> They are the American gestapo.

They're really not. It is possible to not like (some of) what ICE does and also recognize that they are not rounding up a lawless autocrat's political enemies for torture, indefinite imprisonment and execution.

Is the nebulous idea of "illegal aliens" (often the people in ICE facilities are legally applying for asylum) not political enemies here? And is the separation of families, including death of people in ICE custody and the "losing" of children, with no information on how long any individual will be kept under ICE custody, not altogether even remotely matching this idea you depict?

If ICE were rounding up Democrats now (or Republicans under Obama) that would be "political enemies". ICE is doing no such thing. Part of its mission is enforcing US immigration laws, and it's doing that in a manner that's largely consistent with what our democratically enacted laws say it can and should do. You don't have to like it (I certainly don't) but it's not in any way analogous to the Gestapo.

Whether or not their actions are consistent with our laws, and whether or not they are similar to the gestapo is orthogonal to the morality of their actions, and the morality of knowingly dealing with them. That's the real question to be asked.

I think there is a distinction between illegal immigrants (people who are not in the country legally as citizens or on a visa, regardless of country of origin) and asylum seekers. One has support of legislation (asylum seekers), the other does not (without disregarding the idea of national sovereignty; this thread should not be where the merits of borders and sovereignty is debated though). Regardless, everyone in ICE custody should be treated humanely and with dignity.

That's why I'm making the quote "illegal aliens". The majority of people who are in ICE custody are, as far as I understand, legal asylum seekers. However, they're depicted as illegal.

https://www.ice.gov/detention-management#tab2 appears to be a canonical statistics data source, although I admit it will take me more than a cursory glance to have an understanding of the data, and I don't want to make a statement that isn't accurate due to not having a full understanding of said data.

Indefinite imprisonment is ICEs mainstay.

I do not see how one could not characterize undocumented immigrants as being the scapegoat of the woes of the currently empowered right-wing political movement. The conditions have been bad and are ratcheting up. Don't be blind to the atrocities that are already happening just because they aren't performing mass executions yet.

The immigration police are filled with racists, killers, and white nationalists. This CBP agent was literally a serial killer:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/15/us/us-border-patrol-agent-arr...

CBP != ICE. I'm very wary of this recent push to vilify anyone who enforces immigration laws or the integrity of our borders. It seems to be a very emotional, knee-jerk reaction that completely ignores the inevitably serious consequences that would result from lack of border and immigration enforcement.

CBP != ICE, but CBP and ICE are components of a single system. An engineer should appreciate that.

Our democracy has enacted laws that ICE is tasked with enforcing. ICE agents are not really the bad guys here for following those laws -- the American voting public is the problem. Your (and my) representatives made this possible, and continue to allow it, because you (and I) have not made it a priority when we vote.

No one in Nazi Germany could vote to rein in the Gestapo, and the Gestapo did not follow anything resembling fairly applied laws. ICE targets a well-defined legal category of people and follows well-defined legal processes. The Gestapo could arrest almost anyone for any reason and mistreat them however it pleased with impunity. That is obviously untrue of ICE, which cannot tomorrow kidnap Joe Biden.

"Just following orders (to "kidnap" and indefinitely contain people in prison camps)" is not a valid defense

With separation of power between law enforcement and legislative branches of government, it is indeed the job of the law enforcement officers to enforce laws even they do not agree with. Of course, there is a threshold beyond which anyone in deep moral disagreement with a policy can and should protest in a variety of civil ways (including quitting such law enforcement jobs), and this is a normal part of how the checks-and-balances of power works.

But you must acknowledge that there are many who do not fundamentally disagree with the underlying laws, at least not to a magnitude such that they believe it is worth protesting. And as such, we have officers who enforce those laws, who have not (at this time) quit their roles.

Therefore, to the extent that one believes this form of government with checks and balances yields more humane results (on average, over time) than one which merges legislative/judiciary/executive power, and to the extent that you acknowledge legitimate moral opinions exist that are different from your own, it definitely can be argued that it's moral to continue enforcing laws you do not personally agree with -- up to a point.

The question is, what is the breaking point where a law enforcement officer protests against a horrible law by refusing to enforce it, quits, or otherwise?

Take almost any politically divisive issue, and you will find there's not a very easy answer here -- especially because each person will have a slightly different moral opinion on the matter.