Slashdot Mirror
Prank Calls Brought ICE Hotline To a Standstill, Internal Emails Show (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: When ICE launched an immigration crime hotline last year, the Trump administration pitched it as a way to provide resources to victims, but activists saw something else: an attack on the immigrant community. The hotline was part of the Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office, an outfit established in February 2017. When the office first launched a line for its services the following April, protestors flooded the hotline to call in pranks and slow down response times. The plan picked up even more steam as the protestors shared the hotline number online, encouraging others to call in with fake tips.
According to internal emails and documents obtained by The Verge under the Freedom of Information Act, prank calls fully upended the system, leaving operators unable to answer more than 98 percent of incoming calls during the protest as the media relations team attempted to contain the narrative. In reports and emails produced in the first days of operation, ICE officials described an "overwhelming" amount of calls. The day after the launch, the office received more than 16,400. Of those, only a little more than 2,100 were placed into a queue, and only 260 answered. Callers in the queue waited as long as 79 minutes to reach an operator. An official noted that, should the rate of calls continue, they would need an additional 400 operators to field the hotline.
According to internal emails and documents obtained by The Verge under the Freedom of Information Act, prank calls fully upended the system, leaving operators unable to answer more than 98 percent of incoming calls during the protest as the media relations team attempted to contain the narrative. In reports and emails produced in the first days of operation, ICE officials described an "overwhelming" amount of calls. The day after the launch, the office received more than 16,400. Of those, only a little more than 2,100 were placed into a queue, and only 260 answered. Callers in the queue waited as long as 79 minutes to reach an operator. An official noted that, should the rate of calls continue, they would need an additional 400 operators to field the hotline.
Now this sounds like a fun AI voice challenge: something to weed out the protesting trolls and drop them into queues where they think they're tying up the lines, while allowing people who really have a complaint through, using a mix of incoming phone number, question/response with caller and perhaps other input. Same thing with tips.
If you are here in this country illegally, you have criminally trespassed. You should be deported.
That is the current law.
If folks don't like that, then start to put pressure on your congress-critters and have them change the laws.
I agree we need to update and fix the immigration laws. It should be fair, and a more simple and less $$ process, BUT, it also should allow for control of who all gets to come in. I think we could look to encourage more immigration from those that are educated and can come to the US and help the workforce and economy right away.
There will be some lower educated types too, as that all levels are needed, but the ratio needs to be controlled.
But I just don't get these seemingly increasing number of folks in the US promoting full blown open borders, with no control of who gets in here.
While it is noble to take our great wealth and resources to help others around the world, we can NOT support the whole world and cannot house or bring everyone and their goat into our country.
If countries, such as in South America are having such problems,.....we can't bring everyone here, those people need to fix things at HOME and stay there.....
ICE is the part of the federal government that helps control immigration and deports those that come here illegally. Why do we not support them?
Hell, one of the few constitutionally enumerated responsibilities and powers of the federal government IS to protect our borders.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
My home extends to my walls -- a country is just a plot of land cursed with a (generally bad) government. I don't see a country as my home, just a political unit that I happen to be unfortunate enough to live under.
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark.
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city
running as well.
your neighbours running faster
than you, the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind
the old tin factory is
holding a gun bigger than his body,
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.
no one would leave home unless home
chased you, fire under feet,
hot blood in your belly.
it's not something you ever thought about
doing, and so when you did -
you carried the anthem under your breath,
waiting until the airport toilet
to tear up the passport and swallow,
each mouthful of paper making it clear that
you would not be going back.
you have to understand,
no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land.
who would choose to spend days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
unless the miles travelled
meant something more than journey.
no one would choose to crawl under fences,
be beaten until your shadow leaves you,
raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of
the boat because you are darker, be sold,
starved, shot at the border like a sick animal,
be pitied, lose your name, lose your family,
make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten,
stripped and searched, find prison everywhere
and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side
with go home blacks, refugees
dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
sucking our country dry of milk,
dark, with their hands out
smell strange, savage -
look what they've done to their own countries,
what will they do to ours?
the dirty looks in the street
softer than a limb torn off,
the indignity of everyday life
more tender than fourteen men who
look like your father, between
your legs, insults easier to swallow
than rubble, than your child's body
in pieces - for now, forget about pride
your survival is more important.
i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home tells you to
leave what you could not behind,
even if it was human.
no one leaves home until home
is a damp voice in your ear saying
leave, run now, i don't know what
i've become.
but i know that anywhere is safer than here. (Painting: Holy Family Icon by Kelly Latimore)
Silence is a state of mime.