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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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Mandatory nationwide e-verify and fines for employers (which will probably be blocked by liberal GOP senators + the filibuster anyway) aren’t going to lead to millions of illegal Central Americans self-deporting. By the way, many European countries already have their equivalents of this and still huge huge numbers of illegal migrants. American hospitals will still (under their own duties of care) treat these people for free when they walk in with an ailment, charities will still feed them, plenty of people will still hire them cash-in-hand or in less than scrupulous businesses.

What about the Tony Abbot method, as described by the Dreaded Jim here:

Everyone has interactions where you have to present your ID: Cops, welfare, hospitals, and so on and so forth. And they then run your ID through their computers. Which in Australia, if you are an illegal immigrant or have an expired visa, then automatically notifies the border control computers. Whereupon border control computer asks the cops to hold you around till the border patrol shows up, or border patrol shows up at the hospital or wherever.

Then, without bothering with lawyers and judges, the illegal is detained until he can arrange a plane out.

Tony Abbot did not introduce any new ID checks. He just leveraged existing ID checks. Every state and quasi state institution already routinely checks IDs. He just plugged in RPC calls between their computers, border control computers, and border patrol computers.

Illegal immigrants always show up in the hospital emergency room looking for free room, board, and medical care. The hospital always wants to see ID to figure out who they can bill. And what do you know? Turns out they can bill the Border Patrol. They apply for a driver’s license, they get caught. They drive without a license, and at a traffic stop, if no license, the cop wants their id.