
Anti-Immigrant Ads Aimed at Tech Workers Are Running on Public Transit - johnny313
https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/anti-immigrant-group-bart-ads-us-tech-workers-h1b-visa
======
tabtab
I don't know the motivation of the poster authors, but the H-1B program is BS
as stated in law. I've seen it abused with my own eyes. Corporations just want
cheap and/or complacent labor, and use the "shortage" lie to get it. IT may be
in an up cycle now, but it's had hard times also, such after the dot-com bust
on the west coast, and citizens were being replaced or skipped during the hard
times.

~~~
RamshackleJ
Yep, being anti-h1b !== being anti-immigrant. Immigrants who are free to hop
jobs are a key component of a vibrant, entrepreneurial, worker-friendly
economy. Immigrants who are disposable, bonded labor undermine the freedoms
everyone else has while also promoting inefficient labor allocation.

not sure if this organization actual feels that way though...

~~~
tabtab
I forgot to describe what I meant by "complacent" and you helped clear that
up. Thanks! While it is technically possible for such a visa worker to hop
jobs, it's not easy in practice, such that they are more or less indentured
servants. They also often don't have families (yet) and so can work long
hours.

By the way, "!==" (or "!=") means "not the same as" for you non-coders out
there.

------
hliyan
I read the text of the ad without making any assumptions, and I was hard
pressed to find any fault with it. The only problem appears when you factor in
who's saying it and what you _think_ the ad is saying.

Edit: in case readers assume I'm being racist in some way: I'm a Sri Lankan
national.

~~~
lightbyte
I think the name of the organization that is running the ad is also a problem.
They seem to be trying to co-opt the "progressive" label for something that is
completely opposite to what it is supposed to (over the last few years) stand
for.

I can't tell if they are intentionally doing that for nefarious reasons.
Imagine seeing a "Conservatives for repealing the 2nd amendment" ad. I would
assume they have some ulterior motives there.

~~~
Symmetry
It was really weird to me when people in the 21st century started calling
themselves to differentiate themselves from other sorts of liberals. Modern
progressives and the progressives of the Progressive era share many features
but traditional progressives were strongly associated with moral paternalism
and eugenics. Seeing people I would have called liberals start calling
themselves progressive was as jarring as Trump's use of "America First". And I
think that nativism isn't unknown to modern progressives. I think Bernie
Sanders is commonly considered a progressive and he was very down on
immigrants depressing native worker's wages.

~~~
jnbiche
> he was very down on immigrants depressing native worker's wages.

I'm not a Sanders supporter, but just wanted to point out that one can be both
pro-immigrant (wanting to increase general immigrant quotas) and against
programs like H1B that are designed to suppress salaries in specific
industries.

~~~
Symmetry
Well, most Sanders supporters are way more pro-immigrant than he is so being
pro-Sanders doesn't really mean that much here. There was some great reporting
in I think the New York times a while ago on the beliefs of the supporters of
various presidential contenders. And yes, you can certainly be against a
certain policy without being anti-immigration. I'm for drastically expanding
US immigration but replacing H1Bs with programs that don't tie people to a
particular employer is something I would support.

------
geebee
Ugh, this hurts.

I've repeatedly argued here on HN that while I support immigration generally,
and would like to see a good program for skilled immigration, I am generally
opposed to the H1B and other employer sponsored visas.

The reason comes down to basic freedom. Immigrants should be free to choose
their career path in response to personal interests and market signals, just
as people born in the US. I don't think that tech employers should have the
right to decide who is and isn't allowed to live and work in the US. I think
that is virtually guaranteed to be abused.

I think that this power on the part of tech companies has skewed the market,
badly. If I refuse, for instance, to take google's white-board exam on data
structures as part of an interview, google can say to me "ok, then we won't
hire you", and that's fine. But what if they get to say "ok, then we won't
bestow upon you the right to live and work in the US, or grant you a spot in
the queue for permanent residency"?

I pretty much believe that if people with the freedom to choose their path in
live don't want it to involve becoming a software developer in the valley at
the salary offered under the conditions demanded by tech companies, that's the
market's answer. I absolutely do not support giving google control over a
shadow immigration system where they can coerce would-be immigrants as a
condition of living and working in the US.

Beyond that, there have been some pretty horrendous black eyes for the
program, such as Epson, Disney, and UCSF's decision to fire tech workers and
have them train their replacements brought in on a visa marketed specifically
for people with skills you can't find in your existing workforce.

