This is absolutely insane. I cannot comprehend how the self-called land of the free can do this. Adults are one thing. But children? Children?? And be allowed to separate them for their parents from 10 years old??? This is vicious.
This is just insane to treat children and people like this.
It has always been nearly impossible to comprehend how the Nazis could put children on trains and send them to concentration camps. How could those actions be tolerated by the world and how could the Nazis be so cold and heartless. It's hard to wrap you mind around how it all happened. Well, you're seeing it happen before your eyes right now.
You have a president that is ordering this to be done. You have people that have been put into positions with unlimited power and no repercussions. You have elected officials that blatantly lie (propaganda system). You have a fear based system that prevents people from resisting. You have people of power and wealth (e.g. Tim Cook) that benefit from what's taking place, which further supports and enables the president's actions.
No this isn’t what the Nazis did. Comparisons like that are ridiculous.
The Nazi took members of ethnic minorities and put them into death camps and massacred them in horrible ways.
Comparing the deportation of illegal immigrants (illegals immigrants can be of any ethnic or religious background) with the industrial mass murder of entire ethnic groups? That’s an absurd comparison.
I agree that what happened to the young girl in the article was messed up but your comparison is still ridiculous.
EDIT: After I posted this comment, many people replied to me disagreeing with me. Rather than reply individually to each person I’ll just edit this comment and say what I have to say here.
There is a gigantic difference between deporting people who are in a country illegally vs targeting people for discrimination based on ethicality and/or religion.
The Nazis targeting ethnic minorities and placed them into labor camps. Which later became death camps.
That’s different than placing illegal immigrants who violated immigration laws (and once again I repeat include people of every ethnicity and every religion) into facilities to later be deported.
If people were being thrown into labor camps in America just for their ethnicity that would be akin to the nazis. But people are being deported for violating immigration laws and are being placed into facilities to facilitate the deportation. Illegal immigrants I repeat again and again can be members of any ethnicity or religion. The Nazis placed people into labor camps because of their ethnicity and later murdered them.
Furthermore many legally immigrant groups and ethnic minorities in America such as the Latinos in South Texas and South Florida voted for Trump specifically so he could pursue these immigration policies.
I agree these policies have gone too far though. What happened to the little girl in this article was messed up.
No one is disputing the severity of Nazi brutality. However, there were several other types of camps we can compare the Dilly TX center to: Internierungslager, Durchgangslager, and Schutzhaftlager.
These are not concentration nor death camps, but Nazi camps all the same. It's important to be familiar with all of history and not dismiss a comparison because it doesn't fit the most extreme version that we know. How close do you think the Dilly TX center is in it's operation to these other types of Nazi camps? In which ways are they similar or different? Does that change anything?
There is a gigantic difference between deporting people who are in a country illegally vs targeting people for discrimination based on ethicality and/or religion.
The Nazis targeting ethnic minorities and placed them into labor camps. Which later became death camps.
That’s different than placing illegal immigrants who violated immigration laws (and once again I repeat include people of every ethnicity and every religion) into facilities to later be deported.
If people were being thrown into labor camps in America just for their ethnicity that would be akin to the nazis. But people are being deported for violating immigration laws and are being placed into facilities to facilitate the deportation. Illegal immigrants I repeat again and again can be members of any ethnicity or religion. The Nazis placed people into labor camps because of their ethnicity and later murdered them.
Furthermore many legally immigrant groups and ethnic minorities in America such as the Latinos in South Texas and South Florida voted for Trump specifically so he could pursue these immigration policies.
I agree these policies have gone too far though. What happened to the little girl in this article was messed up.
(Actually I think I’ll edit my original comment to include this reply as well since many other people replied to me as well. Better that than reply to each person.)
Maybe we're seeing the same events under different motivational lenses.
I find it very difficult to believe that there is not an ethinic component to the events we are witnessing. Groups are not homogenous in their beliefs or desires. It's kind of telling when we start treating groups like South Texas or South Florida Latinos as if they have some homogenous view.
> The Nazi took members of ethnic minorities and put them into death camps and massacred them in horrible ways.
It was a process over almost 10 years to get to that. Before they were rounding up people to be deported, when it became an issue too large to process deportations the labour camps were next, so on and so forth until gas chambers and industrial murder became the final solution.
If you think the parallel is ridiculous, think again.
I’m waiting to find out that experimentations are being done on humans in ICE detention centers. It won’t be all of them of course but it will happen in at least one. The Germans supporting Hitler would never have believed it, but the exact same mindset is running the show here. Just a matter of time.
