Why yes, I’m feeling chatty tonight. Why do you ask? Here we are with a late-night column for Saturday. Tonight’s episode is long because we have a lot to cover. This sort of thing still happens. Not ICE, that’s ongoing, but showing what has happened to people sent to a particularly disgusting “holding facility” after being snatched. How can people be treated like this, regardless of their status in the country? Criminals are one thing. People trying to make a better life for themselves are completely different. Yes, you’ve heard this from me multiple times before. I still look for ICE news because we don’t want their abuse to fade and be forgotten by the public. Minneapolis and Minnesota did one hell of a thing with ICE up there. It needs to be remembered and spread to those who will be pushing back against them. With respect to Raw Story:
A 19-year-old Mexican migrant died at a troubled Florida immigration detention facility early Monday, becoming the youngest person to die in ICE custody since President Donald Trump launched his second-term immigration crackdown — and sparking questions about the missing paper trail behind his detention. Royer Perez-Jimenez was found unconscious and unresponsive just after 2:30 a.m. at the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Facility staff performed CPR, and the fire rescue arrived minutes later. He was declared dead about 20 minutes after he was found. ICE said his death is being treated as a presumed suicide, though the official cause remains under investigation. His death marked the 13th in ICE custody since January and the 46th since Trump returned to office, compared to 24 total deaths across all four years of the Biden administration, according to The Associated Press.
Died. What happens when someone even younger dies? The young man with the Stitch hat and his father made it out okay, and thank whoever you wish for that. At least he didn’t die, or there would be hell to pay. Will Mr. Perez-Jimenez’s passing make a difference? ICE didn’t care about killing American citizens, so the likelihood of anything happening as a result of losing this young man is virtually nil. The frustration, no, the anger continues. Homan didn’t get them under control. If Mr. Mark-My-Words-He-Sucks-Wayne Mullin gets confirmed by the Senate (please, no), they’ll be even nastier. MarkWayne *likes* political violence, so he’ll probably encourage ICE/CBP to be WORSE. Oh, joy.
ICE said Perez-Jimenez was arrested Jan. 22 by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and charged with felony fraud for impersonation and resisting an officer before being transferred to ICE custody in February. But when the AP requested his arrest report from the sheriff, the agency said it searched its system, and Perez-Jimenez didn’t appear in it.
The medical examiner’s office didn’t respond to reporters’ requests for his autopsy report. The Florida prosecutor’s office referred all inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney General’s office. The facility where Perez-Jimenez died has a troubled past. The center was shut down by the Biden administration before being reopened under Trump. Detainees have reported worms in food, malfunctioning toilets, and overflowing sewage.
No records of an arrest. No proof that it actually happened. Now, pardon me while I gag. I’m glad I can’t understand that. I can barely imagine it, and I want to scrub my brain with a wire brush and bleach. What do you want to bet that words can’t really describe this place effectively? That’s cringe-worthy. (By the way, could someone confirm for me that Alligator Alcatraz really was shut down?) Jail is frightening enough. But that? YIKES. I couldn’t even think about *working* there, not that I would want to, but that’s another facet to consider. Was it that disgusting everywhere?
The teen’s death ignited a social media firestorm, with writer and advocate Thomas Kennedy noting the facility has also seen a near-fatal carbon monoxide leak and regular exposure to a toxic disinfectant chemical spray linked to severe medical harms. “19-year-old dead at an ICE detention in Florida center known for mistreatment, including a ‘near-fatal carbon monoxide leak last November, ‘ and regular exposure to highly dangerous levels of a toxic disinfectant chemical spray linked to severe medical harms,” he wrote on X.
Perez-Jimenez was also the second person to die in ICE custody this week. An Afghan immigrant whose family said he had been evacuated after working with U.S. forces died in a Texas hospital after being detained by immigration authorities.
The Mexican government called detention deaths “unacceptable” in a statement Thursday and demanded a prompt U.S. investigation. Officials from the Mexican Consulate in Miami visited the facility and requested documentation. //// The anti-Trump social media account PatriotTakes called it “another death at the hands of ICE.”
Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, said the facilities amounted to “concentration camps.” //// Immigration attorney Nicolette Glazer wrote on X, “Horrific! A teenager is the latest victim of punitive immigration detention. He died in the notorious South Glades detention center.” //// Writer Max Granger simply chimed in on X, “Death camps.”
Lawd have mercy, folks. They keep surprising me. Each surprise is worse. I could guess that ICE doesn’t think of them as actual people, just property that needs to be returned home. Because it’s late at night, my mind went off on a tangent. Have you not noticed that there don’t seem to be any ladies in ICE? They would have a different body shape. Apparently, we have morals where the guys don’t. Ugh, it just also occurred to me that they just might not be out in the field and still working for ICE/CBP. Boo. And we do have ladies in the Armed Forces (go, grrls, go!). I’m proud of *everyone* in military service. That takes cojones. Incidentally, the picture header is supposedly the South Florida detention center that was discussed.
No Kings protest March 28th! See you tomorrow! Or later today, that is.
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 old, 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
“Criminals are one thing.”
Yes, but they aren’t subhuman.
This is one of the main things wrong in America. Because it says so in The Constitution, prisoners can legally be considered slaves. This is not the way any other developed society values them, they are still people with rights, other than the properly and humanely controlled deprivation of liberty. This attitude to the incarcerated colors all other interactions with any sort of law enforcement, including the pathetic idea that there should be no end to punishment or suffering of anyone imprisoned for anything.
‘They’ deserve i because ‘they’ ‘got in trouble’.
If one set of the incarcerated ‘deserves it’, then they all do.
Well, that’s just depressing. So much for forward-thinking.