hakase

Ehh, Bond hasn't been worth watching for 20 years now anyway. At least now I have a reason to start completely ignoring the series.

Uh, bye, I guess?

So, even Panama decides “ah, well, fuck it, just kill em I guess”, that’s still on us.

I do agree with this. We do have some culpability in the way they are treated until they reach their home countries.

I think I'm still missing your point about "if they CAN go anywhere else, why are they being held in Panama?" though. I think it's a show of force on Trump's part, exercising his leverage over Panama from the threat of stealing the canal. I don't think Trump cares about what happens to the migrants once they're in Panama, so I don't really see a reason for Panama to purposefully mistreat them, when they don't seem to have the incentives to do so that the US does.

If I'm still missing something (other than your healthy inherent distrust of governments, including Panama's), definitely do let me know.

I’m deeply skeptical of this whole “oh, they’re just innocent lil camps outside of our own borders and laws where the media can’t easily check, why are you suspicious lmao?” narrative.

This is a very fair and respectable position to take.

I’m also of the belief that people should live and work where they please, and that national borders are the tools of oppressors.

Here we will have to disagree (not that national borders can't be tools of oppressors, but that they are inherently so). I've enjoyed our conversation - you've given me the benefit of the doubt here, unlike many other commenters, and I very much appreciate your good faith comments.

These kinds of operations always end up scooping up actual US citizens. That’s what happens when you break a few eggs to make an omelette.

Sure, but again, that's a US problem and not really a Panamanian one that I can tell. Also, as I mentioned in my other comment, it's a false dichotomy to argue that the way US enforces immigration is bad, so therefore no immigration enforcement can be allowed at all.

The countries of origin might either not be known (in the case of someone in the country since they were a small child) or might not recognize them as a citizen for a variety of reasons, including paperwork cock-ups.

If that proves to be the case, then yes, Panama will have the responsibility to find a humane resolution to the situation. That has very little bearing on the immediate situation described by the article though.

It seems that in your responses here you're often conflating a lot of your opinions about immigration policy in general with the specifics of the situation at hand, which is what I'm specifically talking about. I'm happy to discuss immigration more generally, as I did in my other comment, but again, I don't think many of the points you've made so far are very relevant.

The country of origin might refuse to repatriate the person, because you can’t just dump a shitload of people on a poor country all at once and expect no consequences.

The country has responsibility for their citizens anyway though. Refusal to repatriate is then on that country, not on Panama or the US. If that country is so concerned about its ability to repatriate its citizens, it should do a better job of making sure they're not placed in that position.

This whole thing is honestly like when a cartoon character sticks a shotgun in a hole and ends up blowing their own ass off. That’s us right now.

Maybe so, but it's the US's right to make that determination, and it's a right that (with all of the specific caveats of we're doing a horrible job of it and most people are interested in it for the cruelty, etc.) I fundamentally support.

You should always, always have a healthy doubt of the government.

This is always a true and refreshing statement to hear, and trust me, I have no inherent faith in the Panamanian government in general. I just see no reason to assume all of these horrible things when a) there's no evidence that that's the case and b) just because some idiotic talking head is trying to emotionally manipulate me into doing so.

I'm not sure what you mean by "legitimately returned"? Do you mean that Panama can't be sure of their place of origin?

I fully agree that the detainment camps that Trump inherited from Obama were inhumane, but in my opinion a lot of that was due to the unreasonably long amount of time people were forced to spend in them. Most of those conditions (obviously not refusing to provide soap, turn the lights off, etc. - that was just intentional cruelty) are reasonable for a few weeks or so, as a temporary stop-gap, but after months of detainment it definitely becomes inhumane.

We don't have any evidence that the Panamanian camps are doing any of those things though, or why Panama would want to treat them like that.

If anything, this seems like an improvement.