It's not an unfair comparison. They are building concentration camps. We hope they don't turn into death camps. If you read other investigations you'll find that people are dying in these detention centers (concentration camps).
> Then it was 42 hours of waiting in the airport holding rooms. Eventually they were put on a plane — then a minivan — to the facility in Texas. Maria Antonia said she didn’t really understand where they were going until they saw the center out the window.
The Nazis didn’t start by massacring ethnic (and political, sexual, and religious) minorities. They started by massacring mentally handicapped people.
But then they made noises about getting rid of undesirable people by shipping them out of the country. Prior to that plenty of dehumanizing rhetoric that Trump and others eerily echo. It was only after the forced deportations didn’t pan out that ghettos started. Then detention camps. And finally extermination centers.
It’s very reasonable to look events which appear similar to the start of genocides and decry them.
This sounds like an awful experience and I feel bad for the little girl that had to go through that.
Having said that, what should the penalty for overstaying a visa by ~7 years[1] be? Nothing? I'd love to see the Democrats propose an alternative approach here, but all I seem to hear is thought terminating cliches like "no one is illegal". Is the proposed alternative just open borders?
[1] > She lived in Colombia with her grandmother and regularly traveled back and forth to the United States to visit her mother, who had been in the U.S. since 2018. (Maria Alejandra had overstayed a visa but since married a U.S. citizen and was applying for a green card.)
Maybe if someone can live somewhere peacefully then they should be allowed to just live there. Maybe making laws that lead to horrors is the crime.
Maybe the real nihilists are the people who'd rather see unjust laws followed than to look at something evil and re-evaluate the legitimacy of giving power to the people doing the evil thing.
I'd like to see an amnesty, immigration reform to make the entire system possible to navigate and humane treatment of all involved.
The current administration approach is to unleash a masked, unaccountable paramilitary to hold people in warehouses converted into concentration camps.
I’m in favor of amnesty only because we have allowed employers and households to hire people without immigration status for decades. It’s absurd to punish the supply of labor and not the demand of it. At this point entire key sectors of our economy cannot function without illegal immigrants. Randomly punishing a small percentage of illegal immigrants does nothing to change that reality - and so it’s just performative pain rather than a solution.
We also as a democracy simply cannot allow the status quo of a permanent underclass of non-voting residents to be a large percentage of our population. It’s corrosive to have different classes of people with different labor protection rules, wages, etc. There simply is not a clean path forward that doesn’t involve some kind of amnesty simply because seeking justice would be a humanitarian and economic crisis.
Amnesty might not be justice, but as a nation it’s our penance for decades of destabilizing our neighbors and allowing this situation to continue. Let’s get a reasonable immigration system in place and move forward.
I’ve lived in several countries. When you get a visa, it’s always very clear that overstaying is a crime and if you do it you’ll never be allowed again in the country, or at least not for many years. But normally they just deport you immediately if you get caught. Going to an airport is the easiest way to get caught, but in countries like Australia they frequently check cafes and restaurant staff for illegals. I don’t know why they need detention centers though, just put them on the first airplane back home like they used to do.
Regardless of if there ought to be some sort of consequences for a civil (not criminal) infraction, the consequences shouldn’t fall on a 9 yo girl. I have no idea how the operators of the for profit detention center sleep at night.
Usually receiving a green card forgives any visa overstays. Because she married a US Citizen she would almost assuredly have received the green card. The months of suffering of a little girl are just due to a delay in a bureaucracy approving some paperwork.
Asking the wrong question, friend. What should the penalty be for failing to process an immigrant through your system for ~7 years? Where does the fucking buck stop? The US immigration system is broken, and has been, so where are the penalties for this mismanagement? I'd love to see Republicans propose a punitive approach here, but all I seem to hear is though terminating cliches like "should we just have open borders?"
But, absolutely - after we fix the broken system and start processing immigration in a reasonable and timely manner, then we can start asking what the penalties should be for people who abuse our immigration system. But I don't have an ounce of energy to spare on that deflection until the former is done.
This was killed twice today already, and is related to this story, so if anyone else can vouch to unkill: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060078
The current one has already been killed once, and is flagged again.
This is absolutely insane. I cannot comprehend how the self-called land of the free can do this. Adults are one thing. But children? Children?? And be allowed to separate them for their parents from 10 years old??? This is vicious.
> This is vicious.
Deterrence.
I guess it is to make parents less likely to try to bring children with them.
.. to Disneyland.
Voldemart flag again? Can we have a meeting about the Voldemort rules? Flagging seems to be out of control.
to whoever flagged this, your mom is a ho
Looking forward to the inevitable flagging by ThielBot Eschatron 3000
nice call. (unfortunately)
This is just insane to treat children and people like this.
