sort of "different underlying reality" in the way we see and approach the situation. I hope you also understand I'm not trying to delegitimize your approach to it, I'm just trying to point out that our point of divergence is very far upstream. Also I know you're a criminal defense lawyer....LOL we should talk, in my day job as an investigator almost all my clients are criminal defense laywers and the their clients. But my point mentioning that is that this issue exists on a lot of levels -- the legal, constitutional level is one. But obviously it also exists on a visceral, emotional level that has to do with what people feel and how they act based on that. My post the other day showed a video of the San Diego protest that preceeded the LA ones, and I talked about it being a Rohrschach test -- what do you feel when you see this? A lot of us felt solidarity with protestors, who weren't doing any violence, just standing up and shouting "Shame!" But others--and I think you would fall into this group--looked at it and saw federal officers under siege for doing their job to rid the country of unwelcome intruders. Anyway, I enjoy your comments and am happy to have you in the mix. Goodnatured disagreement is kind of an anachronism, but I enjoy it.
I exactly agree that we diverge at how we each "see" the illegal community in this country - and before I move to directly address your reply on this divergence - I repeat this also exactly where your comparison of 2025 LA and 1960's civil rights Executive interventions fails: immigrants simply do not enjoy - as a matter of black latter law and as a matter of playground-level morality - the same rights as do citizens.
I take your last observations one at a time. First, it is flatly untrue our economy crumbles w/o illegals. Your claim that our ag economy fails is demonstrably untrue: https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers . Further, it is really beyond economic dispute that illegal labor "crowds out" citizen labor in every industry you list. These people synthetically lower the market clearing wage in every industry they work b/c employers leverage their legal status with a below market wage. Moreover, b/c these employers are likewise violating a black letter federal law when they employ these illegals, they most often simply pay cash off the books. Where do they report their wages, they can only do so by abetting their misrepresentation of status to the Feds. All of which is to say, your advocacy of illegal labor is your advocacy of a black market for labor. This market diminishes the tax revenue that would otherwise result from higher wages paid to citizens, first, and to a greater number of tax payers, number two b/c citizen workers dont fear ID with the feds.
You will appreciate that I am acutely aware of your XIV Amendment language citation to the extension of rights to those merely "physically" present, not just to citizens. But I'm likewise certain you're aware those rights are a mere subset of the rights - XIV A and otherwise - conferred on citizens. This is as it should be. Anything position to the contrary necessarily results in the abrogation of the nation/state as a legit polity, and I give you all of Europe today as Exhibits 1-30 for the profound implications of that path.
You acknowledge this much above, so I fail to grasp your point: an illegal is in this country unlawfully and subject to removal at any time. Yes, she gets a hearing. But as you full well know, the mere fact that citizens "feel" is legally meaningless....that is. it's not an affirmative defense to being out of status. Try that argument in any of your client's courtrooms - "Your Honor, my client felt like his GF dissed him so blacking her eye was ...." You get the picture.
We agree that our divergence hinges almost entirely on this take on the standing - the legal and even moral claims - illegals have to even be here. For myriad legal, economic, cultural, and other reasons , they are without any standing and I am profound offended when I see them bray with such manufactured indignity about it.
Don, You're absolutely right that our divergence lies not in a minor policy quibble, but in fundamental differences over the legal, moral, and economic standing of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Let me take up your points in the spirit of respectful disagreement.
1. The Economic Impact of Undocumented Labor
You cite the H-2A program to argue that our agricultural economy doesn’t depend on undocumented workers. But the empirical reality on the ground tells a more complicated story. According to the USDA and the Department of Labor, more than half of all U.S. farmworkers are undocumented, even as the H-2A program grows. H-2A is cumbersome, underfunded, and fails to meet peak seasonal demand in many sectors. Employers who rely on it often complain of bureaucratic delays and excessive costs. That’s why many growers, particularly in California’s Central Valley, continue to rely on undocumented labor—not out of preference, but out of necessity.
