ICE concentration camps are intentionally designed to obstruct due process & kill.

There is only one way immigration deterrence stops people from seeking safety at our borders, and that is to kill them.

Social Circle, GA ICE concentration camp proposal. (socialcirclega.gov)

The other day, I happened to read an excellent article by fellow Substacker Matt Kinnemore on the new ICE warehouse concentration camp proposal for Social Circle, Georgia. According to Matt and the proposal documents, ICE expects to hold up to 10,000 people at once. The Department of Homeland Security claims the camp will have no negative effects on the community of less than 5,500 residents.

I am not an expert in public utilities, but even I know that adding that many people to a small town will overwhelm the systems. Matt pointed out that the estimates DHS gave for waste water production are low and will likely be much higher. Sewer, drinking water, landfill, trash disposal and electricity will also be overwhelmed if this concentration camp is built without massive upgrading of the existing systems. It is also fair to stipulate that ICE is likely to overcrowd the camp as they do most facilities further exasperating the problems.

But these are not the only concerns for towns considering allowing ICE to build camps. While these facilities often bring jobs to the communities they are in, the majority of those jobs are low-paying. Many of the private companies used to fill those positions often bring in people from outside of the community anyhow. Those employees will then bring their families further burdening the school and healthcare systems already overburdened when families of those detained also move to the area to be closer.

Speaking of healthcare facilities, these detention camps will take their sick and injured detainees to the local urgent care or hospital further taxing the system. ICE camps also have a habit of dumping dying detainees on communities in order to keep their in-custody death counts lower. When ICE dumps dying detainees, the community foots the bill when local police and medical care is needed. These camps will tie up the emergency medical services and reduce response times for local citizens suffering from heart attacks and car accidents.

These small towns are about to find out how bad of a neighbor ICE, CBP and Border Patrol can be.

As Matt said in his piece:

The phrase “immigration deterrence” caught my eye. As a former Border Patrol agent, I am used to that meaning policies meant to deter migrants from crossing illegally: walls, sensors, cameras, agents, checkpoints, etc. When immigration deterrence started in the Border Patrol under the old system in October of 1994, immigration Commissioner Doris Meissner stated the goal of deterrence was to make crossing the border illegally so mentally, emotionally and physically painful that migrants would tell others not to come.

Thirty years later and the southern border is covered in about 80,000 bodies intentionally sent to their deaths. Thirty years later and countless innocent Americans were killed when accidentally caught up in Border Patrol pursuits. Thirty years later and immigration deterrence brought thousands of agents to communities who’ve been arrested for smuggling drugs, sex trafficking children, serial rape, molesting children, murder, serial murder, assault and using illegal cover-up teams to get away with their crimes.

We already know how deadly current ICE detention centers are. Hell, a man just died of a toothache. Trump’s mass deportation has increased deaths of immigrants in custody surpassing last fiscal year’s deaths already, and we still have another eight months in this fiscal calendar. Does anyone believe that ICE warehouses with eight times the number of people in custody will be any safer?

This phrase “immigration deterrence” is important because what Matt is saying is that DHS and ICE are using holding people in knowingly uninhabitable buildings to “deter” them from demanding immigration hearings and force them to self-deport. Just like with the southern border immigration deterrence policies, the government is betting that intentionally placing people in dangerous and inhumane conditions will cause the immigrants to leave, to give up their fight to remain in the U.S.

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. First and most important, it requires us to continue committing human rights crimes and atrocities. Because 80,000 dead migrants in the desert sun is not enough, the federal government wants to now create concentration camps specifically intended to cause enough mental, emotional and physical pain that immigrants will self-deport. Secondly, if immigration deterrence policies worked, I would not be writing this and there would have never been a mass deportation. Immigration deterrence does not work when the only option is to die here in the desert, in a concentration camp or in their home countries. What it does do is cause Americans and our government to commit human rights abuses.

And finally, ICE immigration deterrence much like Border Patrol’s immigration deterrence is the act of putting people in intentionally emotional, physical and mental pain so that they give up their constitutional rights. That is, we are creating systems to discourage people from exercising what is a constitutional right. By this reasoning, what is to stop the federal government from putting Americans in indefinite custody to “deter” them from exercising their constitutional rights to protest, to speak, to vote? If they can do this to immigrants, they can do it to American citizens as well.

There is only one way immigration deterrence stops people from seeking safety at our borders, and that is to kill them. Those who survived Border Patrol immigration deterrence will now have to survive ICE immigration deterrence. And just as Border Patrol immigration deterrence expected deaths to increase, ICE deaths will increase. The outcomes of immigration deterrence policies are known. Death is acceptable to DHS for those without papers.

If thirty years of deaths caused by immigration deterrence policies is acceptable to our government and it is, then this is not just a concentration camp. These warehouse camps are intentionally designed to be torturous and inhumane which means due process and justice do not exist in these settings.