It has always been nearly impossible to comprehend how the Nazis could put children on trains and send them to concentration camps. How could those actions be tolerated by the world and how could the Nazis be so cold and heartless. It's hard to wrap you mind around how it all happened. Well, you're seeing it happen before your eyes right now.
You have a president that is ordering this to be done. You have people that have been put into positions with unlimited power and no repercussions. You have elected officials that blatantly lie (propaganda system). You have a fear based system that prevents people from resisting. You have people of power and wealth (e.g. Tim Cook) that benefit from what's taking place, which further supports and enables the president's actions.
No this isn’t what the Nazis did. Comparisons like that are ridiculous.
The Nazi took members of ethnic minorities and put them into death camps and massacred them in horrible ways.
Comparing the deportation of illegal immigrants (illegals immigrants can be of any ethnic or religious background) with the industrial mass murder of entire ethnic groups? That’s an absurd comparison.
I agree that what happened to the young girl in the article was messed up but your comparison is still ridiculous.
EDIT: After I posted this comment, many people replied to me disagreeing with me. Rather than reply individually to each person I’ll just edit this comment and say what I have to say here.
There is a gigantic difference between deporting people who are in a country illegally vs targeting people for discrimination based on ethicality and/or religion.
The Nazis targeting ethnic minorities and placed them into labor camps. Which later became death camps.
That’s different than placing illegal immigrants who violated immigration laws (and once again I repeat include people of every ethnicity and every religion) into facilities to later be deported.
If people were being thrown into labor camps in America just for their ethnicity that would be akin to the nazis. But people are being deported for violating immigration laws and are being placed into facilities to facilitate the deportation. Illegal immigrants I repeat again and again can be members of any ethnicity or religion. The Nazis placed people into labor camps because of their ethnicity and later murdered them.
Furthermore many legally immigrant groups and ethnic minorities in America such as the Latinos in South Texas and South Florida voted for Trump specifically so he could pursue these immigration policies.
I agree these policies have gone too far though. What happened to the little girl in this article was messed up.
So basically you're okay with the trains and the camps, just not the showers and incinerators?
The nazis didn’t start doing that right away. It happened gradually.
No one is disputing the severity of Nazi brutality. However, there were several other types of camps we can compare the Dilly TX center to: Internierungslager, Durchgangslager, and Schutzhaftlager.
These are not concentration nor death camps, but Nazi camps all the same. It's important to be familiar with all of history and not dismiss a comparison because it doesn't fit the most extreme version that we know. How close do you think the Dilly TX center is in it's operation to these other types of Nazi camps? In which ways are they similar or different? Does that change anything?
There is a gigantic difference between deporting people who are in a country illegally vs targeting people for discrimination based on ethicality and/or religion.
The Nazis targeting ethnic minorities and placed them into labor camps. Which later became death camps.
That’s different than placing illegal immigrants who violated immigration laws (and once again I repeat include people of every ethnicity and every religion) into facilities to later be deported.
If people were being thrown into labor camps in America just for their ethnicity that would be akin to the nazis. But people are being deported for violating immigration laws and are being placed into facilities to facilitate the deportation. Illegal immigrants I repeat again and again can be members of any ethnicity or religion. The Nazis placed people into labor camps because of their ethnicity and later murdered them.
Furthermore many legally immigrant groups and ethnic minorities in America such as the Latinos in South Texas and South Florida voted for Trump specifically so he could pursue these immigration policies. I agree these policies have gone too far though. What happened to the little girl in this article was messed up.
(Actually I think I’ll edit my original comment to include this reply as well since many other people replied to me as well. Better that than reply to each person.)
Maybe we're seeing the same events under different motivational lenses.
I find it very difficult to believe that there is not an ethinic component to the events we are witnessing. Groups are not homogenous in their beliefs or desires. It's kind of telling when we start treating groups like South Texas or South Florida Latinos as if they have some homogenous view.
> The Nazi took members of ethnic minorities and put them into death camps and massacred them in horrible ways.
It was a process over almost 10 years to get to that. Before they were rounding up people to be deported, when it became an issue too large to process deportations the labour camps were next, so on and so forth until gas chambers and industrial murder became the final solution.
If you think the parallel is ridiculous, think again.
I’m waiting to find out that experimentations are being done on humans in ICE detention centers. It won’t be all of them of course but it will happen in at least one. The Germans supporting Hitler would never have believed it, but the exact same mindset is running the show here. Just a matter of time.