It’s not just agriculture. The construction, hospitality, elder care, food service, and janitorial industries all draw heavily on undocumented labor. You argue that this labor "crowds out" citizen workers. But that assumes a static labor market. In reality, multiple economic studies—including from the National Academy of Sciences and the Cato Institute—have found that undocumented immigrants tend to complement, rather than replace, native-born workers, particularly in low-skill sectors where citizen labor supply is limited. Yes, there are downward pressures on wages—but those pressures are driven more by employer impunity than immigrant presence. If enforcement focused on wage theft and labor violations rather than immigration status alone, the distortion would lessen considerably.
And as to the black market argument: I fully agree it exists. But the way to dismantle it is not through mass removal, but through legal pathways that bring this labor market above board, generate tax revenue, and hold employers accountable. That is not advocacy for a black market. It's advocacy for ending one.
2. Constitutional Standing and the Fourteenth Amendment
You’re absolutely correct that non-citizens do not enjoy all the rights of citizens. But they do enjoy many. The Supreme Court has long held that anyone “personally present in the United States” is entitled to due process, equal protection, and basic civil liberties, regardless of immigration status. That’s not a progressive fever dream—it’s black-letter law affirmed in cases like Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), Plyler v. Doe (1982), and more recently in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001).
Undocumented immigrants cannot vote, run for office, or claim certain benefits. But they do have standing, both legally and morally, to protest, to speak, to demand fair treatment, and—yes—to criticize the government that taxes, polices, and detains them. To say they are "without standing" is to ignore both constitutional jurisprudence and the real-world dynamics of how civil rights in this country have historically been won—not just by citizens, but by those deemed outsiders: slaves, freedmen, Chinese railroad workers, Japanese internment survivors, and yes, undocumented workers today.
3. Feelings, Legality, and Human Worth
You close with a provocative analogy—mocking the idea that a person’s feelings could constitute a defense to illegal behavior. But that's a straw man. No one is arguing that a "feeling" of being marginalized constitutes a legal defense to being out of status. What I am arguing is that the way we treat people in that position—whether we regard them as parasites or participants—speaks to our collective values. Due process exists not just to weigh facts, but to acknowledge dignity even in the face of removal.
And that brings me to where we truly diverge: I do not view undocumented immigrants as braying with "manufactured indignity." I see them as human beings—some of whom were brought here as children, others who overstayed visas, many of whom live in legal limbo for decades, contributing to a society that asks for their labor while denying them status. You see a body of law being broken. I see a system that’s been broken—and people stuck in the breach.
We may never agree on that. But hey, it's a good debate. It’s the kind of disagreement our public sphere could use more of.
—Michael
I do not dispute the humanity of anyone. I've saved more dissolute lives than I can shake a stick at - black, white, brown - and I'm good at it. I often do it for less than an AV Rated lawyer might expect.
But after 30 years at it, I'm also the guy who grabs the tab when i see cops at lunch. They stand between us and Laken Riley's murderer. In point of fact, my first jury trial was a court appointment to defend a black man heralded by the TV show America's Most Wanted. I got paid all of $4500 total to try Earnest Jackson to acquittal in a conservative Oklahoma courthouse. I am intimately in touch with the line you describe between humanity and accountability. I know DP. I defend it daily. But that does NOT mean I reject the value of accountability for those who genuinely break the law - illegal immigrants included. Not a straw man. A man sophisticated enough to acknowledge Emerson's value in two opposing ideas at once.