This ad campaign, though, to me, is cringeworthy. Ever see that argument hat
allows your opponents to see you the way they want to, attribute to you
positions you don't hold, and avoid engaging with the arguments you've raised?
This is pretty much it.

~~~
maoistinquisitr
> would like to see a good program for skilled immigration

It's very difficult to build a case that we need any immigration at all,
skilled or otherwise. All claims that we need high skill immigration come from
either the immigrants themselves, or employers with an interest in wage
suppression. It's plain fact that most "high skill" jobs are not seeing real
wage growth. Ergo, there is no real shortage. Americans would fill these jobs
as wages and working conditions improved.

------
ysv2
The reaction to this ad is predictably absurd. The far left's constant push to
draw increasingly unremarkable positions like "US jobs should go to US
workers" as beyond the pale is why we're stuck with Trump.

For my part I don't even agree with the ad, and I consider myself lucky to
work with my H-1B coworkers. But it can be disagreed with minus the pretense
that it's equivalent to painting a swastika on the side of a bus.

~~~
always_good
>The far left's constant push to draw increasingly unremarkable positions like
"US jobs should go to US workers" as beyond the pale is why we're stuck with
Trump.

Well said. Just like how anti-illegal-immigration (an unremarkable position)
is now synonymous with anti-Mexican.

It creates scenarios like the article where you're kneejerk labeled a racist
and that's supposed to be self-evident.

~~~
dashundchen
> Well said. Just like how anti-illegal-immigration (an unremarkable position)
> is now synonymous with anti-Mexican.

Have you considered this is because the some of the loudest voices on the
right have wrapped up the immigration debate with some nasty rhetoric based on
race, nationality and nationalistic emotion, not policy or fact?

Do any of the statements linked below, which were well reported on, seem like
productive ways to discuss immigration?

[http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/donald-trump-announces-
pr...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/donald-trump-announces-presidential-
bid-trashing-mexico-mexicans-n376521)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-
don...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-
has-said-about-latinos_us_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b)

[http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/trump-slams-shithole-
countr...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/trump-slams-shithole-countries-in-
oval-office-meeting-on-immigration-1134990403518)

~~~
bassman9000
Guilt by association. Not an argument.

~~~
dashundchen
I'm not sure why that isn't an argument to be considered. The fact is these
statements (referring to Mexicans as rapists and murders, "shithole
countries") keep being made by the president, who historically has some sway
over the legislative debate, especially when their party controls both
chambers of congress.

I'd like to know, do you think these are reasonable, good-faith openers for
debate? I don't, especially when so few on the right seem to be able to rebuke
them and move on to a real discussion.

~~~
bassman9000
If being anti-illegal-immigration automatically makes you aligned with Trump,
yes, it's a bad opener.

And still not an argument.

------
oneworld
I agree with the ads. I don't see them as being anti-immigrant. It is calling
for reforms in the H1B system. We need to reform the visa system and the
subsequent GC process. Why do the loud voices on the Left (&the Right)
conflate everything with whatever agenda they are pushing. Merit based
immigration might help me and thousands of immigrants. In the whole spectrum
of immigration issues, there is a sliver that both the left and the right can
agree on. Employers viewing H1Bs as lower cost dispensable workers is
definitely not desired by both sides. FWIW, I am an immigrant on H1B with both
bachelor's and masters degrees from US universities.

~~~
aggronn
"Hire US Workers" doesn't strike you as anti-immigrant?

I don't see this as looking for constructive reform for, as an example, better
conditions for H1B residents who have no mobility or leverage. Its saying
"Stop H1B and stop foreigners from taking our jobs". If thats not their
message, I don't know what is.

~~~
cwperkins
Absolutely not, I don't see it as protectionist either. If NYC had a problem
with hiring native born New Yorkers because out-of-staters had comparable or
better skillsets for lower prices than I would have no problem seeing a subway
campaign saying Hire New Yorkers. I think at some level the barrier needs to
be higher for out-of-towners wanting to move to a new place so that the city
does not become unlivable for the people that have lived there their whole
life or generations. The question is what is the right balance. If tech
workers are hurting because they are being undercut by foreign labor I think
it is unfair to point a finger and call them anti-immigrant when the system is
set up in a way that corporations can abuse the system.

