It seems that we’ve entered into the concentration camp era of President Donald Trump’s second term. To some, that might appear like an excessively harsh attribution and perhaps a misuse of the term.
On Saturday, Florida state representatives and congressmembers visited Trump’s infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center in the Everglades where about a thousand individuals are being held. The tour was limited – they were not allowed to examine the conditions up close or speak to the detainees and were denied access to the medical facilities.
According to Congressman Maxwell Frost, “We saw humans being held in cages. 32 people per cage, three toilets in each cage for these 32 people […] There’s a little spigot on top of the toilet, and that’s where they drink their water as well. […] it’s gross and it’s disgusting, and this is where people are being held.” Frost reported hearing an inmate yelling out that he’s a US citizen.
Speaking to MSNCB, Florida Representative Anna Eskamani stated that, “We have animals that are in better conditions.”
The Miami Herald reported that conditions in the cages range from freezing at night to sweltering during the day. Giant bugs and mosquitos are ubiquitous. Some toilets fail to flush and at times, human feces floods the cages. Detainees are not allowed showers or confidential calls with their attorneys.
The wife of a detained man with a green card claimed that, “They eat once a day and have two minutes to eat. The meals have worms.” She also claimed that the detainees, despite already being underfed, went on a hunger strike in protest. The facility has only been open for two weeks.
Immigration attorney Katie Blankenship shared that one of her clients within the facility is a 15-year-old boy.
It’s no wonder that the lawmakers who visited the tents reported hearing people screaming, “Help me, help me”.
Despite Trump specifying that the detention center was for “deranged psychopaths” and “some of the most vicious people on the planet,” hundreds of those detained within have not been charged with any crime and have no criminal record.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has responded to criticisms of the detention center saying, “I wish they would have said that back during the Biden administration and back when Democrats were in the White House and they were piling people on top of each other on cement floors and literally didn’t have 2 feet to move. They never did that, and that’s why this politics has to end.”
Well Kristi Noem, they did and we all remember it because Biden’s presidency only ended earlier this year. You can read more about the criticisms levied against Biden’s treatment of immigrants here, here, here, and numerous other places. Overcrowded and inhumane conditions at Biden-era detention facilities were widely reported and condemned. ICE abuses during his tenure were also well-documented.
Trump’s current program of dehumanizing treatment toward immigrants and rights violations are simply a dramatic expansion of Biden-era indecency – Alligator Alcatraz is even worse than the already awful conditions that detained immigrants had to endure while Biden was in office.
Now, it’s not only people who have arrived at the border and held for processing. It’s also hispanic-looking people being randomly approached on the street or at their jobs and being sent to a hell hole to eat maggot sandwiches. It’s unconstitutional, politically motivated racial-profiling that leads to cruel and unusual punishment – all sanctioned by the president.
What we have now is a government agency whose job it is to roam the streets looking for Hispanic-looking people, detaining them because of how they look, and sending them off to cages, some of whom have green cards or citizenship, and many of whom are hard working and never committed a crime – all because the president has built a movement around scapegoating immigrants.
That’s really the important point here. All of this suffering is being created in service of Trump’s political goals – giving people a target to direct their scorn and making a big spectacle out of human misery to show how much he’s “winning.”
Last week U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong ruled that ICE must stop racial profiling practices, approaching people without reasonable suspicion, and must provide access to legal counsel. She wrote, “Is it illegal to conduct roving patrols which identify people based upon race alone, aggressively question them, and then detain them without a warrant, without their consent, and without reasonable suspicion that they are without status? Yes, it is” citing “a mountain of evidence” that this is happening.
I would not hesitate to bet every cent I have that ICE is currently ignoring those orders.
To celebrate America’s concentration camp, Florida Republicans, including the Republican Party of Florida, began selling Alligator Alcatraz merch online. Mark Kaye, a Republican running for the US House is selling Alligator Alcatraz baby onesies made of “100% organic cotton.” Perhaps they’ll start selling bumper stickers that read “Help me. Help me.”
If this doesn’t sound like a horrible stain on American history to you, congratulations, you now have a perfect understanding of how the Nazis were able to get away with what they did to the Jews without the German people revolting.
It turns out that human nature is such that not only can it ignore the brutal suffering of fellow people, but it can have a good laugh about it. What do you have to disconnect in your brain to find entertainment in people being forced to endure absolute misery? The project of dehumanization continues.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. He is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.
