Don't Be a Sucker, We are In This Together
If you think immigration debates don't affect you, consider this: the people building the technology you use every day are now advocating for who deserves to be here, and you might not make the cut.
Masked federal agents in unmarked vehicles are now detaining people on the streets of American cities with no badges, no identification, just force. This isn't hyperbole, it's documented reality in Chicago and cities across America, where ICE agents refuse to show credentials and use unmarked tinted vehicles. And while this happens, influential tech figures like David Heinemeier Hansson (known as DHH) are writing nostalgic essays like "As I Remember London" about how London isn't 'full of native Brits' anymore.
You might think DHH's blog post about demographic changes in London has nothing to do with masked agents in Chicago, but rhetoric about who 'belongs' in a place always precedes decisions about who gets detained, who gets questioned, and who gets to stay. When powerful voices in tech (the people shaping AI, platforms, and policy) normalize the idea that some people don't belong based on how they look or where they're from, they're building the ideological infrastructure for the enforcement we're now seeing.
People seem to have forgotten the lessons of their fathers and grandfathers about not being a sucker. What's dangerous about DHH preaching the nonsense he is preaching is that he is in tune with one of the most powerful groups of people in the United States: the tech elite. The same tech elite that has gotten Trump into power and got us to the where we are today: an America I no longer recognize.
I came to this country as a refugee from Eastern Europe in the late 80s before the fall of the Soviet Union. At age 5 I was homeless in America and at age 12 I was programming on an old broken computer my father got from a friend. I wrote games and built my own 3D game engines as a teen. I learned the freeing power that technology can afford me and the opportunities this country can give. The irony of DHH talking about foreigners is that he himself is a foreigner. It doesn't take a genius to understand he isn't talking about foreigners like himself but "that kind of foreigner," the kind with darker skin and strange food.
It's sad to see "smart people" fall for this incredibly foolish mentality. It's like he forgot we are on a tiny ball floating in space and that if you look down, you can't see the lines we put on the maps. Don't Be a Sucker, don't let people like DHH and others divide us. The lines on the map are only as real as we allow them to be.
Shawn Mulcahy, Micco Caporale
Francia Garcia Hernandez