Anecdotally I have previously worked at Wall Street banks that used "Body
Shops" with fixed term contracts to fill positions that otherwise Americans
could fill. It's awesome working with smart people from over the planet, but
the system needs to be configured in such a way that it does not undercut
American wages. Companies need to be able to seek out specialized talent that
they cannot find in their own local market, but it is abused so much that it
cannot continue in its current form.

~~~
aggronn
I guess the difference here is our views on tribalism? I don't see people who
live outside of my community as "others" who I need protection from. I would
gladly earn less money to experience greater diversity and give people outside
my community and opportunity to join mine.

I think for me, the line might be around protecting against transience. IF you
want to join my community, people who are looking to contribute and leave a
lasting impact should get benefits over people who are there to make money and
leave. But there isn't really a great way to monitor this.

------
DonaldPShimoda
> “I don’t see where innovation necessarily comes from diversity,” [the
> executive director at Progressives for Immigration Reform, the group that
> paid for the ads,] said.

I can't claim to know Lynn's exact thoughts (Lynn being the person quoted
here), but this kind of rhetoric is common among racists/xenophobes.

Diversity (in some respect) is inherently good for innovation. You could have
a room full of CS PhDs, and if they all come from similar enough backgrounds
then they may all come up with the same solutions to certain problems. "Merit"
on its own isn't always enough. Simply having a different background could
give someone an edge in such a group when it comes to innovation.

I think skill-based immigration is important and useful, though I do think
that there should be some sort of regulation to ensure that (1) immigrants are
not exploited (they are paid fair wages equal to what a non-immigrant would be
paid for the same job) and (2) some effort was put into recruiting from the US
first (because I think US-based companies have a duty to the United States and
its citizens, at least to some extent).

~~~
yazan94
> I can't claim to know Lynn's exact thoughts (Lynn being the person quoted
> here), but this kind of rhetoric is common among racists/xenophobes.

It is also common with people who are more focused about hiring the most
qualified people rather than being politically correct or fulfilling quotas.

> You could have a room full of CS PhDs, and if they all come from similar
> enough backgrounds then they may all come up with the same solutions to
> certain problems. "Merit" on its own isn't always enough. Simply having a
> different background could give someone an edge in such a group when it
> comes to innovation.

I get what you are trying to say, though I do disagree. If you define
diversity as different ethnic, cultural, etc. backgrounds, I think having a
group of all-<insert group here> with different educational backgrounds (PhDs
in CS, Engineering, Math, Physics, etc) would be more beneficial for
innovation than having all CS PhDs but from different cultural backgrounds. I
do not have any evidence to back up my claim, but I also haven't seen much
evidence to prove that cultural diversity is more important than educational
diversity. I would love to read more if you have any articles/studies

~~~
joshuamorton
The best we have are case studies of non-diverse teams reliably making
products that aren't very good for people who look different, despite being
highly educated and crossfunctional. The very common example is the Google
Photos image search labelling dark-skinned people as gorillas (and more
broadly facial recognition and machine learning biases towards light skinned
people in a variety of ways). But there are others I've seen.

It comes down to needing an advocate. Unless you have someone who advocates
for making your products inclusive, you won't end up with inclusive products,
and the _best_ advocate is almost always an engineer who says "hey team this
product doesn't work for me". (Edit: I should add, this is true for pretty
much any feature, not just inclusive ones, but its _also_ true for them)

There's no reason a machine learning team needs physics PhDs. There is a
reason that same machine learning team needs dark skinned machine learning
PhDs.

>It is also common with people who are more focused about hiring the most
qualified people rather than being politically correct or fulfilling quotas.

Right, and given that most people don't want to explicitly state that they're
bigoted, often people who are racist and xenophobic claim to hold their views
because they care about hiring the most qualified people rather than being
politically correct. Perhaps you aren't, but its a worryingly common tactic.

~~~
anon12345690
that's called user testing and focus groups, not forcing the developers to
look different just to get a job

~~~
joshuamorton
Focus groups are not an advocate. Focus groups are not a developer with a
vested interest in the feature doing what they want. Focus groups cannot be as
effective.

I address this, but you seemed to ignore it.