Your economic argument is common but it is going to prove fallacious as illegals are cleared out of the labor market. In fact, my argument relies not on a dynamic labor market to observe they crowd out domestic labor. In fact, my argument requires an elastic labor market that enjoys domestic labor coming off the sidelines when illegals leave, jobs open and wages rise. As I suspect you are aware, the labor statistics calculation of unemployment - now 4.2% - simply ignore those people out of work but not looking for work. I suspect a man as well read and informed as I think you are is aware of the ink spilled in our cultural moment over the many, many men who've simply defected from the labor market. A majority of Americans has been heard on immigration enforcement - the selective enforcement you'd apparently support, where we ignore status enforcement but NTL enforce prohibitions of employers....I'm unsure what exactly you have in mind here. Do you mean we should force employers to pay illegals a specific wage? That is not the law and you and I both know there will never be a rewriting of immigration law like this in our lifetime. It's pretty hard to get a U Chicago Econ guy to ignore the premise that The Invisible Hand will reallocate resources so to clear every market. Illegals leave the labor market, I'm confident resources will adjust to satisfy the change in supply and demand.
I reject this view of immigration out of hand. The Founders rejected it. The black letter law rejects it. Classical econ rejects it. And fundamental notions of fair play reject it. I am beyond pleased with my government's adamant commitment to clearing out LA and everywhere else illegals exist in my country.
I understand. We do need immigration reform. The last prez who did it was prez Reagan.
Graham, you expressed interest in the contours of the fiscal consequences of illegal labor. Michael, OTOH, contends that US illegal labor is a net economic benefit to the US economy. It is in these veins I share this development on this aspect of the taxation question. I mentioned these remittances out of the country earlier. Now this.
https://x.com/arnemx/status/1931721420343492959?s=46&t=S92WasnYJWI3_nfy-XrE6
Can I ask a question? How can you pay tax (apart from indirect tax on purchases, I guess) if you're undocumented? Surely undocumented means the tax authority doesn't know you're there?
Put me in the grey zone on this, because I think Don may have a point, if, and only if, the undocumented migrant lies outside the system of communal contribution, thus benefiting from security etc. within the community, without contributing to it.
But if your and Don's views differ to that extent, then there is a fundamental difference in social attitudes where you are and where I am (Europe) to immigration that has not been consummated through official channels (asylum/residence of choice), whereby you, Michael, seem to express a view that stems more from agricultural necessity and/or custom/habit, whereas Don looks at the letter of the law, regardless of what might have been tolerated in the past. The only comparable situation that Europe would have with that is with prostitution, where it's allowed where it's not allowed as long as it doesn't get to the point that's "simply not allowed".
Thanks Graham, always great to hear from you. To your core question: how do undocumented immigrants pay taxes? The short answer is: many do, and often at higher rates than people realize. Here’s how:
--Payroll taxes: A large number of undocumented immigrants work using false or borrowed Social Security numbers or Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs). Employers withhold federal and state income taxes, Social Security, and Medicare—just as they would for any employee. These taxes go into the system, even though the worker will never collect Social Security benefits or receive refunds.
--ITINs: The IRS created ITINs in the 1990s so that individuals who are not eligible for a Social Security number can still file taxes. Millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns using ITINs each year. According to the Treasury Department, ITIN filers contribute billions annually in income taxes.
Sales, property, and excise taxes: Like everyone else, undocumented immigrants pay indirect taxes—sales tax on every purchase, gas tax, utility fees, and property tax (either directly or indirectly through rent).
So while it's true that the IRS doesn't know an undocumented person is undocumented, that’s not the same as saying they are invisible to the tax system. Many undocumented immigrants participate in the economy in ways that generate tax revenue—yet without access to the full benefits those taxes support. For example, they pay into Social Security, but cannot claim retirement. They help fund public schools, but cannot receive federal tuition aid. In this sense, they are often net contributors to public goods from which they are partially or wholly excluded.
That leads to your broader point—the “grey zone,” as you call it—about communal contribution versus legal status. I think you’re absolutely right that this is where U.S. and European sensibilities often diverge. In much of Europe, immigration is approached more through a statutory lens: the law defines the terms of inclusion. In the U.S., especially in the agricultural and service economies, there's long been a tacit tolerance of de facto inclusion, even as de jure exclusion remains. That’s partly because our immigration system—particularly after 1996—closed legal pathways while still relying economically on immigrant labor.
