You're attacking a strawman. Immigration law is like any other quota law. The point isn't whether a single person has satisfied a legal formality. The point is to regulate the aggregate scale of the activity through a legal procedure. It's like county fishing or park visitor licenses that are made available for a nominal fee or for free. The point isn't the license itself, it's to control the aggregate volume of fishing or visitors to the parks.

Similarly with immigration, the purpose of the legal formalities is to constrain immigration volume. If you think those volumes are not high enough, you can advocate to increase them. In 60% of polling this issue, Gallup has found that the support for increasing immigration has never exceeded 34%, and was under 10% from 1965-2000.

As to the rationales for limiting the volume of immigration, they are two-fold. One, people don't buy the argument that immigrants are good for them economically. Economists have lots of theories about public policy that people don't buy, like the idea of getting rid of corporate taxes: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Two, people have cultural preferences and want to limit the scope of cultural change. That's a perfectly legitimate rationale for limiting immigration. People in the Bay Area would be pretty upset if internal migration made Mountain View culturally more like Alabama. People in Wyoming would be upset if immigration made their town more like New Jersey. And those are people in the same country!

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oa335 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> In 60% of polling this issue, Gallup has found that the support for increasing immigration has never exceeded 34%, and was under 10% from 1965-2000.

From 2016 until now, Gallup polling has found that over 50% of the country supported increasing immigration or keeping it at the same levels.

In 2024 (height of anti immigrant sentiment in Gallup polls) only 47% supported “ Deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country”, eroding to 38% in 2025.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...

Anyone who purports to believe in the primacy of popular will should raise an eyebrow at the discordance between popular opinions and the political discourse surrounding immigration - unless of course their appeals to populism are merely fig leaf rationalizations?

	▲	rayiner a day ago \| parent [-]
		> From 2016 until now, Gallup polling has found that over 50% of the country supported increasing immigration or keeping it at the same levels. The factual trend over that period has been ever-escalating immigration levels. So it does not make sense to lump the people who support keeping immigration at the same level along with the folks who support increasing it.

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> You're attacking a strawman.

You are defending a criminal.

- it is not normal for the military to be sent to cities and locations that are run by political enemies to round up people

- putting people in concentration camps (that's what they are) is not normal.

- deporting people without due process is not normal

- using the military for policing duties is not normal

You're a lawyer. All of this should horrify you.

The USA was on the right path with decreasing immigration by making its neighbors more wealthy. Guess who ended that? The Trump regime creates problems which then only the Trump regime can solve, which is a game older than politics. And you're falling for it, hook, line and sinker.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

Your country has detention centers as well: https://www.government.nl/topics/return-of-foreign-citizens/.... The U.S. is an outlier in allowing deportable people to remain free pending their deportation proceedings.

For deportation the only "due process" is checking that someone is not in the country legally.

Many European countries use the military for policing, including your own.

As a lawyer, what horrifies me is six decades of non-enforcement of our immigration laws.

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, I know we have detention centers. Believe me I'm not happy about them.

> The U.S. is an outlier in allowing deportable people to remain free pending their deportation proceedings.

The US is an outlier in relying wholesale on an illegal workforce without representation and without healthcare or access to the legal system to keep their economy afloat.

> For deportation the only "due process" is checking that someone is not in the country legally.

Sorry, and given that this is a point of law, you are utterly wrong on this, which makes me wonder what else you are wrong about where you are so confident.

https://www.vera.org/news/what-does-due-process-mean-for-imm...

Have a read, and maybe adjust your priors a bit.

> Many European countries use the military for policing, including your own.

You keep saying that, here and elsewhere. But it just isn't true.

> As a lawyer, what horrifies me is six decades of non-enforcement of our immigration laws.

That is very much not true and you know it. The biggest problem with US immigration law is that it is (1) ridiculously complex (2) dealt with by understaffed entities (3) kept in place because industry and agriculture more or less depend on it and (4) effectively makes the country a vast amount of money.

If you're so horrified by it then you can blame your parents for picking a country to emigrate to that was soft on emigration. You can't pin this on the emigrants, many of whom were in the USA well before you were even born.

Meanwhile, you're on the record as a lawyer that argues incessantly on behalf of a government that is doing their level best to destroy the justice system that you've grown up in and that you - ostensibly - support. An extrajudicial assassination or two - let alone 11 - doesn't even cause a raised eyebrow, and mass deportations without so much as a chance of legal review doesn't either.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

No, indeed I don't like Wilders and his ridiculous approach to immigration, which is utterly unrealistic and has caused the downfall of several of our governments. And every time someone actually wants to really do something that might just work Wilders is of course against it because if that were to happen his whole reason for his continued employment would fall away.

> Maybe the problem is you?

You mean: because I hold a minority opinion I'm the one that is wrong? No, that's not how it works, not here and not in the general case. The fact that someone holds an opinion and whether or not a larger group of individuals holds a different opinion is not how you determine where the problem lies or who is wrong.

