Despite overwhelming objection, yesterday the Trump administration announced that a call-in line was opened for those who wanted to report crimes committed by aliens, one of the few provisions of his executive orders on immigration that survived the courts. By aliens, of course, the Trump administration meant undocumented immigrants. But you get precisely one guess what the line was flooded with.
The BBC reports that the switchboards were immediately lit up with reports of greys, Kryptonians, and all sorts of other spacefarers. Decidedly not helping matters was that Immigration and Customs Enforcement chose to open the lines on Alien Day, Fox’s big marketing push for the franchise involving acid-spitting xenomorphs. And, of course, the line got ripped on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/stevensantos/status/857402970593525760
Welcome to the VOICE Hotline, your call is important, please stay on the line to report alien violence pic.twitter.com/S4cKXkBPus
— The Monster (@boris3324) April 27, 2017
Not helping matters is that it’s government protocol to simply let the person talk, so people could get, ah, graphic:
https://twitter.com/AZMAROBI/status/857355108899635200
However, it’s also extremely likely that these calls were completely serious. UFO hunters have petitioned Obama to declassify Area 51, among other shenanigans and reported UFO sightings have skyrocketed since the early ’90s. In other words, even if people weren’t dedicated to trolling this number, it likely would be jammed anyway. However, in the end, ICE should probably be grateful anybody called at all; organizations as diverse as the libertarian Cato Institute to academic researchers into crime and immigration have found communities with high levels of immigration have lower crime rates.
(via the BBC)