CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

We Can Stop Trump’s Concentration Camps

Image by Paris Bilal.

Nearly 70,000 —men, women, and children (including newborns)—have been locked up so far in 212 federal facilities (warehouses, private prisons, public jails, tents) in 47 states as suspected illegal immigrants until proved innocent. A Reuters’ investigation just reported that 400 federal judges ruled 4,421 detentions by ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) in the last five months were illegal. Not only that, but 73.6 percent of those detained had no criminal records.

For thousands of others awaiting a court’s decision—four million immigration cases are on dockets—incarceration is averaging at least six months. Indeed, 20,200 detainees have filed habeas corpus petitions that they are being held without a “speedy” public trial and an “impartial” jury, violations of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment. Yet even after a judge has ordered a release, the Trump regime may ignore it. One district judge in January tracked 100 release orders that ICE had violated.

Political cynics presumably suspect Trump of deliberately swamping the nation’s courts with his demand that ICE detain at least 3,000 suspects per day. Moreover, his Big Beautiful Bill Act allots $38.3 billion of our taxes for permanent expansion of his “Detention Re-engineering Initiative.” Some regional centers are to hold “1,000 to 1,500,” and for large-scale facilities, “7,000 to 10,000,” according to an ICE memo obtained by Wired earlier........

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