This duality—welcoming labor but denying status—creates the very “grey zone” you're describing. It’s a zone that’s simultaneously morally fraught and economically indispensable. And it leaves many undocumented people in a paradox: they're inside the system enough to be taxed and targeted, but outside it when it comes to rights and recognition.
So yes, Don may have a point if we assume undocumented immigrants operate entirely outside the system. But in the U.S., that’s rarely the case. The tragedy is that many are within the system just enough to be useful, but not enough to be protected.
Thanks again for the question. It’s one of the few that helps get at the underlying structure of the debate, rather than just the surface slogans.
Our discussion gave rise to my own article, if you're interested. And thank you. https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/what-the-marcinelle-mining-disaster
Very useful insight, and now I understand more. I can compare it to - oddly - the voting system in the UK: first past the post generally favours the main two parties: the current Labour government holds about 65 pc of the seats, with about 34 pc of the votes. Reform UK has 5 seats with half that number of votes. Reform UK might want to table a bill to alter the voting to proportional representation - it would benefit them. But it would only benefit them now. If they got to a position of predominance, they would oppose PR. In short, measures to accord justice to those who are disadvantaged by a de facto system tend not to be favoured by those who are benefiting from precisely that system.
This mismatch in understandings of the quandary of those who need an ITIN to even be able to work (which was the entire point of coming, I assume) but haven't a hope of acquiring status will never resolve itself. Don seems to be adamant about the letter of the law, and that has its merits. Except that it doesn't, because "law" is no longer something that can be relied on by the common citizen (if it ever was). The laws cited to deport the Latins to Salvador are laws, yes, but not for deportations of this order. The rule of law, a great phrase, means to run a country according to its laws, and that applies whether its laws are just or unjust. So, America has the rule of law. What's changed is its interpretation of what the law means. Well, they're not unique in that, but if they do that, what does "rule of law" ultimately mean? If it's tantamount to "the primacy of politics", that the party in power does what it has a "mandate" to do, regardless of statute, rule of law is just words. If DT doesn't abrogate the constitution or some part of it, I'll eat my hat.
The proposition that illegals do not access US and state level welfare and other benefits is demonstrably untrue. The SS retirement system is an exception to this vast rule.
https://cis.org/Parsing-Immigration-Policy/Fiscal-Time-Bomb-Mass-Immigration-Parole-and-Welfare
https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Legal-and-Illegal-Immigrant-Households
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/us-taxpayers-bear-weight-of-anchor-babies/
https://cis.org/Report/Fertility-Immigrants-and-Natives-United-States-2023
https://ac.news/illegal-aliens-who-have-anchor-babies-use-more-welfare-than-united-states-citizens/
https://cis.org/Camarota/NPR-Falsely-Claims-High-Immigrant-Welfare-Use-Myth
https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrants-and-USBorn
This is not a secret. It is true the media buries it. Neither is this fiscal reality inadvertent. This is a well-documented scheme decades old and well afoot in Europe.
https://www.cairco.org/reference/cloward-piven-strategy-fundamentally-transforming-america
Of course, I am ashamed to know my U Chicago Econ Dept. conferred Piven's Ph.D. She's alive and kicking and clearly pleased with her emerging success in the dismantling of the West and capitalism. In any event, mass migration has a pivotal role and, contrary to Michael's suggestions, my links demonstrate this.
G,
I'm a trial lawyer for 27 years but in my first life I was bond, currency and derivatives trader at large banks. I dealt in SWIFT currency txfers daily, advised corporates how to admin cross border money deals, etc. What I know about the answer to your good question about taxes stems from those years. Illegal labor generally works two ways: under the table in which event they pay zero taxes to any local, state or fed collector, or they work under the ruse of fraudulently collected documentation and do pay taxes. Both ways jeopardize both the illegal and the employer, but for different reasons. And in both ways, the tax authority collects less than it would from analogous legal labor. Moreover, illegals are notorious for sending a great deal of their wages to family "left behind". This is of course untrue for legal, citizen labor and the consequence on the US economy is obvious: those wages earned do not contrubute to the velocity of money in the US economy, hence, to its GDP, as do dollars earned by legal labor.
