DHS Invokes Immigration Enforcement to Justify Gathering Americans' DNA

https://reason.com/2026/01/09/dhs-invokes-immigration-enforcement-to-justify-gathering-americans-dna/

53•pseudolus•12h ago

Comments

pstuart•11h ago

Where's the outrage from all the people flying Gadsden flags (the coiled rattlesnake with the motto "Don't tread on me"?)

This is governmental overreach and should concern everybody regardless of political affiliation.

bb88•11h ago

The untrained eye at a distance can't tell the difference between the snake and the poo emoji.

drcongo•11h ago

Best not to tread on either of them.

1123581321•11h ago

The libertarians I know are upset about ICE, Gaza and Venezuela and seem to post angrily online a lot. However, they don’t seem to be joining in on the largest protests that are typically coded for Democratic-party and leftward. I don’t know what it would take to see political unification in mass protests.

chung8123•11h ago

In general the parties don't like the other party and insult each other. It is funny if you are trying to get someone to come over to your side insulting them isn't the best technique. If you are just trying to keep your base riled up insulting the other side seems to work.

pstuart•11h ago

That's a wide brush you're painting with. While I could be easily characterized as being on a particular side because of the values I hold, I abhor tribalism and hew to the truth of the values as I best understand them.

I've had extremely respectful dialog with others who don't embrace my values and I find their reasoning to be specious at best.

I have respect for old school conservatism that advocates for limited government but contemporary conservatives no longer seem to care about that (except if it's programs they don't like).

My initial comment still stands: the governmental action of the OP is intended purely to be oppressive and it will not be wielded with any sense of propriety.

chung8123•11h ago

If we are talking about the general political parties it is going to be a wide brush. To the original point there are some that hate the tribalism and some will join the protests just based on their own personal views. My opinion was that it is not wide spread though because of the insults that the political parties throw back and fourth making joining a joint protest unwelcoming. Friendships across the political lines is rare.

pstuart•4h ago

I don't buy the "both sides" argument anymore (except for corruption by party leadership). The fact that conservative stalwarts have left the GOP shows we're in new territory.

I abhor partisan politics and am more than happy to point out flaws on the Left but we've gone through the looking glass on the Right. It's literally a cult of personality and I take no pleasure in saying that.

While a two party system is not a good thing (George Washington warned us about political parties), having proper debate over policies and ideas is a good thing to have and we no longer have that. I've followed American politics for half a century and can unequivocally state that the situation we have here is not normal.

dc396•11h ago

Wrong tribe. The outrage is reserved for the D-tribe actors (e.g., imagine the reaction if this was done in the Biden or Obama administrations), not the R-tribe, at least until members of the R-tribe are personally and individually impacted.

taeric•11h ago

Realistically, it takes ringleaders to get a circus. As such, I can only assume that the lack of show online is that the people that would be the ringleaders are largely the ones currently getting what they want.

I'm cynical enough that I think this is fairly clear evidence that some political affiliations are less sincere than others, but very few people will acknowledge this.

danudey•11h ago

Those people aren't being tread on; as long as the government is only treading on "others" (i.e. liberals, and minorities) then they're completely fine with throwing out the entire constitution. They've been told that these people are trying to destroy their country. and they're happy with the government burning down everything that makes America "America" if it means that the people they've been taught to hate end up suffering.

I can guarantee that the people who argue that the second amendment is more important than keeping people from mass-murdering school children would happily cheer on the government if they started confiscating guns from "the enemy".

scarecrowbob•11h ago

Yeah, in general that flag is not the full sentence: "Don't tread on me, but the government sucks because it doesn't tread on you hard enough."

blurbleblurble•11h ago

3, 2, 1 flagged

frumplestlatz•11h ago

Honestly? Good. The outrage firehose is already all pervasive, and Reddit is happy to provide an endless supply of this kind of content, if that's what someone wants to consume.

bigyabai•10h ago

I agree, but technically-salient articles like this are explicitly on-topic in the HN guidelines. Setting aside the outrage, this is worth discussion from technically-minded individuals.

If topics like this make you too emotional to participate, you can just ignore it. Nobody is forcing you to respond to things that make you upset.

frumplestlatz•9h ago

Technically salient? How?

Regardless, I already flag articles like this to hide them from my front page. I sometimes comment because I’d prefer a world where I didn’t have to do that.

Like I said, there are already plenty of sources for this kind of content. We don’t really need HN to be yet another Reddit or Bluesky.

onemoresoop•7h ago

Good? I think outrage to such a thing is warranted and is technology related.

frumplestlatz•6h ago

Well, you'll find plenty of like-minded hysterics on Reddit and Bluesky.

tartoran•6h ago

What's your point?

frumplestlatz•6h ago

That HN doesn't need to turn into yet another leftist-oriented firehose of outrage porn. There are plenty of options for that elsewhere.

tartoran•5h ago

You clearly have an ax to grind with leftists but outrage is a human reaction to something bad happening, it can be perceived on any political spectrum, including right as well. And discussion is the only a good thing even if not everybody agrees, at least we understand where they stand.

pstuart•3h ago

There's also the fact that as the audience is heavily composed of tech workers, we're helping to build these systems and should explore what our participation means for us. Hacking humanity and civilization as it were.

stogot•4h ago

Reddit homepage is ICE ICE ICE ICE all the way down. I come here for something else

blurbleblurble•1h ago

So you're just gonna wait until ICE comes to your community to deal with it?

shevy-java•11h ago

It is essentially Project2025, which in turn is based on the rule of corporations and the superrich, executed by the TechBro oligarchs and the orange sleepy king. Amazing that the US citizens allow this to happen, even more so after the recent ICE "incident" (the video is clear, yet all those "government" posers tried to reframe the narrative into a lie - the video is so clear that you have to ask yourself why that "government" lies to the people systematically. 2 + 2 = 5, evidently).

frumplestlatz•11h ago

Have you read Project 2025? I've read a fair amount of it, and I don't recall this being its focus, or any of this being part of its policy recommendations.

Which sections in particular should I go re-read?

jepj57•11h ago

Looks like much ado about nothing. This was already proposed and shot down on 2020, and Justice Scalia has already commented in a 2013 case that this is not a good idea.

Call your Congress critters and let them know how you feel. This is just institutional creep that, like an invasive plant, needs to be pruned back from time to time.

JohnTHaller•10h ago

Link for after it's flagged: https://reason.com/2026/01/09/dhs-invokes-immigration-enforc...

indycliff•9h ago

Gattaca, the movie, was way ahead of its time.

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