American Gulags

What have ICE camps to do with technology? Basically, nothing! I told you all I was terrible at branding.

But ICE is running what appears to be the American version of a gulag for immigrants and Americans that look like immigrants. They give every appearance of being places where decency, the rule of law, and far too often, people go to die.

Many of the camps are privately run. That is inherently bad as the money spent on detainees is money not put into the pocket of the facility owners/operators. The incentives are terrible, in other words. The more humanely you treat people, the less money you make. This tendency is exacerbated by the rush to build new camps for the mass deportation plans of this Administration. The money must be good, because firms that have no experience in building or running said camps are lining up to do so. And why not? The standard appear non-existent.

These camps are horrible. We know that ICE does not, as an institution, care about the people in their camps. As of the beginning of May, ICE had not paid for detainee medical care for seventh months. That means, at a minimum, lessor care for detained people, and in many cases no care at all.

And they need care more than ever, because the conditions inside are terrible. People who have been released from these camps describe putrid food, unsanitary conditions, and abuse. Three hundred people have gone on a hunger strike in Delany hall. People do not starve themselves — which is what a hunger strike entails — on a lark. Other camp survivors have described a lack of medical care (perhaps tied to the non-payment of bills?). Cancer and other life threatening condition have gone untreated. People have had to pull their own teeth, have had medicines denied, even to the point of requiring hospitalizations. Deaths in ICE custody have skyrocketed, including a surge in “suicides”. Some of those suicides are likely abuse.

ICE is going to stop reporting on detainee deaths that happen 30 days after they leave detention. The Biden Administration saw that ICE mistreatment and/or abuse and/or neglect would push detainees to the brink. ICE would release them, so as to not have the death on their records. ICE is changing that policy. The only reason to do so is to hide the aftermath of ICE actions. ICE agents are credibly accused of physical and sexual abuse. Does anyone wonder why they wont let Congressional visits and oversight happen in defiance of the law?

This is all unacceptable. At a minimum, ICE and the Trump Administration appear to building a system that actively does not care if the people within it live or die, if they are healthy or abused. Some people may cringe at terms like gulag or concentration camp, but the ICE detention centers certainly seem to have aspects of both. The problem is not the terminology — the problem is the reality.

So what to do?

First, protest if you can, even if only once. Protests helps focus media attention on the issues, making it harder for the abuse to go unreported. If you do protest, make sure you do so safely and make sure you listen to the people running the protest. They know what they need, you do not. Not everyone can protest. Some people, because of how they look or their past or their temperament (one thing protests have taught me is that you need to be able to take a hit without retaliating and that such control is hard) cannot reasonably protest. In that case, you can help those who do. There mutual aid and support groups for almost every area affected by ICE — here is one for the area around Delany Hall — and they are not jsut asking for money, though that is always appreciated. They have other items you can do to help.

Just as importantly, you should make it crystal clear to your Congresspeople and Senators that abolishing ICE is non-negotiable. They must feel the pressure constantly and the must know that if they fail, they will face voters determined to ensure that the next person in office does not fail.

Will any of this work? I honestly do not know. Some days it feels as if nothing will work; some days it feels as if these kinds of actions are the only things that can work. I know that a lot of experts say you cannot vote your way our of authoritarianism, but I also know that the Poles and Hungarians did just that. Not trying is bound to fail, though, and the other alternatives are much, much worse. In the absence of decency, trying to restore decency is the only moral option.