Yes, yes, we’re all tired of ICE. This one is worth the time for me to write and the time for you to read. It seems they got caught at something, playing the shell re-arranging game, and they are not coming out well. Far be it from us to complain. They can keep getting caught all they want, because it’s good for us. No one trusts them anymore anyhow. Well, okay, we didn’t trust them in the first place, but some of them seemed to have morals and an idea of what’s right and wrong. On with the show! Gratitude to Raw Story:
When Democratic Reps. Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari visited an Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Mesa earlier this year, meant to temporarily house 157 people. It was one of the few times the facility had been under capacity in more than a month. Just two weeks prior, there were 513 people housed there in a single day. And a couple of weeks before that, there were nearly 800 people being housed in the facility tucked into an unassuming corner of a suburban Phoenix airport.
Sneaky sneaky ICE. That’s pretty good camouflage. Who really looks at the buildings in an airport? Not many, especially if you don’t know what to look for. But then, 800 people should have been noticed, one would think. They must have been packed shoulder-to-shoulder for that many people in a space for 157. It’s hard to imagine, especially since we have no idea what the building looks like on the inside. Did they have their own road to the facility? There are always comings and goings around one. It’s just that how could it be missed?
From Jan. 15 to Feb. 20, when the two members of Congress visited the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, the facility had spent 33 of 37 days over capacity, some days with several times the number of people the facility is authorized to house. In the seven days after Ansari and Stanton told ICE they would be visiting the facility — members of Congress are allowed to inspect facilities, but ICE policy requires they give seven days’ notice before arriving — the number of detainees began to decrease to some of the lowest numbers the facility had seen all year. Almost immediately after the inspection, those numbers began to climb again.
Ah yes, the Noem “you can’t just can’t show up to inspect a facility” nonsense. Apparently, we can’t get rid of it. And announcing means they can do as this facility did. They moved out all the “extras” before the visit was made, so they are “conforming to standards”. Hooey. That’s some pretty crappy conditions to have to deal with. It’s frightening enough to be snatched off the street, but then to go into that? Yikes.
When a group of Maryland lawmakers attempted to visit an ICE facility unannounced earlier this year, they found the facility empty. That facility in Baltimore had previously been the site of an alleged legionella outbreak and the subject of a lawsuit for inhumane conditions. When Minnesota lawmakers went on an oversight visit to a similar facility in their state, it was also empty. The same thing happened to lawmakers in California. “I can’t say that it was obvious to me that there was mass movement of people, but I’m not surprised at all that they make things look much nicer when they know members of Congress are coming,” U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari D-Phoenix said, noting that ICE makes lawmakers fill out forms and give prior notice before visits.
There is much, MUCH more to this article that wasn’t covered. I’m not writing a novel, after all. Please, please go read it from the link in the introductory paragraph. It’s stunning. ICE is looking worse and worse, and it’s no longer a surprise to catch them playing fast and loose with people’s lives. I’m not sure there’s a way to get rid of ICE, since there is a certain amount of need for them. But there is no need for their abusive behavior. Could it be stopped? I don’t know. It would take some extreme pressure since the Trump maladministration condones what they do. Since they’ve been caught, though, maybe there is a small bit of hope. Very small. It’s a start.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise that among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a group of elderly, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
