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Ignoring Congress, ICE Detaining Record Numbers In For-Profit Camps

Ignoring Congress, ICE Detaining Record Numbers In For-Profit Camps

Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration is detaining a record number of people, despite Congress telling it not to. And, according to a new report, it’s doing so with for-profit detention camps, allowing businesses to make a dime off of suffering families.

Earlier this year, as part of a deal to end the government shutdown, Congress provided ICE with a goal of reducing the number of detainees to 40,520 by September.

Mother Jones reported Tuesday that ICE blew past that limit and pushed its detainment population to an “all-time high” of 54,000.

The Trump administration has not only disregarded the limitations Congress set specifically to discourage ICE from detaining so many immigrants, it also started using three for-profit detention camps in the last month, located in Mississippi and Louisiana. Ostensibly, the owners of these for-profit centers are being paid with American taxpayer dollars to expand detention capacity, essentially profiting off of all the suffering.

According to Mother Jones, one of the facilities in Adams County, Mississippi, has received previous complaints of improper medical care and staff mistreatment that were so bad the Department of Justice stopped using the facility for inmates.

Reports from Trump’s camps continue to worsen. A report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said that overcrowding at the camps is creating a “ticking time bomb.” Hundreds of doctors have also said Trump’s treatment of migrant children could cause them serious, long-term medical issues.

The mistreatment of detainees has caused an international outcry. This week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said she was “shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions.”

But her words apparently fell on deaf ears in the White House.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Trump May Dispatch Troops To Build Border Detention Camps

Trump May Dispatch Troops To Build Border Detention Camps

Trump is growing increasingly unhinged about the number of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., and the only thing that seems to be stopping his cruel plans to punish the migrant population is the U.S. court system.

NBC News on Friday reported that Trump wants to send even more military troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to build and maintain detention camps for migrants who do not fit in existing facilities.

However, U.S. law — specifically the Posse Comitatus Act — bans the military from conducting domestic policing, hampering Trump’s plan.

Despite the fact that the military can do very little with migrants on the border because of current laws, Trump still wants to deploy more military personnel to the border — wasting money and taking military personnel away from their families for a pointless mission.

The increased military force could be tasked with land assessments for new tent cities — or with assessing the site of a new central processing facility that would have the kind of chainlink cages for immigrants that have caused an uproar about the U.S. treatment of vulnerable people fleeing violence in their home countries.

This is just the latest grotesque proposal Trump has thought up as he grows angrier and angrier about the fact that brown people want to come to the U.S.

Trump has floated the idea of releasing migrants who are seeking asylum in the U.S. into to so-called “sanctuary cities” to “punish” Democrats. Of course, only someone who hates brown people would view this as a punishment.

Trump also wants to restart his cruel policy of family separations — which judges have already blocked him from doing. Trump also wants to jail kids he rips from their parents for longer periods, as well as make it harder for asylum seekers to work once they do arrive in the U.S.

And who can forget the news from Monday, in which CNN reported that Trump ordered several of his administration officials to flat-out break the law by refusing to allow asylum seekers to enter the U.S. — which they are legally permitted to do.

As for increasing the number of troops on the border, Trump administration officials seem to know this is a waste, as unnamed officials told NBC News that they “do not expect a large number of additional troops” to be deployed to the border.

But it seems they’re willing to go along with Trump in order to appease his worst impulses.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

White House Plans To Hold 7500 Immigrant Children Near Toxic Dump

White House Plans To Hold 7500 Immigrant Children Near Toxic Dump

Reprinted with permission from DCReport.

The Trump administration has drawn up plans for another tent city for migrant children in Texas that would hold up to 7,500 children in a camp built on or next to a former dump and not far from Superfund sites.

The 70-acre camp at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo in West Texas would be similar to the infamous camp in the border town of Tornillo that closed in January. Gregg Gnipp, a commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, is overseeing this for our nation’s health agency, according to planning documents.

“Public records show the migrant children’s housing site proposed for Goodfellow will be built atop a former landfill, in an area riddled with lead, benzene, and other chemicals particularly hazardous to children,” said Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice.

A health department spokesman said the Goodfellow site and other proposed sites in Arkansas and Texas are not under active consideration at this time.

Our nation’s only temporary camp for immigrant children is now in Homestead, Florida, near another Air Force Base. State child welfare regulations don’t apply to the camp.

The Hispanic Federation and other nonprofits sued the U.S. Army in federal court in August to try to get more documents about Goodfellow. The lawsuit is pending.

David Lang, a former hydrologist with the EPA’s Superfund program, studied documents that were available and recommended that residential housing not be built on top of the landfill until more studies are done.

Toxic chemicals, fuel and other waste were buried from 1970 to 1982 in a series of trenches in the 37-acre landfill in the southeast corner of the Air Force Base. The landfill was not properly closed by today’s standards.

Another area of the base was named a Superfund site in 2002 because of high levels of carbon tetrachloride which can cause liver and kidney damage. Much of the contamination was removed, and the Air Force has removed monitoring wells where the children’s camp would be built.

A former firing range was contaminated with lead which can cause brain damage and stunt growth. Soil from the firing range has been removed, but it is unclear if what is left is safe for children, according to Lang. There is no known safe level of lead in the body.

Children, whose organs are still developing, are more vulnerable to chemical poisoning than adults. Current evaluations when setting health and risk limits compare adverse health effects to a 70-kilogram  man.

IMAGE: The tent city near Tornillo, Texas, closed in January.

Chile Weighs Taking Guantanamo Detainees At U.S. Request

Chile Weighs Taking Guantanamo Detainees At U.S. Request

Santiago (AFP) — The Chilean government is considering taking in detainees from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Monday.

The United States made the request back in 2010 but the idea has run up against opposition from some lawmakers, said Foreign Ministry legal adviser Claudio Troncoso.

“Our country is carrying out an evaluation of that U.S. request,” he told reporters. “There has been absolutely no final decision made on this issue.”

The United States has told Santiago that they are detainees who do not face formal charges or present any danger, he added.

But opposition lawmakers voiced concern.

“There could be collateral damage from taking in prisoners linked to terrorist acts,” said Ivan Moreira, a senator with the ultra-conservative Independent Democratic Union party.

“Our country should not get involved in a sensitive issue that could bring upon us unwanted consequences when we are being looked at by international terror groups,” added Jorge Tarud, a lawmaker with the ruling coalition-backing Party for Democracy.

Uruguay plans to take in six detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, but says that no date for the transfer has been set yet.

There are 149 inmates still at the prison on the eastern tip of Cuba that was set up under former president George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

AFP Photo/Chantal Valery

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