"A System Designed to Make People Disappear"

April 3, 2017 2:15 PM

I’m going to suggest something I have never suggested to any working person: If you are part of this machine—if you are a guard, an agent, a janitor, or anything in between—quit. Walk off your job. Right now. You’ve got bills to pay? A family to support? I get it. So do the people who come here looking for a better existence. The system you are contributing to is preposterously evil.

Dan Canon: I tried to represent an undocumented man rounded up by ICE. I couldn’t even find him.
posted by MartinWisse (28 comments total)

I didn't think anything could be worse than our prison system.

My God.
posted by schadenfrau at 2:53 PM on April 3, 2017 [8 favorites]

So the roundup is just a big payout to the private prison and secure transport industry?
posted by parmanparman at 3:03 PM on April 3, 2017 [8 favorites]

It's like a perfect design to generate the worst outcome in the least efficient manner for the lowest possible benefit on the most vulnerable possible population. Every little cog grinding away to create nothing but misery.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:04 PM on April 3, 2017 [64 favorites]

Makes a shitload of money for the worst possible people though.
posted by Artw at 3:08 PM on April 3, 2017 [17 favorites]

I think all the decent humane people already quit. Now the MAGAs are enforcing their white supremacy on those who would dare stain our glorious fatherland.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:09 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is one of the big reasons, if you are here on a green card, to become nationalized. Not because you love America or think it's the best place in the world, but because the dark side of the American Exceptionalist mindset is that all non-Americans are subhumans who can be treated like stray cattle, and ICE is doing just that. People getting nationalized now are not doing so out of love for the American notion of fairness and justice, but because they fear how those American ideals are interpreted by the majority.
posted by benzenedream at 3:11 PM on April 3, 2017 [21 favorites]

I think all the decent humane people already quit. Now the MAGAs are enforcing their white supremacy on those who would dare stain our glorious fatherland.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:09 PM on April 3 [+] [!]


Quote:

Lest anyone think this is just more liberal railing against the Trump administration, this system pre-dates the orange guy. The Obama administration sucked more than three million people into the lungs of this administrative monster and spit them out all over the world. Having seen up close what this system does to families, it’s hard to forgive that, especially when you consider that American trade policies contributed to the collapse of Latin America. But hell, we’re all complicit in this. We let it happen every day.
posted by lalochezia at 3:12 PM on April 3, 2017 [50 favorites]

ugh. this is so sick.

my friend's mother is a tiny elderly Japanese lady who's lived in the US for decades on a green card. now my friend is terrified that if she takes her mother to Mexico they'll have trouble coming back in. some say she is paranoid but I think its prudent to fall on the safe side in this. its just so fucking stupid.
posted by supermedusa at 3:16 PM on April 3, 2017 [19 favorites]

now my friend is terrified that if she takes her mother to Mexico they'll have trouble coming back in. some say she is paranoid but I think its prudent to fall on the safe side in this.

In no way is that paranoid :(
posted by thelonius at 3:18 PM on April 3, 2017 [30 favorites]

This is unreal. It's like a story you'd expect from the Stazi, or transport to the gulags. This shouldn't be. Not in America, not anywhere.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:34 PM on April 3, 2017 [9 favorites]

This is worse than the prison system but within sight of it, honestly. There's no reforming the carceral state.
posted by PMdixon at 3:36 PM on April 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is why I now carry "my papers" everywhere I go in this country. Getting naturalized would cost another $725, which I don't think is a good bargain.

At this point, it would still be a poor deal if it was free.
posted by zenon at 3:43 PM on April 3, 2017

One of my projects at work is changing the deportation courts so a person no longer has to file a FOIA to get their own court records. Not kidding.
posted by crush at 4:16 PM on April 3, 2017 [14 favorites]

Quote:

Lest anyone think this is just more liberal railing against the Trump administration, this system pre-dates the orange guy. The Obama administration sucked more than three million people into the lungs of this administrative monster and spit them out all over the world. Having seen up close what this system does to families, it’s hard to forgive that, especially when you consider that American trade policies contributed to the collapse of Latin America. But hell, we’re all complicit in this. We let it happen every day.

Trump MAGA racists pre-dated Trump.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:20 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]

my friend's mother is a tiny elderly Japanese lady who's lived in the US for decades on a green card

I know 2 women of that exact description who were detained for hours coming back from Japan this year (without good explanation). They were eventually let back in, so it's not a horror story, but that had never happened to them before.

(This is somewhat common in the Japanese community because Japan does not allow dual-citizenship. Some people do get US citizenship and then hide it from Japan, but technically this leaves them open to losing their Japanese citizenship. So you get people here on green cards who are planning on being here indefinitely but don't want to become citizens.)
posted by thefoxgod at 4:28 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]

And even if you do become a US Citizen, it won't necessarily protect you from being swept up by ICE (if you're not white at least).

And it's not just a recent thing, and can even happen if you were born a citizen.
posted by thefoxgod at 4:49 PM on April 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

ICE and the border patrol are totally out of control, and have been since 9/11. It's only going to get worse while our Dear Leader is in power. Damn near everyone in both outfits needs to be fired for letting things get so illegal.

Maybe if enough foreign visitors are frightened away, the tourism related business lobby might be able to outspend the racism lobby and get something fixed?
posted by monotreme at 6:18 PM on April 3, 2017 [3 favorites]

First, there was Gitmo, over The There.