You do that by careful analysis of the underlying facts. And for NL those facts are quite complex, far more complex than Mr. Wilders and his merry band of incompetents makes it out to be. But that doesn't matter for him, in that sense Trump and Wilders are one and the same: push the fear button, as hard as you can and there will be plenty of people that vote for you.

To assume that populism is automatically right is a fairly big error and history is rife with examples of proof of that so I take it you won't be asking for citations.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

It’s not complicated. The pro-immigration people proceeded from a premise that turned out to be false. They thought you could pluck someone out of Syria or Iraq and put them in the Netherlands and the result would be indistinguishable (except in superficial appearance) from descendants of William of Orange. Had that premise proven true, nobody would know Geert Wilders’s name.

But it wasn’t true. It was a conceptual mistake closely related to George W. Bush’s erroneous belief that he could turn Afghanistan and Iraq into America through laws on paper. And that’s had tremendous downstream consequences.

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent [-]

> The pro-immigration people proceeded from a premise that turned out to be false. They thought you could pluck someone out of Syria or Iraq and put them in the Netherlands and the result would be indistinguishable (except in superficial appearance) from descendants of William of Orange.

I have absolutely no idea where you got this utterly bizarre notion of what went on in the Netherlands in the last 50 years or so. This is so far besides the point that you probably should just take the L and move on. But on the off chance that you are open to some input:

Syrians and Iraqi people in NL are here predominantly as refugees.

> Had that premise proven true, nobody would know Geert Wilders’s name.

No, we've had Geert Wilders like persons in different guises in the past. None managed to convert it into a life-long jobs program for themselves though.

> But it wasn’t true.

This has to be the mother of all strawmen ever on HN. You are just simply clueless about this.

> It was a conceptual mistake closely related to George W. Bush’s erroneous belief that he could turn Afghanistan and Iraq into America through laws on paper.

That too is completely disconnected from reality as documented in untold millions of pages of history.

> And that’s had tremendous downstream consequences.

Yes, there were tremendous downstream consequences. But you utterly missed the connection about the causes, which in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq go back to 1839 or so.

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rayiner a day ago | parent [-]

> Syrians and Iraqi people in NL are here predominantly as refugees.

What difference does that make? The point is that they didn't start behaving exactly like Dutch people when they stepped on Dutch soil.

	▲	jacquesm a day ago \| parent [-]
		The point is that you strongly suggest that we collectively expected them to do just that, when nobody did that. So it makes a big difference on why they are here, they had nowhere else to go, we made room for them, collectively, and tried to make it work. Not always equally successful but for the most part it did. Their kids are doing a lot better than their parents (I see plenty of them in the schools of my children). But, in an interesting turn of affairs, the same groups that were screaming 'foreigners!!! they'll take our jobs!!! they'll take our women!!! they are not Christians!!!' about Indonesian people in the 60's, Surinam people in the 70's, Turks in the 80's, Moroccans in the 90's, Poles, Romanians, Latvians, Armenians, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians and Afghans in the two decades after that are perfectly ok with it as long as it allows them to cling to their fears and stoke the division. Never mind that those first waves are now all but indistinguishable from the rest here. There still is a massive disadvantage to being non-white, so Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians have an easier time of it. And it will take a long time before that difference has been leveled, if ever. Unfortunately.

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ajross 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You are exhausting.

Here you're conflating "law" (the rule supposed to be followed) with "policy" (the mechanism used to enforce that rule). One can be broadly in favor of controls on aggregate immigration and still horrified at the means[1] chosen.

You really don't see how reasonable people might disagree with you?

[1] In this case[2] rounding up working engineers doing a job we all agree we want done via means that have been the norm since the 50's.

[2] The literally masked secret police force and salvadoran gulag things are sore points too.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

I’m not conflating anything. The actual effect of your “norm” has been vastly higher immigration than what is set forth in the law. So why would we continue to follow a norm that guts the law?

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ajross a day ago | parent [-]

Because it's wasn't putting clearly innocent people in jail? I mean... you get that, right? That there are worse things than "vastly higher immigration" that people might actually care about?

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-]

Who is innocent? My understanding is the number of legal citizens and residents detained and deported is nonzero, but close. Everyone being deported broke the law in some form or another.

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jacquesm a day ago | parent [-]

> Who is innocent?

Quite a few people by now, as a percentage of the total given the numbers involved. Oh, sucks to be them I guess...

> My understanding is the number of legal citizens and residents detained and deported is nonzero, but close.

Well, those people would be the innocent ones then, and 'close' isn't good enough for legal purposes. Wouldn't it be just too bad if you were the one to be deported as a result of one of these razzias? Or would you see your own deportation as taking one for the good of the country?

> Everyone being deported broke the law in some form or another.

Allegedly broke the law.

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-]

Close is all that is possible with human systems. The alternative is giving up on all legal action, because every single one is fallible.

Would you forego all law enforcement in your own country because of a nonzero error rate?

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jacquesm a day ago | parent | next [-]

> Close is all that is possible with human systems.