~~~
anon12345690
you didnt address it, you proclaimed that products wont be inclusive (whatever
that means) unless you have someone advocating for it, which you then describe
as having someone who looks different.

its not like people cant understand other perspectives, its not that hard, and
focus/user groups would catch all the of examples you cite, just like any QA
testing catches bugs and edgecases

~~~
joshuamorton
>you didnt address it, you proclaimed that products wont be inclusive
(whatever that means) unless you have someone advocating for it, which you
then describe as having someone who looks different.

And gave examples of that happening. Repeated, continued examples in the same
context (facial processing).

>its not like people cant understand other perspectives, its not that hard,
and focus/user groups would catch all the of examples you cite

But empirically they don't. Yes, they should. But they don't. This keeps
happening, which would imply that the user groups aren't actually catching
these examples, or maybe they are, but again without an advocate, a single
complaint, or even some complaints, doesn't matter.

So let me ask you, who is more likely to advocate for changes to fix a bug: an
engineer who is directly affected by that bug, or one who isn't?

------
archagon
It's sad how susceptible people here are to propaganda[1]. You can be
completely against H-1B and still find these ads deplorable. Don't let
malicious actors brainwash you.

[1]: [https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2010/10/08/anti-
immigran...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2010/10/08/anti-immigrant-
groups-continue-greenwashing-campaign)

------
brandonmenc
H-1B workers aren't immigrants - they're foreigners being exploited for cheap
labor, driving wages down for everyone - including themselves.

I think your typical anti H-1B person would have no problem blanket granting
all H-1Bs citizenship in order to equip them with the agency required to
demand fair wages for themselves, which would level the playing field for
everyone.

~~~
jnbiche
> I think your typical anti H-1B person would have no problem blanket granting
> all H-1Bs citizenship

I wouldn't, as long as we didn't continue to bring in immigrants targeting one
specific profession such as continued H1B, and instead increased general
immigrant quotas, perhaps half skilled (college educated) and half "low skill"
(who have often become successful entrepreneurs here in the US).

~~~
nowayjose123
Aka the Canadian model.

~~~
jnbiche
I love the Canadian immigration system. I'd love to shift to a similar system.

------
joshuaheard
Only 30% of tech workers in Silicon Valley are Americans? I'd say there was an
imbalance there that should be addressed.

~~~
cgy1
I believe that's a debunked stat. 30% might be native born, but that doesn't
account for foreign-born U.S. citizens, even ones that grew up in the U.S.

~~~
JimboOmega
Yeah that REALLY caught my eye; in the context I read it as "citizens and
nationals of the US" (when they say "Americans"). Even is SJ is cherry picked,
it is a big employment center and that number is shocking. The implication
being that visa-holders are getting the majority of jobs.

If it is based on country of birth I'm way less impressed.

Where did that number even come from? Country of birth isn't something
companies usually collect.

------
stuffedBelly
Ok, I've seen this statement quite often from all these worker unions. Can
someone point me to a source showing:

1.what fraction of the job market H1B workers took away?

2.among these jobs taken, how many were taken by H1B workers that are brought
in directly from other countries?

3.how many are people who went through college/master/PhD eduction in the US
and followed the rules and got H1B?

It must not be hard for DHS to gather these stats, right? It would be a lot
easier to counter arguments/come up with strategies using these statistics.

------
BuckRogers
The fix is easy. Mandate that every employee on a visa is paid twice the
amount of the company's highest earner. Them they'll truly only bring people
over when they have to. If you'll pay double the going rate, you can bring
over as many as you want.

But it needs to be purely pushing wages up, not down under any circumstance.
This guarantees that.

------
matt4077
This issue is a great example of a real-world “leaky abstraction”: we use this
mental model of a market’s function, where prices are set by the interaction
of supply and demand. And it’s a great model! It’s almost indispensable if
you’re selling apples or buying a home.

But the IT job market, specifically in Silicon Valley, is an almost
pathological failure case.

There have been hundreds of attempts to replicate the unique success of
Silicon Valley across the world. Even within the US, where the regulatory
environment, market size, and other confounding factors can be ruled out, they
have all failed to varying degrees. The not-so-secret secret to SV’s success
is now pretty well established to be very similar to an airport’s “meeting
point”: It doesn’t actually matter that much where it is, as long as there are
enough signs leading you there. And there needs to be just one meeting point,
or the concept falls apart pretty quickly.

SV is the meeting point of tech. Throw the best people, some good
universities, a lot of capital, and maybe a decade of experiments with LSD in
one pot, stirr, wait, and watch it bloom.

Tech immigrants in the Valley are competing for jobs on the micro level. But
zoom out just slightly, and they are a necessary ingredient of building the
world’s most competitive innovation pressure-cooker.

