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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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This assumes we think illegal in migrants have much in the way of rights or that they are being violated.

Illegal immigrants don’t have a right to be in the US and they don’t have a right to an onerous process to remove them from the US.

This doesn't assume that; in fact, it doesn't assume anything whatsoever about illegal immigrants because it's not talking about them. Please reread my post. I am very specifically talking about Democrats' fear, whether unfounded or otherwise, that Trump intends to start violating the rights of citizens if they happen to be his political opponents, and treat them like he's started treating illegal immigrants. This is not the only reason people are upset about the Garcia case - they also care about the rights of illegal immigrants qua illegal immigrants - but it is the one we are talking about right now.

You might be worried about a canary in a coalmine dropping dead because you care deeply about birds, and think it's terrible that a bird has been needlessly killed by poison gas. Equally, you might find concern for the bird secondary at best to the sudden fear that you, yes you, are at risk of choking to death. I am talking about the second thing, and saying that, at the very least, Trump's rhetoric has been less than reassuring.

Yes I could worry about all sorts of things but that doesn’t make the worry rational. Worrying that an illegal properly removed but improperly given to a particular country is not close to improperly removing a citizen.