Summary

Undocumented Chinese men are alarmed by Trump’s plan to prioritize their deportation, citing baseless national security concerns about “military-age” immigrants.

Many fled political persecution or economic hardship and reject claims of being a threat.

Legal experts warn of racial profiling and expanded ICE raids, urging immigrants to know their rights. Deportation fears grow as China cooperates in repatriation efforts.

Chinese immigrants express anxiety over family separations and harsh consequences if returned, emphasizing they seek safety and stability, not harm.

Critics call Trump’s policies cruel and unjustified.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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      2 days ago

      to be fair, they do not use the word “surprise” once in the article, “baffled” and “alarmed” are much more precise terms they accurately use, and undocumented migrants cannot vote.

      tldr, this isn’t really a leopards ate my face situation. (not saying that’s your point but just in case anyone gets the wrong impression and starts clowning on these poor guys.)

  • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    It’s standard fascist procedure. Always attack the weakest perceived out group first. Before going for the larger ones.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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    3 days ago

    Should be pretty easy for any Chinese citizen to claim refugee status, no? I mean basically every Chinese citizen is being persecuted by their government.

    Under international law, the US can’t deport someone who is pending refugee status

            • Ricky Rigatoni@lemm.ee
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              2 days ago

              Russia is not a friend to America. America and friends can do what they want. Remember all the war crimes America didn’t get punished for in Korea and Vietnam? Or in the middle east? Or south america? Or africa? Hell we probably did a few war crimes in antarctica.

              • MintyFresh@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Nah. We tried, turns out penguins are as sneaky and clever as they are vicious. Lost a battalion and a half. Cold wars coldest secret.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    If indeed focused on immigrants of Chinese descent, Trump’s deportation policies are likely to be challenged legally as a blatant example of racial profiling.

    Of course this will happen. It is racist, but that’s fine with them.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      US economy gonna instantly contract 5% if all the hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants have to shut down when their workers get deported

      • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Add the contraction from deporting all South and Central Americans (we’ll see if only those without papers or all).

      • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        If only it were just hole in the wall places…

        The local higher end places like sushi and hibachi joints are also staffed almost entirely by Chinese migrants around me. One of the places I worked for a while even had a weird arrangement to get people into the country, probably illegally (they didn’t stay with the company for more than a month before moving on to a bigger city, so I’m sure this was some sort of illegal immigration operation… none of my business.)

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          We had a Chinese restaurant here years ago that ran into issues with that. The manager of the location would bus his kitchen staff in every morning. And they would close it and he would bus them home at night. None of them could speak a lick of English apart from the manager. Who was Korean. The kitchen staff was Venezuelan and all undocumented. This went on for years with kitchen staff all living out of a motel on an outer road near the river.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            Venezuelan no-English kitchen staff working for a Korean manager for a Chinese restaurant?

            Fantastic mix.

            • bluewing@lemm.ee
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              2 days ago

              Lots of ethnic restaurants that the back of the house is staffed by illegal immigrant Hispanics. It seems they can pretty much out cook everyone.

              • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 day ago

                We had a little dive diner sort of place in town here that was bought out by a Hispanic family. Cool, do your thing la familia.

                They chose not to update the menu, from boring white people breakfast food to literally anything else. Problem is they had no fucking clue how to make boring white people breakfast food.

                So corned beef hash was just chopped bacon. White gravy was grainy and gross and clearly not made with enough browned oil/butter. So on and so forth. It was just not at all good, and they folded after a few months because yeah you just gave away the bacon (literally).

                So while yes often that’s the case, it really needs to be trained up as an ongoing thing and not just an assumption lol

          • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            I’m not sure exactly what you want me to say about it… I didn’t feel the anecdote required full backstory, but here ya go:

            I worked there years ago for a whopping 6 months, mostly removed from the work those migrants were doing. The owner of the place was a Chinese dual citizen with close ties to her homeland (she went to China 4 times while I was there). I observed these things happening, but frankly I have no idea if it was a legit program or human trafficking. I talked to most of the people that came through in that time (about 2/mth via text with google translate, because I don’t know enough mandarin to do it manually, but they were excited to talk to a native resident even through translate), and they all seemed happy and frankly excited for the opportunity to be there, and had free reign to travel onward to big cities when work came up in their social sphere, which they all did as soon as possible because I’m in a small town.

            When I say that it’s probably illegal immigration, what I assume the owner was doing is signing work visas for people to bring them over totally legally, and then just not disclosing that they moved on to other employers after a month. Or maybe the visas were transferred to the new employer, idk. None of my business.