It may be useful to make the analogy with capital: just like people are
competing for jobs, VC firms are competing for deals. Yet you never see
attempts by that industry to restrict foreign capital to flow into the Valley,
even though they would have all the resources to make their case to
legislators.

On a moral level, there is something not quite right about professionals with
$60,000+ starting salaries to be antagonistic towards those using education
and dedication to seek a better future among them. But even if you reject what
some will surely call “SJW virtue signaling”, you should pragmatically choose
to advocate for policies that help both you and your presumptive competitors:
advocating for some of the practices that are close to indentured servitude
will do just that.

But that’s difficult to do, in practice: are you actually advocating for their
benefit? Or are you trying to drape so many gold chains around their neck that
they’ll sink, I. e. pricing them out of the market? If you are in SV, you have
all the possibilities to discuss these questions with those affected by them.
Make sure you do: that ability is but one of the perks of living in the
world’s best place to find smart people of any background.

~~~
throwawayxxxxxx
As a non-US citizen, I've just got to say that I'm saddened by the vicious
opposition of the HN crowd to H1B. Realistically, when I was thinking about
coming to the US, H1B was one of the few valid options. But even that was
ridiculously hard for someone with higher education and good professional
experience. And people now lobby for closing down even that door.

It's kinda' hard when a crowd I look up to tries to block people like me from
getting where they are my only fault being I was born on a different patch of
land than they were.

~~~
lovich
I don't think the pro or anti immigration sides like the h1b as implemented.
The anti immigration side obviously wants to limit immigration, but the pro
side doesn't like the h1b system because it currently turns the h1b holders
into a form of indentured servant.

The only ones who truly benefit from the h1b are companies using it to get
cheap labor that can't leave. The h1b holders themselves might be getting a
small benefit if the situation is better than at home, but they are not
getting nearly the same value as if they were allowed to actually shop around

------
jnbiche
It's ridiculous to call this campaign 'anti-immigrant'. I'm very much for
increasing our general skilled and unskilled immigration lottery quotas and
our asylum allotment.

However, I'm very much against programs like H1B that are abused to suppress
workers' salaries. Industries should not be permitted to bring in foreign
workers (who are often not even citizenship track!) whenever the demand for a
certain skill increases and salaries go up accordingly, all to bring salaries
down to a level that's more "affordable" for those industries. It's wrong and
it's anti-worker.

If the paragraph above sounds "racist" or "xenophobic" to you, I'd suggest
examining the role you played in the election of Trump. It's not wrong,
racist, or unethical for workers to protect their rights and their livelihood.
I love diversity and immigrants, but H1B isn't designed for that, it's
designed to suppress worker salaries, and also reduces employment
opportunities.

~~~
s73v3r_
No. Stop with the "if you call people out for saying shitty things, then you
helped elect Trump!" meme. It's complete and utter bullshit, and all it does
is serve to empower the racists to say whatever they want without being called
out on.

And yes, the campaign is incredibly anti-immigrant; just look at the group
pushing it. Yes, one can say that the H1B system needs reform, and that it
leads to a lot of abuse without being anti-immigrant. But if your solution is
to just scrap the whole thing, that is anti-immigrant.

~~~
biocomputation
Scrapping H1-B doesn't end legal immigration.

Saying that you want to end immigration to the US, period, is anti-immigrant.

Saying that you want to end H1-B because you think these jobs should go to
American citizens is not anti-immigrant.

~~~
s73v3r_
"Saying that you want to end H1-B because you think these jobs should go to
American citizens is not anti-immigrant."

Yes it is. You're saying that those people should not be able to immigrate to
the US.

~~~
kthejoker2
There are other ways to immigrate to the US besides H1-B? I don't understand
you claim that H1-B is the only way anyone immigrates to America.

------
logfromblammo
I am somewhat surprised that the US immigration system has not already been
combined with the stack ranking philosophy to create the ultimate dehumanizing
meat grinder.

My solution to the US immigration problem is to bypass portions of the
existing system with a simpler labor law. Federal minimum wage for all workers
inside the US is raised to the US Census median household income, divided by
2080 hours of full-time employment ($28.39/hour). If you pay your worker more
than that, no one cares where they came from or how they got here. Anyone paid
more is, by definition, adding value to the US economy. If the worker pays all
applicable taxes on that level of income, about the only thing they can't do
is vote.