Yes there are employers who pay undocumented under the table. But there are who paid taxes nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue in 2022 while many are shut out of the programs their taxes fund. They're also paying 46% of their state and local tax payments through sales and excise taxes. Over a third of their tax payments go toward social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare, unemployment from which many are excluded. They also contribute to consumer spending, paying taxes on their business, and to their mortgage according to the American Immigration Council. 1/2
https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/#:~:text=Key%20Findings,unemployment%20insurance%20taxes%20in%202022.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/pay-for-personal-services-performed
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/topics/tax-contributions
2/2 That means they paid $89.8 billion in taxes. World Bank also reported that immigrants sent over $81 billion back to their home countries in 2022.
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099714008132436612/pdf/IDU1a9cf73b51fcad1425a1a0dd1cc8f2f3331ce.pdf
And they consume immense government txfrs in myriad anchor baby benefits like SNAP, free health care, housing subsidies, etc. Illegals are a net drain on the American economy.
Interesting. I am also a former trial lawyer, so that's the CVs dealt with.
When someone, anyone, does something that not only they have never done before, but that no one has done before, not in the form now observed, that fact raises in me one of two expectations, depending on whether I am acting for the defender or the pursuer. If the defender, it was utterly out of character and not an indication of some permanent change of heart in the defender's general demeanour. A quirk, a chance aberration. If for the pursuer, it was a sign of worse things to come.
We both know that workers have rights, for instance, which they can cite in pursuit of an action against their employer. But most don't, because they know that rights are worth nothing if the employer wants to fire you. If he wants that, he'll find a way. It's this familiarity we have with the law, its letters and its spirits, and how the law is applied that leads you and me to consider each other's answers as disingenuous: you consider that, as long as the actual Constitution is not breached, an act cannot be seen as a portent of future possible acts. Whereas I consider that it can. And that one should brace for those possible future acts. Like in a crashing airliner.
On the matter in question here, the relative contributions to a community by those who work in it either legally or illegally, and the relative benefits to the systems that sustain that community, ditto, I have no further comment, except to say this: I feel compassion for them, and you know which ones I mean, and compassion is a great weakness. It is a token of my gullibility, and my softness. I am easily persuaded by tales of woe, and therefore useless to the less-compassionate. I believe that the signal feature of a civilised country is one where it would sooner be defrauded a hundred times than refuse the just supplications of a single citizen; that it would rather let a hundred criminals go free than execute a single innocent man, and will institute systems not to strive towards that but to guarantee it 100 pc, by abolishing death penalties. I see my own country as a rapist, a coloniser. It considers it owes no debt to anyone for the atrocities it committed in the names of queens and country over many centuries. Your country, by contrast, was stolen. Not from mine, but from its true owners. You took it all, bar a few pockets. Have you nothing, not a red cent, left in your purse for an ounce of compassion? Must your laws be adhered to come what may?
On these things we differ, Don.
Oh, Dear.
The quantum of my country’s magnanimity dwarfs - dwarfs - that of any other country in the history of human civilization. We keep Europe afloat. And have for decades. We keep the undeveloped world alive. And have for decades. I’ve linked this thread to tons of data on the US taxpayers largesse when it comes to illegal alien livelihood. I’m wholly immune to your Dickensian pleas for more. Once again, these claims better resemble punchlines than arguments.
What a disappointing post. I started reading this with the expectation that the experienced LE author would offer an unbiased look at the law involved. And I was not disappointed in the first few paragraphs: he lays out the law, the table was helpful.