Then, it becomes a big Gitmo at The Here, but for The Others.

What's next?
posted by runcifex at 7:20 PM on April 3, 2017 [11 favorites]

Last year when I was in the depths of physician burnout, a colleague offered me a job at the ICE facility here. More than twice the money for less than half the work. Knowing that I'm an unflinching patient advocate willing to skirt the law when called upon, I seriously doubted I'd be able to do this job. My misgivings were confirmed when I interviewed. A Trump presidency wasn't even on my radar then. Can you just imagine?

I agree with the author, everyone who is employed and complicit in this madness has the moral imperative to stop. Period.

I wonder if they're still without a doctor.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:02 PM on April 3, 2017 [17 favorites]

I'm increasingly thinking it's not paranoid to carry My Papers ^TM wherever I go, even though I am a born-here citizen of born-here parents. I'm not Latina but I'm brown and I live in a Lantinx neighborhood in a city that is technically within 100 miles of the border (that would be the Pacific Ocean) and ICE has been reported active within a few blocks of where I live. And I have a non-Anglo name. Cheech and Chong movies are funny until they aren't.
posted by rtha at 9:29 PM on April 3, 2017 [6 favorites]

One of my projects at work is changing the deportation courts so a person no longer has to file a FOIA to get their own court records. Not kidding.

What in the actual--?
posted by salvia at 10:00 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lest anyone think this is just more liberal railing against the Trump administration, this system pre-dates the orange guy.

I came across this article in my Twitter timeline today:

Protesting Trump's immigration policy? You might be accidentally helping him

From that article:

Mexico’s foreign minister said last month that under Trump there had been no rise in the number of deported Mexicans, and that numbers had in fact slightly fallen.

So I'm a little confused as to what's happening. Because I was certainly under the impression that ICE was cracking down.

My uncertain conclusion: ICE under Trump is no more competent (surprise!) but a lot louder and uglier.
posted by bunbury at 10:24 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mexico’s foreign minister said last month that under Trump there had been no rise in the number of deported Mexicans, and that numbers had in fact slightly fallen.

Your detention centers/prisons don't make money if they're not full. You can't keep them full if you actually deport people. Eventually, they'll be offered 'jobs' to 'retrain them'.

Arbeit macht frei
posted by mikelieman at 10:45 PM on April 3, 2017 [6 favorites]

This is truly awful.

It's worth noting with Obama that his numbers were high in part because they started contung those turned away at the border as deportations.

From what I understand, Trump is focusing on deporting a class of people that Obama didn't target (those without violent felonies) and is doing so in ways Obama didn't (hanging out at courthouses, e.g.).
posted by persona au gratin at 11:33 PM on April 3, 2017 [7 favorites]

This might be a question appropriate for MeTa, but I am almost certain this article might have begun as either a comment on the blue or a question answered in AskMefi. Does this ring any bells for anyone else? Is Dan Canon a Mefite?
posted by Tevin at 5:11 AM on April 4, 2017

There were already half a million immigration cases pending nationwide at the beginning of 2017 with only 277 immigration judges on the bench. Estimates are that someone currently facing deportation proceedings will wait 2-4 years for a hearing. So even if enforcement and arrests increase, deportations themselves will have to wait to catch up.

Of course, roughly 400,000 of these immigrants will pass through detention and the Department of Homeland Security’s Appropriations Act currently sets a funding level of not less than 34,000 available detention beds on any given day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays for the available beds whether they are used or not--so let's not let them go to waste!. And these beds are all in regional facilities, so people are held hundreds of miles away from their families and lawyers, in jails although these are civil proceedings. Families with children are held here. And since they are civil not criminal proceedings, there's no guarantee of counsel, your hearing can be held over the telephone. Bond is available but it's entirely discretionary and you can't get an attorney to handle the hearing and they can't talk to you before it anyway, because the facility where you're held is not near them, their office, the courthouse and has no private meeting facilities--or indeed any space at all--for you to talk to an attorney.

(as of November, there were 104 total vacancies and 38 judicial emergencies in the federal courts but I don't know which of those vacancies are immigration) (most of my immigration court stats come from http://www.trac.syr.edu/immigration/ )
posted by crush at 7:31 AM on April 4, 2017 [6 favorites]

@bunbury

Part of what is new (and truly awful) is the blatant retaliatory measures ICE is using is sanctuary cities.

So, not only (as persona au gratin mentioned) are they increasingly focused on people somewhat randomly, they are targeting jurisdictions where municipal leaders have been less accommodating to ICE retainers.

This federal-state-local conflict has already lead to some nasty collateral damage here in Texas (good bye, state funding for domestic violence counseling and veterans' courts) but it promises to make a super chaotic system even more chaotic. It's wrenching, all of it.
posted by pantarei70 at 8:17 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Angela Davis is a tremendous resource on incarceration as I'm sure many Mefites are well aware. In her 2003 book Are Prisons Obsolete? she says:

'There are now thirty-three prisons, thirty-eight camps, six­teen community correctional facilities, and five tiny prisoner mother facilities in California. In 2002 there were 157,979 people incarcerated in these institutions, including approxi­mately twenty thousand people [my emphasis] whom the state holds for immigration violations.'

God knows where those numbers are now.

I absolutely recommend reading this and ALL of her writing on prisons
posted by Myeral at 10:33 AM on April 4, 2017 [4 favorites]