There is no place for ICE in a civilized society

[Fords Crackpipe]

— (@fordskrackpipe.bsky.social) 2026-01-28T19:08:50.814Z

[Jedi Guy]

1. This will be an unpopular opinion, I'm sure, but I disagree.

There are laws regarding immigration and customs so there must necessarily be a body charged with enforcing those laws. Otherwise the laws are irrelevant. A law only matters insofar as it's enforced.

That said, there are ways to enforce the laws that recognize the humanity of the people impacted by those laws. The issue is that the people doing the enforcing are actively encouraged to view immigrants (and not just immigrants) as subhuman and so they act accordingly. The rot started at the top.

There'll always be a need for an ICE-like enforcement arm of the federal government but its current incarnation needs to be scrapped, the bad actors charged and prosecuted for any and all crimes they've committed and jailed if found guilty.

Then ICE needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. The name may be so tarnished that it's no longer salvageable, so call it what you will, but there has to be some mechanism to enforce immigration and customs law.

ETA: The nature of the immigrations and customs laws themselves is also in need of an overhaul but that's a legislative function rather than an executive one and this thread largely deals with the enforcement side, or at least that's my perception of it.

[Fords Crackpipe]

2. @JediGuy The civilized world who existed for centuries without ICE disagrees and sees them for the terrorists they are.

MEPs urge EU to block ICE from entering Europe for Winter Olympics
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/01/28/meps-urge-eu-to-block-ice-from-entering-europe-for-winter-olympics

[Jedi Guy]

3. You're mischaracterizing my argument, perhaps deliberately.

I agreed with you that we don't need ICE in its current incarnation. But every nation with a functioning government on planet Earth has some mechanism of enforcing its immigration and customs laws. Canada, for instance, has CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency. The various EU nations have similar agencies. If you illegally immigrate to one of those countries they won't just pat you on the head and give you a lollipop.

Immigration and customs enforcement can be done without deliberate and purposeful brutality, cruelty, and inhumanity. It's possible. Trump just doesn't give enough of a shit to bother or he actively gets his jollies out of observing the human misery his policies are creating. Whichever is the case doesn't really matter much.

[Fords Crackpipe]

4. It's you who mis-characterised my point that the EU should make ICE inadmissible by declaring them a terrorist org

The civilized world controlled its own borders for millennia before ICE & does not give a fuck whether USians think ICE is salvageable or not.

No ICE IN EU.

NO ICE in Canada.

From the civilized world, Have a nice day

[Jedi Guy]

5. I interpreted your post to mean there's no place for an immigration enforcement agency in the civilized world.

If that's indeed not what you meant, then I apologize. That's how I read it.

If the EU and Canada (or any other nation) want to bar ICE employees from entering their nations, that's their call to make and it certainly wouldn't keep me up at night.