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The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

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Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sources don’t say what you’re claiming. The BBC piece is about recorded apprehensions/encounters being very low (still “ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o The ABC/Brookings story is about net migration turning negative in 2025, mostly due to fewer entries. Net migration is not a measure of the unauthorized population, and the article even notes removals in 2025 are only modestly higher than 2024. ht…

Your pedantry is unnecessary. "Largely eliminated". I didn't say "completely eliminated". Yes of course encounters are not total entries. Do you have a better way of estimating? The net migration is due to several factors. The result of "largely eliminating" the flow of illegal aliens, along with dutiful removal of those in the interior, has made a big dent. There are other factors, including legal immigration, obvio…

“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports.

“Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-e...

Also, 58k/month annualizes to ~700k/year. You can argue that’s a big improvement, but calling it “largely eliminated” is rhetorical.

Encounters aren’t total entries, agreed, but that cuts against confidently declaring victory, not in favor of it. If you want “better,” the only “better” conceptually is something like encounters + estimated gotaways, but “gotaways” are themselves estimates and not as consistently published/transparent as encounters. So the honest phrasing is: “recorded encounters are way down.”

“No headway for decades” is false on the standard stock estimates. Pew (and others) show the unauthorized population peaked around 2007 and then declined through 2019 before rising again in the early 2020s. That’s headway, then reversal; not “none for decades.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...

It is fair to say: we’re now above 2007 again (Pew estimates ~14M in 2023), so the long-run problem wasn’t solved. But that’s different from “no headway has been made.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-...

On the ABC/Brookings “negative net migration” point: net migration does not equal unauthorized population, and the article itself notes the change is mostly fewer entries, with removals only modestly higher year over year. So it doesn’t support “dutiful removal has made a big dent” as the main story.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#932

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your pedantry is unnecessary. "Largely eliminated". I didn't say "completely eliminated". Yes of course encounters are not total entries. Do you have a better way of estimating? The net migration is due to several factors. The result of "largely eliminating" the flow of illegal aliens, along with dutiful removal of those in the interior, has made a big dent. There are other factors, including legal immigration, obvio…

“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports. “Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.” https://…

Again, your post is utter pedantry and seemingly wrong.

Why should I care about the number in August 2024? Why are you annualizing the 58k number? I'm referring to the current numbers at the border.

> During Trump's first eight months in office, there have been fewer than 9,000 illegal crossings recorded each month, CBS reported.

249,000 -> 9,000 encounters = flow across the border is "largely eliminated" to any non-pedant.

We have more illegal aliens in the country today than 2007.

2007 -> 2026 = MORE illegal aliens = no headway has been made. It's as simple as that.

Lastly, your link literally confirms what I said:

> The report attributed the shift to combination of the large drop in entries and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures.

It's so refreshing to finally have someone at least attempt to tackle this issue (likely the main issues in the 2016 and 2024 elections). I just wish it was more widespread and less theatrical.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#933
post #904
post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deserved" is a stronger word than "earned" or "merited", there's a sense of satisfaction or entitlement (though negative) behind that word. Something like, to say that she deserved death means saying she should have died for what she did, that it was the right outcome. That's not what we're saying. It's more like, the actions the officer took weren't in the wrong despite the bad outcome. She made really bad choices,…

> Another quick aside since I suspect this is a second point of confusion, "lethal force" does not mean "with the intent to kill", it means "force that is likely to cause severe injury or death". It.. is not. I suspect that you have some fundamental misunderstandings of firearm safety and I would not feel safe at a range with someone who thinks this way.

I believe it's a legal term that's leaked out into general use:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_force

> Deadly force, also known as lethal force, is the use of force that is likely to cause serious bodily injury or death to another person.

Cornell Law School: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/10/1047.7

> (a) Deadly force means that force which a reasonable person would consider likely to cause death or serious bodily harm.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#934

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports. “Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.” https://…

Again, your post is utter pedantry and seemingly wrong. Why should I care about the number in August 2024? Why are you annualizing the 58k number? I'm referring to the current numbers at the border. > During Trump's first eight months in office, there have been fewer than 9,000 illegal crossings recorded each month, CBS reported. 249,000 -> 9,000 encounters = flow across the border is "largely eliminated" to any non-…

You’re mixing metrics and then calling the correction “pedantry.”

Your own cited stat (“https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-crossings-immigration-u...

The 249,000 figure you’re comparing it to is typically cited as “encounters” (often BP apprehensions + OFO inadmissibles at ports). That’s a different series than “BP apprehensions between ports.” Apples-to-oranges comparisons are exactly how people accidentally talk themselves into certainty.

“Do you have a better way of estimating?” Not really, that’s the point. Encounters/apprehensions are the best consistently published measure, but they are not total successful entries, and “gotaways” are estimates with their own uncertainty. So the accurate claim is: recorded apprehensions are way down.

On “no headway”: if the unauthorized population fell from 2007 to 2019 (Pew shows that), that’s literally headway, even if it later reversed and is higher now. What you mean is “no net improvement vs 2007,” which is a different claim.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...

If you want to say “huge improvement at the border relative to the peak,” totally reasonable. But “flow largely eliminated” + “big dent in illegal-alien stock” is stronger than what these measurements can support.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of credulity you’re exhibiting is incredible given the tidal wave of evidence that there’s a highly politicized, highly funded paramilitary organization of the government that has to date not been publicly held accountable for any of its actions that clearly violate the rights and safety of even the lawful residents of the United States.

[flagged]

I have seen footage of ICE shooting a woman in the face and killing her. Is that propaganda?

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#936

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have seen footage of ICE shooting a woman in the face and killing her. Is that propaganda?

If the trajectory of the bullet goes through the front windshield and struck the driver, what location would that place the officer at? Somewhere near the front of the vehicle?

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#937

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen footage of ICE shooting a woman in the face and killing her. Is that propaganda?

If the trajectory of the bullet goes through the front windshield and struck the driver, what location would that place the officer at? Somewhere near the front of the vehicle?

DHS training manual says not to stand in front of a vehicle, so if a bullet went through the front of a vehicle I would judge whether the situation should have happened at all. But also, depending on the angle of entry, you could be quite far to the side and still shoot through the front. Ignoring the curvature of the Earth, if the car was facing North the shooter could have been in Vancouver.

Or if the direction of entry is the most important to you, most of the bullets went through the side window, what position does that indicate? Somewhere to the side, perhaps?

Or maybe none of this is important in the case of propaganda, like I implied.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#938

If you work for Palantir and if you work on these systems: You have blood on your hands. You know that it's not right what is happening on the ground right now. Do something.

You can apply similar arguments to many companies including Facebook. The programmer community as a whole is not ethical.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#939
post #192

Can anyone explain a user flow for how a Palantir product enables ICE to go from app launch to ‘target arrested’?

My understanding (and I couldn't get past the app paywall) is that Palantir is joining databases from many different federal and state agencies, including passport and driver license photos. The app then allows you to scan a phase and it finds a match. It returns information on the person found, including citizenship. The existence of this technology means that ICE can grab anyone they want, scan their face , and ins…

You can be fairly certain that database also uses data from the US social media companies.

Re: The Palantir app helping ICE raids in Minneapolis

#940
Does anyone else think that the biggest reason for ICE and the National Guard deployments is to normalise such situations?

It seems most likely to me this is being done in preparation for the ending of democracy. If the midterms become mired in controversy, for example, there will be protests on the streets. And these deployments will be ready to crush dissent. This is why deployments are mostly focused on the likely flashpoints.

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