If you can document and verify that your worker is a US citizen or permanent
resident, you are exempted from the blanket minimum wage, and can go as low as
the US Census poverty threshold for a 2-person household, divided by 2080
hours ($7.92/hour). Instead of showing your tax receipt to receive government
services, you show your government-issued ID.

If you can document and verify that your worker is a non-resident non-citizen,
entered legally, with a valid visa, you are exempted from the blanket minimum
wage, and can go as low as the US Census poverty threshold for a 6-person
household, divided by 2080 hours ($16.23/hour). Instead of showing tax
receipts or ID cards for government services, you show your stamped passport.

This largely eliminates the incentives to displace domestic workers with
lower-paid foreign workers, for the lower end of the income scale. At the
upper end of the scale, worker mobility and competition encourages companies
to pay foreign workers the same as domestic workers. Once they are on site,
they can easily go to work for anyone else that pays more, so you can't use
them to resolve the "labor shortage" that occurs whenever a company pays too
little for the work.

To round it all out, you put an outflow duty on remittances, transfers, and
cash posted or hand-carried out of the country, to encourage immigrants to
bring their family with them, and stay (and spend) in the US, rather than
sending their earnings back "home". To this end, a working immigrant can
sponsor a number of nonworking immigrants commensurate with their income, and
maybe even earn a subsidy for converting some of those sponsored individuals
to workers. "Chain migration" is what we _want_ , economically. It is better
for the money to stay close, and circulate locally. Ideally, all the best and
brightest in the world decide to come work in the US, they bring their closest
dependents, and spend all their earnings on local businesses. In doing so,
they provide jobs for domestic workers, because most low-skilled service
businesses cannot afford to pay the premium for foreign low-skilled workers
until those wages are bid up by an actual shortage in available workers.

And the best part is that you no longer need to police millions of people.
Police only tens of thousands of businesses, and allow economic forces to take
care of most deportations and illegal entries. The US could go back to its
golden age of immigration, where the major motivators were whether the
immigrants could support themselves, and whether they were carrying any
contagious diseases. People that can support themselves by working will
support their communities by spending.

~~~
s73v3r_
I think the problem with your position is that, H1B holders do get paid decent
salaries, but they get abused in other areas. They're the ones that don't get
bonuses or raises, and they're the ones pushed to work insane hours, because
otherwise they'll get fired and then deported. So one has to address not just
pay, but working conditions as well.

~~~
logfromblammo
My position de-links automatic deportations from the firings. The only people
in danger of deportation are those with no visa of any kind, no visible means
of support, and no job prospects. Most of the people currently on H1B have
sufficient skills that I'd never want them to leave, even if there are
significant gaps in their employment history.

Foreign workers would be fired as easily as domestics, but they would have
just as much opportunity to get re-hired somewhere else, too. Just like
locals, they'd only have to move back into Mom's basement when the money runs
out.

Working conditions _might_ improve with business competition, but in reality,
businesses will illegally collude to avoid that, and that's what professional
associations and unions are for.

------
mixmastamyk
> “Americans now fill only 29% of the tech jobs in San Jose, the cradle of
> Silicon Valley. Despite the demand for science, technology, engineering, and
> math (STEM) workers, wages have been flat for years,” the website reads.

Is this true? It is a very important point to say the least.

> "It is important for our riders to know the ads contradict our values,” a
> transit spokesperson wrote via email.

Why is the transit system making political statements? What do "values" have
to do with it? Have they disproved the claim(s) above, or not?

> San Francisco’s BART took a strong stance on immigration issues. Its board
> of directors passed a safe transit policy in June 2017, which banned federal
> agents from questioning riders, and stated its “commitment to stand together
> with the people of the Bay Area in opposing hate, violence, and acts of
> intolerance committed against our riding community and employees.”

Following immigration law equals hate/violence? Or perhaps agents were
overstepping their authority? They need to get their story straight because it
is hard to understand as a non-expert on the subject. Perhaps just poor
reporting.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"I was just following orders" is widely recognized as a poor replacement for
good citizenship. I endorse BART's stance.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Painting immigration enforcement as WWII atrocity is not the most compelling
argument I've ever read. Not to mention, it is not BART doing the enforcement
according to the article.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Not my argument (straw man?). Good citizens must recognize overreach and
respond, not as obedient robots.

~~~
mixmastamyk
> "I was just following orders"

It is very clear what this means.

I asked a question, was it overreach? You responded with a foregone
conclusion.