            Many years prior to that job, when I was in highschool, I worked in industrial agriculture with half documented half undocumented Hispanic workers who were also happy to be there doing what they were doing, and the only thing any of them wanted to change was their legal status (they got paid same shit federal minimum wage as I did, which I know because my dad was the site manager). They were super sneaky, too, and didn’t speak English with any non-migrants at work… except me, despite being management’s offspring. Cuz I worked hard to keep up with them, and I’m cool and wouldn’t rat them out to management as speaking English while I muddle through terribly broken Spanish to keep the front up for them (plausible deniability is valuable at work). I’m chill with making management work harder to employ immigrants if that’s what they want (which they clearly did), but I’m also pretty chill with illegals, because the process to be legal is truly grueling at usually 20+ years.

            So… none of my business. If anyone had ever said or even mildly indicated they weren’t happy with the arrangement, I’d have made effort to do something about it, but they didn’t and I’m not here to ruin lives over speculation.

  • gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I’m not racist or nothing, but the biggest threat to this country is the white man. It makes me ashamed to share genetics with these troglodytes.

    • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      The biggest threat to our country are sweeping generalizations of entire races, classes and creeds.

      and not enough dead billionaires.

      ~Troglodyte

      • r4venw@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        There are only two things I can’t stand in this world: People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures, and the Dutch.

      • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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        2 days ago

        It’s not racist for @gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world to make this statement when viewed through the framework of critical race theory. This perspective emphasizes that “white” has never been a fixed racial category but rather a social construct tied to the maintenance of white supremacist power structures. As outlined in this article, “whiteness” functions as an ideology rather than a biological or ethnic identity.

        Example: Throughout U.S. history, groups such as Italians, Irish, and Jewish people were excluded from “whiteness” before being gradually assimilated into the category. This shifting definition of “whiteness” underscores its role in reinforcing systemic hierarchies, as discussed here.

        edit: My only qualm with their comment is the “sharing genetics” part, which, as discussed above, isn’t a real thing.

        • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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          2 days ago

          You’re correct, and if you wanted to be more specific, you can’t participate in systemic racism against the oppressing class. You absolutely can, of course, participate in non-systemic incidents of interpersonal racism, sometimes called “reverse racism.”

          But people who have no interest in examining the historical structures of white supremacy will downvote both your comments and mine because nuance isn’t as fun as calling each other racist. 🙃

          • stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Racism is a very specific term meant to point out the existence of a system of oppression. Interpersonal racism exists exclusively as a symptom of systemic racism, since there’s no societal system that oppresses white people, there’s no racism against white people — of any kind. Reverse racism is racist rhetoric on the level of “all lives matter” meant to deny and trivialize racism. Imagine calling battered women shelters sexist because they don’t allow men.

            • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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              2 days ago

              fully agreed. nevertheless, i try to allow a little grace in this discourse because race did exist as a concept outside and generally prior to white supremacist contexts. additionally i find it’s not rhetorically useful to brute force the language like that to ears primed to favor colorblindness. rather, i favor simply describing what kind of racism is going on, which in this case is explicitly and simply non-systemic.

          • stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Pointing out the existence of racism as a system of oppression isn’t promoting race based fights and the fact that you think it is is so racist it borders on comedy.

            “Hey, black people usually get harsher sentences than white people for the same crimes. We should, you know, stop doing that”

            “Hmm, actually, it’s the billionaires that are the problem so you should stop trying to pit people against each other based on their race”

            • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Keep on doing the work of the oppressor.

              Alas the poor fight the poor while the rich laugh their asses off.

              Ending racism with racism, fucking brilliamt. Its like they should fight fire with fire.

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Hi spujb. I had a very long debate about this already but feel free to discuss this through the lens of CRT without me. I’m not familiar enough with the specifics anyways.

              being correct on the internet is my second favorite hobby

              lmao. What’s your first?

              • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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                2 days ago

                Yeah no problem. I read through your debate and I feel that CRT is the lens which both of you need to come to an understanding. If not today, just want to give you that nugget if you are interested in future investigation :)

                What’s your first?

                cranking 90s in fortnite

                • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  It’s something I’m somewhat interested in, and it’s fairly important. Maybe I’ll do some proper research on it the next time I have some free time. Thanks for the suggestion!

                  cranking 90s in fortnite

                  Haha nice. Hope you get some time to do a few rounds this season :)

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  both of you need to come to an understanding.

                  That’s going to be difficult since he ran away whining about how I was daring to suggest he was a racist under false pretences.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Cool. This is like how I’m also antisemitic for being a Jew who doesn’t support Israel.

            Of course, a lot of people (maybe you) don’t consider Jews to be white. Elon sure doesn’t. So maybe I’m not racist against myself?

            • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              Whether or not Jews are white depends entirely on which is convenient for the people in power at the time.