But hereafter, his didactic march stumbled to a conclusory stampede [Thank you, Justice Bork]. The remainder is littered with conflicting, misleading and even flatly untrue framing. This writer adroitly frames the burning, looting and assaulting of law enforcement as an heroic exercise of civil rights, suffering the unjust heavy hand of the law, as opposed to those in Selma and Little Rock who rather enjoyed the protection of a POTUS' invocation of the IA and/or Title 10. According to this writer, these admirable souls - with their concrete blocks, their burning cars and their looted businesses - have been abandoned by their country and merit our support for soldiering on as the Chief Executive flouts the will of Cali's Governor.
As we say in the courtroom, there's a distinction with a difference between the 1960's et al and LA today. I'm a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer of thirty years and inure unapologetically to Justice Learned Hand's view on free speech: "In the end, it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy." But as the comparison between the back of the 1960's bus and Paramount in 2025 fails vis-a-vis Executive action, so does comparison between this weekend's mayhem and free speech. This is the failed analogy that this writer elliptically urges here.
I'd rather the writer stuck to his lane and shared with us the benefit of his experience with and insight into Title 10 and the IA rather than gaslit me with the admonition I not believe my lying eyes.
Thanks for the challenging comment--always welcome here.
First, you make a familiar point about the distinction between free speech and violent conduct, and I agree that the law requires us to make that distinction carefully. My analysis does not excuse violence, nor does it suggest that looting or attacks on law enforcement are protected under the First Amendment or beyond legal consequence. I wasn't focusing on that, though -- I was focused on the pont that the federal government response must be grounded in law, proportionate, and constitutionally sound. I'm not excusing violent behavior - but there a rules of engagement for how the government can and should respond. That is where my concern lies.
The comparison with the 1950's stands in my view: In both Little Rock and Selma, federal power was invoked against the will of the states and in that sense is similar to this situation -- but....and it's a huge but ....in those instances it was invoked to protect marginalized communities not suppress them. In Los Angeles, we are again seeing federal power invoked against the will of the state, but in this case it's not to protect rights but arguably to suppress protest—some of which is unlawful, but much of which is protected. And even if there is protest behavior that crosses the line into lawlessness and therefore needs to be suppressed -- the President was extremely quick to override local authorities and federalize the guard. The moral and legal symmetry is not perfect, but the structural echo is real.
You write that the post “frames the burning, looting and assaulting of law enforcement as an heroic exercise of civil rights.” Come on, that's not accurate. What I have attempted to frame is that the protests themselves began as a justifiable reaction to deeply provocative government conduct—namely, sweeping ICE raids that resulted in family separations, conducted in working-class neighborhoods, in broad daylight. Some elements escalated into violence—but that’s not the same as saying all protesters are violent or that all protest is illegitimate. A core democratic principle is that the government must be held to higher standards of restraint and legality than the people protesting it. It's the government, after all.
Anyway -- I welcome your further thoughts. It's offered as an open forum, not an echo chamber.
When Israel reacted to Hamas, one commentator, Norman Finkelstein, made an allusion that could be considered apropos here as well. He referred to the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion, which I'd never heard of, on which William Garrison's comment was tantamount to "What else did you expect?"
So, what do you expect of those who risk their all, including their lives, to escape the horrors of home and find relative calm in your land (I might add: just as had many of your forebears), who seek out and find such employment as they can with their parlous social standing, and stand facing off LEA who now want to return them to exactly where they started, or worse? How do I know they're not gang members? Look at ICE. Look at gangs. Gang members don't loot shops: they pay off the ICE men. Just like their boss has.
I take no sides, but there comes a point when the ante needs to be upped to something more than a broad march down a main street, even with 100,000 people, but with no focused demand. It's clear to me as an observer that "legality" is contemptuously being wielded by your government not as the tool ordained by the people for the good of its common weal, but as a limp, far-fetched excuse for acts that, by any other name, are themselves unlawful. So, here too, "what else did you expect"?
Graham, are you in Europe?
You're not gonna send a hitman, are you? Yes, I am somewhere in the continent of Europe.
