I disagree. What we have here is that random incidents that happen all the time are seized on to make a political point.
From that linked article: " The US CBP denied the allegations, with assistant commissioner of public affairs Hilton Beckham telling Newsweek: “These claims are blatantly false with respect to CBP.” "
There is no "escalating number" of similar incidents. If there are then show me the numbers. It's not news that border guards occasionally get power trips and take it out on whoever happens to be there. I can find you dozens of examples over the year[s] (and if I've heard of dozens there's many more). This is out of 10's of millions or more entries. When you're arrested you also might be strip searched, forced to shower, and other inconveniences. Is it great? No. Is it new? Not really.
What we need to call out isn't the US not living up perfectly to its purported values. That's not exactly news. Civil forfeiture anyone? What we need to call out is the crazy political climate and people becoming hysterical over anecdotes. If we do see a clear pattern that things are shifting in a major way- then we'll talk. Having a fact based, not an emotion based, political discourse is the important thing.
and i disagree with you. once again, these are facts and numbers - it's not enough to wait until the situation becomes so dire that we no longer have the ability to legally, meaningfully respond and reverse our circumstances. it's also disingenuous (at best) to downplay these violations of rights ("this happens all the time", "they gave him a shower", etc) - this is the normalization of abuse of power. whenever these violations/abuses have happened they've been wrong, and we should always call them out as wrong and act to prevent them from happening again.
furthermore, if you only care about statistics then abuses of vulnerable populations must be acceptable unless they hit some threshold of statistical significance. you can excuse horrific acts based on the idea that a minority is only a small percentage of the total population or that their abuse is only a small percentage of total abuse, as you're doing here. that's the point of creating a social system which protects everyone - that people who comprise a minority are not singled out and abused. murderers and serial killers also target relatively small percentages of the population, but we don't allow them to roam freely.
when the government no longer cares about its own values, laws, and separation of powers, we no longer have a government of the people. this is a an existential issue, not a "wait and see" situation.
I agree with you that we should not normalize abuse. It's fine and required that we call these things out. I'm with you on that one.
Where I'm not with you is on the mass hysteria that the world is ending and the grasping on what are anecdotes to fuel a political struggle. The American left has collectively lost their minds it seems and they want to turn their prediction that this is the end of democracy in the US into a prophecy that fulfills itself.
The latest on the Brown professor is that the judge accepted that the deportation happened before his order could reach the border agents. The CBP also responded they would not violate a judge's order. So all seems at it should be. If judge's orders are violated there are mechanisms to deal with that such as holding those people in contempt and sending them to jail. It's true that there could be a constitutional crisis if e.g. the president pardons those people but it seems we're not there yet.
There is a fine line here between order and anarchy. Let's stay on the order side. A few cases don't prove anything. We are seeing a policy shift which is what this administration said it would shift if it got into office. For the most part this policy is under their control and people knowingly voted for that. Democracy means accepting that even if it differs from what you think. We are seeing ever increasing polarization which on its own is going to lead to the destruction of democracy. This should be more worrying.
From that linked article: " The US CBP denied the allegations, with assistant commissioner of public affairs Hilton Beckham telling Newsweek: “These claims are blatantly false with respect to CBP.” "
There is no "escalating number" of similar incidents. If there are then show me the numbers. It's not news that border guards occasionally get power trips and take it out on whoever happens to be there. I can find you dozens of examples over the year[s] (and if I've heard of dozens there's many more). This is out of 10's of millions or more entries. When you're arrested you also might be strip searched, forced to shower, and other inconveniences. Is it great? No. Is it new? Not really.
What we need to call out isn't the US not living up perfectly to its purported values. That's not exactly news. Civil forfeiture anyone? What we need to call out is the crazy political climate and people becoming hysterical over anecdotes. If we do see a clear pattern that things are shifting in a major way- then we'll talk. Having a fact based, not an emotion based, political discourse is the important thing.