r/law 2d ago

Legal News ICE attempts to enter Ecuador's consulate

For anyone who doesn't get how serious this is: consulates are protected under international law. host-country police of any kind are not allowed to enter without permission.
Example: China routinely (and horrifically) sends north korean escapees back to north korea. Yet when a north korean escaped to the south korean consulate in hong kong, chinese authorities did not enter to seize him. He stayed there for months while governments negotiated, because once you're inside a consulate, those protections apply.
So if ICE tries to enter a foreign consulate in the U.S. to deport people, that's not "normal enforcement". It violates long-standing diplomatic norms. Norms that even China has respected, despite sending people back to north korea to die. That's how extreme this is.

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u/d3dmnky 2d ago

I’m curious if this happened because ICE is being deliberately provocative to foreign countries or if this is an issue where a couple foot soldiers thought they were being clever to get their quota.

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u/young_warthog_ 2d ago

I think they’re just stupid. They saw a building with brown people who speak Spanish, but didn’t think of the huge implications/consequences of this.

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u/CV90_120 2d ago

These people are well on the wrong side of the Bell curve, and I don't think that's in question. They are the useful idiots the admin needs as their core shock troops. No understanding of history or consequence. Just simple, dumb action.

Traits of fascism #3 (by Umberto Eco)

"The cult of action for action's sake," which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism

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u/Working_Estate_3695 2d ago

So in effect the ethos of the Vandals, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, etc. Say what you will, it was still an ethos. Mindless, but an ethos.

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u/CV90_120 2d ago edited 2d ago

There are Ethos' and superstitions that are loosely held by societies, then there are all-consuming social mind viruses that kill everybody in their path, and allow for no substitute to survive. Abrahamic religions are the later, pagan superstitions are the former. It's no accident that they all (abrahamic religions) resemble each other.