Heaven's no! No hitman for thee, Dear Graham. I ask only to help situate my feeble mind around the perspective a European must have in order to muster the moxy to challenge the US' commitment to fundamental civil rights. After all, isn't the UK imprisoning people for mean tweets? For silently praying on the street - or even in one's home if the prayer's sinister conduct can be viewed through his window? And isn't it all of Europe that's been savaged by rapes and knife crimes committed by the beneficiaries of its open border policies?
I disagree with some of your assertions. I found Sellers' background info on Title 10 and Insurrection Act clarifying.
Though I am just a citizen, not a lawyer, I understand the difference between lawful protest and unlawful violence. Understanding the key issue -- the legal precedents and rationale why the President nationalized control of the Guard against the wishes of the State -- is essential in assessing the threat profile of these actions. Are they setting a precedent for even more Federal intervention in local police matters?
I believe that neither the author nor I, a reader, would support violence or destructive acts against lawful acts by the authorities, but we need to recognize when efforts to suppress unlawful disorder may have crossed a line to become a threat to our constitutionally-protect rights. At that point, civil disobedience and even physical resistance may be called for,
Please to describe with as much factual precision as you can when and how the Executive's responses to the illegal immigrants of LA and the LA riots became a threat to our Constitutionally protected rights.
The strongarm response is an indication that adherence or otherwise to constitutional rights is not foremost on your government's mind. Or is the National Guard regularly called out to respond to a protest? The distinction between the forces of civil law and order, and those who fight in international conflicts is plain. It's in every constitution in the world. Police here, army there. It's in your constitution all because of the indiscretions of an English king, and precisely in order to avoid another head of state having to lose his head. Your challenge is specious.
Your government's lawyers are not checking on whether they adhere to law, they are seeking routes around the law that cite law as their authority, and then refusing to correct their acts when ordered to do so by the courts. If that's constitutional, then it's not a very good constitution.
Thanks for your thoughts. Once again, I seek clarity and precision wrt your claims this Executive has in any form or fashion violated the civil, Constitutional or state or federal statutory rights of anyone in these LA riots. I'm a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. I sue cops for a living. It is my own careful observation that none of the armed forces - state police, local police, otherwise - has detained, much less arrested, a single person for merely protesting. Full stop.
So the government's benign on this? You don't see this as an escalation? You don't think that it could form part of a step-plan to a police state? In Europe, we would think this. We would fear for our constitutions, but if that's what you feel there, then your constitution, and the court that defends it, must be very robustly in favour of the ordinary citizen. I envy you.
With respect, Europe is so vastly headlong into the police state that a Euro's admonitions about surveillance and authoritarianism more closely resemble a punchline than an argument.
Are there conclusions to draw from your resistance to sharing that precision and clarity I seek about the U.S. Executive's alleged violations of illegals' rights? When, how? Do you reject the duty of the Executive to enforce the nation's laws?
Sorry Don, I don't have time to straighten out your apparent obtuseness on this issue (or is it trolling?). Have a nice day.
You folks seem to often reach a time deficit in these discussions. Carry on.
Meanwhile, this border - unlike Graham's - is closed. The rub is that, in my country at least, we've recognized the "shiite" show for what it is and we are fixing it. It's now a one way street out. The grift is over. That is to say, the American democratic electoral apparatus appears to be in full form. My country has raised its democratic voice and it has been heard - quite unlike the EU leadership's response to its own vox populi. In the EU, France has tried to imprison its own anti-open border candidate, Le Pen. It is ignoring the Irish resistance to the throngs of Muslim interlopers. The EU simply rejected the democratically elected Romanian, an anti immigration pol. So, the real red herring here was Mr. Vincent's effort to attribute a US duty to accept illegals to a colonial original sin, a sin he claimed we share with our colonialist English forefathers. That common ground ends at each polity's commitment to democratic principles, doesn't it seem so?
And yet. Despite my best, good faith efforts at understanding them, I've heard not one jot, not one persuasive tiddle from those here in opposition to border enforcement. Saved by the bell!