The move, which could expose unregistered migrants to criminal prosecution, represents a drastic escalation of the administration’s efforts to push millions of immigrants to leave on their own.
Currently it is a civil failure to be in the US without papers. This makes it a criminal act to not voluntarily register on this list. Since almost no-one is going to voluntarily register (as it will be akin to loading yourself on a deportation flight immediately), it gives them way more leeway for detention and abuse by labelling them actual criminals.
They already routinely pretend that anyone who crosses a border is a criminal in their rhetoric and will find a random bullshit misdemeanor something in 99/100 cases where they want to, but, yeah, this would give them another way to do that.
I struggled a bit with laughing at this one because there is a real sinister intent here (thank you for highlighting it btw), but it is also just such smooth brained fascist behavior that I couldn’t help myself.
That’s not the point.
Currently it is a civil failure to be in the US without papers. This makes it a criminal act to not voluntarily register on this list. Since almost no-one is going to voluntarily register (as it will be akin to loading yourself on a deportation flight immediately), it gives them way more leeway for detention and abuse by labelling them actual criminals.
They already routinely pretend that anyone who crosses a border is a criminal in their rhetoric and will find a random bullshit misdemeanor something in 99/100 cases where they want to, but, yeah, this would give them another way to do that. I struggled a bit with laughing at this one because there is a real sinister intent here (thank you for highlighting it btw), but it is also just such smooth brained fascist behavior that I couldn’t help myself.