I wanted to start this with the statement, “we are better
than this,” but alas, we are not. At the El Paso Del Norte Border Patrol
processing facility, 900
or more human beings have been stuffed into holding cells designed for 125
people. Regardless of if you want to call them non-resident aliens,
refugees, asylum seekers, illegal aliens, criminals, or scum of the earth, they
are human beings. They bleed red blood cells; they have frontal lobes, are bipedal,
their liver is the lower right, they have two kidneys (mostly), two eyes, two
ears, a mouth, they even have an anus.
The conditions are so bad that there is no space to sit or
lie down. Some of the detainees (let’s call them detainees) end up standing on
the open toilets to get some extra space from the overcrowding. But wait, there
is more. Sixty-six percent of the detainees held have been in holding for more
than 72 hours – that violates U.S. law. Four
percent have been held for two or more weeks, which spits on U.S. law. Who
reported and documented this overcrowding? Fake news? The liberal left? George
Soros? Russian trolls? No, it is documented by the Department of Homeland
Security – our government – We the People.
This treatment of detainees isn’t the first time in our
history as a country where we have treated human beings worse than farm
animals. Let us remember, “free range” chickens are all the rage these days,
and the people in these holding cells are packed like chickens in factory farms.
Human beings are being treated by We the People worse than farm animals in an
industrial setting. Sleep well tonight with that thought running through your head.
During the Gulf War, there was the mistreatment of Iraqi
prisoners of war. During World War II there was internment of Japanese nationals
while members of the German-American
Bund got a free pass. Those German-Americans were white, but those sneaky Japanese,
well they were brown and easy to spot.
Both sides of the United States Civil War committed atrocities
to prisoners of war, with the Confederacy providing particularly horrific
treatment to Union prisoners. Then there were the indigenous peoples of North
America, stuffed onto reservations with no resources; their children were taken
away for cultural education, all under the banner of manifest destiny. If we go
even further back, there was the gathering
up of indigenous people living in New England praying towns and abandoned
on Deer Island in Boston Harbor with no food, water, clothing or shelter. Over
300 froze to death in the name of colonial security.
The sad reality is, we’re not better than this. We as a
nation have a long history of, “you look and act differently from me, so you
must be bad.”
Ya, if you’re so smart, if they immigrated here legal as a
real law-abiding person would, this wouldn’t be happening. These are mostly
families, in the same watchdog report from Homeland Security, who are fleeing
oppression, drug dealers, and dictators
seeking asylum. United States policy helped put the leadership in place in
Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. That is a whole different topic for
another time – our amazing foreign policy that does a tremendous job of putting
brutal dictators and feckless cowards into power all around the world.
The number of Mexican
illegal aliens has been declining in the United States for years when you
look at government numbers. The point of declining numbers of Mexican illegal
aliens was a subject of an entire South
Park episode in 2011. Up to 2018, the number of detained illegal aliens has
been at near historic lows, and that carried through the entire Obama
Administration. By the numbers, it sure looks like the crisis at the border is
being manufactured to drive a narrative. Further, I say back to you, “Even if
these were armed invaders in a conflict, their treatment would violate the
Geneva Convention.”
“Ya, so what.”
So what? Look what happened to our prisoners of war in Vietnam
when the United States refused to issue a formal declaration of war against North
Vietnam. They were treated like – criminals. The brutality of Hanoi
Hilton and other prison camps, and the hundreds of POWs that, ehem, “disappeared,”
in custody that we don’t seem to be looking that hard for anymore. If you don’t
think our treatment of foreign nationals has an impact on United States citizens
in foreign custody, think
again.
On the other hand, it is easy to make a snap
judgment and go all Godwin
Law, but our brutal history and treatment of detainees stand up as an
exhibit that when it comes to We the People, this is who we are. In 2019 in the
United States of America, detainees are crammed together for days in dirty
clothes, no bedding, no room to lie down, limited access to facilities, not
enough breathing space, and no privacy. If one person arrives with influenza,
chicken pox, scabies, or norovirus, it spreads like wildfire in the close
contact.
We haven’t been better than this. Maybe it’s time we stand
up and say, “enough.”
Think about it.
Malcontent, out.