              That’s really how whiteness works for everyone since the meaning expanded beyond just Anglo-Saxon Protestants

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I mean I’m sure you agree that being against the state of Israel or being antizionist doesn’t make you antisemitic.

              I don’t particularly know or care if the jewish people are “white” or not. Not really my place to say anyways I suppose.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                I also agree that white men have been responsible for more problems in the U.S. than any other group of people. Like all but one president.

                If you don’t know who is or is not white, how can you think it is even possible to be racist against white people?

                • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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                  how can you think it is even possible to be racist against white people?

                  Very easy. If you make or agree with sweeping generalizations about a race, you are racist.

                  That’s what racism is.

                • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                  Traditionally racism that is based on statistics and aggregate numbers still counts. If someone were to say that black people are on average responsible for [insert problem here], even if it were true, that’s generally considered racist.

                  And, that’s a bit silly. I can call someone doing racist black caricatures racist against black people without knowing if some particular country’s population is generally considered to be black.

            • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              False analogy, no one said anyone was racist against white people for saying they don’t support the US.

              If you’re agreeing with someone who literally maligned a race, you are racist too. Period.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Yes, again, I know you think accepting facts is racist, but I’m not going to lie to myself about factual statements.

                Unless you can tell me which group of people is a bigger threat. Feel free to use crime data.

  • ramsorge@discuss.online
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    4 days ago

    The gratitude I once felt toward the U.S for accepting me into the country

    Okay, so no one has actually accepted an undocumented person into the country. We all want them documented. We just have different ideas of what to do with them once they are “caught”

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      I have. And I know plenty of others who have. Undocumented people are not the problem. The problem is the system that forces them to be undocumented. We should make it easy to be documented and provide benefits for being documented. As well as making immigration easier. If we did all that. There would be hardly any undocumented people. And the problem with those people wouldn’t be so much that they were undocumented. But their reasons for being undocumented. We are forcing a lot of otherwise good honest people to be lumped in with a few criminals. In order to justify and fuel National xenophobia. That’s the sad honest truth. Because there’s no way we will ever document anyone and everyone that comes in across our thousands and thousands of miles of borders. It just human or technologically possible.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        We should make it easy to be documented and provide benefits for being documented.

        The 2nd half of that is already true as there are definitely benefits for being documented, one which is protection from being deported.

        The first part is trickier since there seems to be some confusion on what “undocumented” means. For instance if you’re already working with ICE then you are documented until the Immigration System makes its decision about you.

        “Undocumented” really means that someone is here without the knowledge of the authorities at all. Ideally the US Government would simply put a stake in the ground and grant amnesty for anyone already here and then tighten things up in the future. Unfortunately we already did that back in 1986 and while the “Amnesty” part got done the other part didn’t.

        Our immigration system is a dumpster fire of hodge-podged laws, executive actions, court decisions, and federal agency policies. Frankly we should scrap the whole thing and return to 'Ellis Island Style" until we can re-work it from the ground up to make it function correctly.

        Ellis is how my Grandparents got here and as a system it mostly worked.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          That’s a specious claim during the best of times. Considering we have a history of often deporting American citizens to Country they’ve never been to. As well as immigrants. And the fact that the Trump Administration orphaned thousands of children by doing the exact opposite. Though thankfully at Greek extra expense we were able to reunite many families. Though there are still many hundreds whose families haven’t been located and may never see their parents again. That doesn’t imply that that’s the way it is. Though it absolutely should be that way yes.

          Ideally the US Government would simply put a stake in the ground and grant amnesty for anyone already here and then tighten things up in the future.

          That’s a common lament of conservatives. It sounds great till you realize that there’s actually no way to do that. Otherwise we would have. Even if we spent every dollar of federal funding on useless walls they’re already circumventing. It wouldn’t fix it. Stationing the military across tens of thousands of miles would only succeed in spreading them thin and wasting money. If people want to be here. They will find a way.

          Ellis is how my Grandparents got here and as a system it mostly worked.

          Honestly, it wasn’t much better. It was weaponized against the Irish, Italians, Greeks and Jews. Much of my family predates Ellis and the pilgrims. We aren’t as fond of it.

    • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Something to keep in mind. Entering the country without documentation is a misdemeanor. When people are fleeing political persecution they can’t get the appropriate paperwork.

      A lot (not all) of these people come in and turn themselves in. The policy is (was?) recognize that minor documentation issue and let them stay while it gets resolved. In that manner yes they were accepted, if only temporarily, while their documentation problems are resolved.

      • ramsorge@discuss.online
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        I’m fine with that scenario. That’s “documented” in the sense that we know they are here. As long as they are actively seeking papers, I’m good.

        But it sucks to be them in 2025