Yes, but there is 'close' with trying to get it as good as you can and there is 'close' without even trying. With is obviously better. To me, at least, even if it is slower.

> The alternative is giving up on all legal action, because every single one is fallible.

No, the alternative is to do your very best and to only disrupt lives when you have to, not just because you can. That's harder than just black and white and that is where judges come in and why people have a right to due process.

> Would you forego all law enforcement in your own country because of a nonzero error rate?

I don't think that's the choice. The choice is between having law enforcement that is bound by rules and law enforcement that is not bound by rules. The latter is - to me - unacceptable. I think everybody has a right to due process.

The last time we had a regime in NL that did not agree with that thesis is still very much in living memory here so I don't think you're going to find a lot of takers for Razzias and mass deportations. If that were to happen here in NL I'd find the nearest barricade and join the resistance. And I'm pretty sure I would not be alone in that.

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-]

All the concern from our European friends strikes me as somewhat hypocritical. My understanding is that NL has administrative deportations as well, essentially the same legal process the US is using. They also have a history of being much tighter immigration enforcement than the USA.

It especially seems like pearl clutching in the context of this article. What would the NL do if Tesla or some such was found to be employing hundreds of illegal workers without proper visas? Would they be deported and would you grab a molotov join the resistance?

I think most reasonable people can agree officials should be bound by rules and law. There as substantial difference on what people think those rules are.

There is also a huge subset of people that care nothing of the law, and think deportations are illegal because they don't agree with their politics.

	▲	jacquesm a day ago \| parent [-]
		> My understanding is that NL has administrative deportations as well, essentially the same legal process the US is using. With as massive difference that we don't do razzias by masked people arresting as many people as they can to meet their quota. See, we still have a functional legal system here where you can get your day in court, even as an immigrant, illegal or otherwise. Not that there aren't voices like Trump's here in NL, clearly we have those idiots here too. And unfortunately they are doing well in the polls. But for the moment, there are still crucial differences between NL and the USA when it comes to the rule of law. > They also have a history of being much tighter immigration enforcement than the USA. That depends. There is first of all the massive difference between six different groups of countries: - the neighboring countries of Luxembourg and Belgium with whom we have been in a kind of mini-EU for many decades - then there are the main trading partners France, Germany and until recently the UK with whom we had very good reciprocal relationships. - Then there are the - mostly former - colonies. - Then there are the countries in the Schengen area of the EU - then the rest of the EU countries. - Then we have some long running friendship programs with for instance, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan - Then we have exceptions for students from all over the world - Then there are refugees from war zones - Then there are refugees for other reasons (for instance: because they are persecuted in the country they are from for their religion or sexual preferences) - and then there is everybody else As you can see, it gets complicated. If NL would find that Tesla was employing hundreds of illegal workers without proper visa's I'm fairly sure that they would first look at what the actual damage is and how the situation could be addressed. There likely would be a joint effort by EZ and Immigration to work out what should be done and this would then be implemented. At no point anywhere in that process do I see a razzia of a construction side as even a remote possibility. > Would they be deported and would you grab a molotov join the resistance? That's not how resistance works here in NL, but if they did start violence against what we call guest workers here, then yes, I would definitely come to their defense and so would a couple of hundred thousand other Dutch people. Simply because we are more than happy to serve as check on our authorities when they start doing inhumane stuff. > I think most reasonable people can agree officials should be bound by rules and law. There as substantial difference on what people think those rules are. Well, one thing that is simple is that there is an automatic right to due process here, no matter what the crime. And that right to due process includes a right to appeal and then if you have had your day(s) in court and have lost then in fact you can be deported and this does actually happen. > There is also a huge subset of people that care nothing of the law, and think deportations are illegal because they don't agree with their politics. That could be, but I don't personally know any such people.

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TimorousBestie a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> Close is all that is possible with human systems. The alternative is giving up on all legal action, because every single one is fallible.

There are other alternatives. Many countries have rational immigration rules and enforcement.

> Would you forego all law enforcement in your own country because of a nonzero error rate?

A blatant false dilemma.

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s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-]

What do those rational immigration rules and enforcement look like? From my perspective, the US is still more lax than most of Europe.

None have birthright citizenship. None have an ongoing global amnesty program like the USA. AFAIK, All have administrative deportations without jury trial. Some countries require dual registration of every resident by landlords and tenants to verify residence.

I think the republican right dreams of the type of immigration controls that are common in Europe.

>A blatant false dilemma.

The dilemma is forced if "close isn't good enough". It is a reasonable conclusion from the statement.

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TimorousBestie a day ago | parent [-]

> The dilemma is forced if "close isn't good enough". It is a reasonable conclusion from the statement.

If you believe this, then there’s nothing to discuss. In your ontology, my stance is equivalent to having absolutely no law enforcement whatsoever.

	▲	s1artibartfast a day ago \| parent [-]
		I have no clue what your stance is. I was responding to someone else. You are correct about the point I was making. If someone demands perfection or nothing, they are advocating for nothing.