The United States' Torture Camps

As a little reminder, the United States is currently using dehumanizing and torturous conditions in concentration camps while working to open more over time to house the growing population of detainees by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS/ICE).

I've previously had some pushback on calling them "concentration camps," and just wanna be superdy-duperdy clear: that's what they are.

Per Britannica, a concentration camp is…

[an] internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

Given that ICE is hunting non-white people, labeling them "illegal criminal aliens," denying them due process, all at the oder of the executive who ran specifically on a political platform of brutally harsh deportation efforts, I'd hope we can finally agree on just what to call these places.

But if that isn't enough, we'll take a look inside a couple of 'em.

Fort Bliss, Texas

Fort Bliss is currently holding about 2,700 people, most without any criminal conviction or due process.

A coalition of human rights groups wrote a strongly worded letter asking for DHS to address some of the horrific stories coming out of the facility. Allegations in the letter range from sexual abuse to secretly forcing detainees over the border into Mexico.

One teenager in the facility was brutalized so badly by DHS agents that he required hospitalization for testicular injuries and broken teeth.

Everglades Detention Facility, Florida

More widely known as "Alligator Alcatraz" as right wing leadership has been so proud of themselves for naming it that, you may have thought this facility had been shut down after it was, y'know, ordered to shut down by a judge due to all the obviously awful stuff.

Welp. That's not quite the case. It's actually not the case at all. The order to shut down was blocked by another judge, and it's been (horrific) business as usual.

The Everglades Detention Facility is uniquely awful, as it's not actually a federal facility. Contrasting Fort Bliss or even the Krome facility (also located in Florida and also doing horrific shit), the Everglades facility is a state detention center, paid for with funds from FEMA.

Since its a state facility, it has even less oversight than a federal facility, and less regulation to boot. So buckle up, because this gets a bit brutal.

According to a report recently published by Amnesty International, the conditions inside Florida's premier concentration camp are exactly what you'd think of when someone says, "concentration camp." It's not a fear tactic, and it's not exaggeration. It's just descriptive and accurate.

The report details inhumane conditions in the camp. Cages with 32 people packed into them. Mosquitoes running rampant, since its in the middle of the Everglades. Plumbing doesn't function properly, resulting in toilets overflowing with feces into the cages. Lights stay on full blast 24/7. Virtually no medical treatment to speak of. Human beings shackled unless caged.

Among the most eye popping stories is the use of what former detainees called, "the box": a tiny metal cage—barely a few cubic feet—which agents would shackle detainees inside of, leaving them for hours, sometimes up to a day, exposed to the elements in solitary confinement.

These findings have been found by direct investigations by Amnesty and other human rights advocacy groups, corroborated by dozens of first and second hand accounts, as well as using our own fucking eyes as the Department of Homeland Security continues to post dehumanizing propaganda trying to convince young white boys to join their goon squad.

DHS Responds

Oh good, our government has weighed in on the criticism of their actions. Let's see what they have to say about all this…

"Any claim that there are 'inhumane' conditions at ICE detention centers are categorically false. No detainees are being beaten or abused."
…
"No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States. Get a grip"
—DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin

Ah, the "nuh-uh" defense, classic.

We are to just accept that every investigation and account of the conditions in these locations are just bullshit. More specifically, they don't intend for you to believe the lies, they just don't give a shit and it's easier to lie and move on instead of have to actually say they're fine with abusing minorities.

Be Loud About It

We should be mad about this. I mean, I am, and I know most people who know about the situation are indeed quite mad. The thing that we cannot allow is for people to just shrug this off.

In Nazi era Germany, people knew about the camps, and even knew that they were "pretty bad," but didn't know the full extent until far afterwards. We're getting a stronger glimpse inside these facilities and it's already horrific.

It's on all of us to make sure people internalize that it's not just "some criminals getting comeuppance." The longer we wait, the worse it'll be when it all finally comes out.