> The Nazi took members of ethnic minorities and put them into death camps and massacred them in horrible ways.
That's not how it started. It started with labor camps for political enemies and other undesirables. They became death camps step by step, over time.
We have to nip them in the bud before they have a chance to become death camps. People are already dying of neglect.
It's not an unfair comparison. They are building concentration camps. We hope they don't turn into death camps. If you read other investigations you'll find that people are dying in these detention centers (concentration camps).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46896823
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/10/us/ice-detain-irish-man-five-...
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0209/1557514-seamus-cul...
> Then it was 42 hours of waiting in the airport holding rooms. Eventually they were put on a plane — then a minivan — to the facility in Texas. Maria Antonia said she didn’t really understand where they were going until they saw the center out the window.
> they had been detained for nearly four months.
The Nazis didn’t start by massacring ethnic (and political, sexual, and religious) minorities. They started by massacring mentally handicapped people.
But then they made noises about getting rid of undesirable people by shipping them out of the country. Prior to that plenty of dehumanizing rhetoric that Trump and others eerily echo. It was only after the forced deportations didn’t pan out that ghettos started. Then detention camps. And finally extermination centers.
It’s very reasonable to look events which appear similar to the start of genocides and decry them.
This sounds like an awful experience and I feel bad for the little girl that had to go through that.
Having said that, what should the penalty for overstaying a visa by ~7 years[1] be? Nothing? I'd love to see the Democrats propose an alternative approach here, but all I seem to hear is thought terminating cliches like "no one is illegal". Is the proposed alternative just open borders?
[1] > She lived in Colombia with her grandmother and regularly traveled back and forth to the United States to visit her mother, who had been in the U.S. since 2018. (Maria Alejandra had overstayed a visa but since married a U.S. citizen and was applying for a green card.)
Maybe there shouldn't be a fucking penalty.
Maybe if someone can live somewhere peacefully then they should be allowed to just live there. Maybe making laws that lead to horrors is the crime.
Maybe the real nihilists are the people who'd rather see unjust laws followed than to look at something evil and re-evaluate the legitimacy of giving power to the people doing the evil thing.
I'd like to see an amnesty, immigration reform to make the entire system possible to navigate and humane treatment of all involved.
The current administration approach is to unleash a masked, unaccountable paramilitary to hold people in warehouses converted into concentration camps.
I’m in favor of amnesty only because we have allowed employers and households to hire people without immigration status for decades. It’s absurd to punish the supply of labor and not the demand of it. At this point entire key sectors of our economy cannot function without illegal immigrants. Randomly punishing a small percentage of illegal immigrants does nothing to change that reality - and so it’s just performative pain rather than a solution.
We also as a democracy simply cannot allow the status quo of a permanent underclass of non-voting residents to be a large percentage of our population. It’s corrosive to have different classes of people with different labor protection rules, wages, etc. There simply is not a clean path forward that doesn’t involve some kind of amnesty simply because seeking justice would be a humanitarian and economic crisis.
Amnesty might not be justice, but as a nation it’s our penance for decades of destabilizing our neighbors and allowing this situation to continue. Let’s get a reasonable immigration system in place and move forward.
I’ve lived in several countries. When you get a visa, it’s always very clear that overstaying is a crime and if you do it you’ll never be allowed again in the country, or at least not for many years. But normally they just deport you immediately if you get caught. Going to an airport is the easiest way to get caught, but in countries like Australia they frequently check cafes and restaurant staff for illegals. I don’t know why they need detention centers though, just put them on the first airplane back home like they used to do.
Regardless of if there ought to be some sort of consequences for a civil (not criminal) infraction, the consequences shouldn’t fall on a 9 yo girl. I have no idea how the operators of the for profit detention center sleep at night.
Usually receiving a green card forgives any visa overstays. Because she married a US Citizen she would almost assuredly have received the green card. The months of suffering of a little girl are just due to a delay in a bureaucracy approving some paperwork.
Asking the wrong question, friend. What should the penalty be for failing to process an immigrant through your system for ~7 years? Where does the fucking buck stop? The US immigration system is broken, and has been, so where are the penalties for this mismanagement? I'd love to see Republicans propose a punitive approach here, but all I seem to hear is though terminating cliches like "should we just have open borders?"
But, absolutely - after we fix the broken system and start processing immigration in a reasonable and timely manner, then we can start asking what the penalties should be for people who abuse our immigration system. But I don't have an ounce of energy to spare on that deflection until the former is done.
There are lots of options between the extremes of open borders and putting children in internment camps in inhumane and dangerous conditions.