Four federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Unit and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raided a Washington state food products manufacturer, arresting 17, including 16 allegedly undocumented immigrants.
A video on Facebook shared by immigration attorney and adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, Luis Cortes-Romero, showed what appeared to be federal agents removing nine men and seven women from Eagle Beverage Products in Kent. The handcuffed detainees were loaded into a white, unmarked bus. It is unclear if the 17th person arrested was an undocumented migrant or an employee of the company.
Through a statement, an ICE spokesperson told Seattle-area PBS station KUOW that the “arrested workers ‘had fraudulently represented their immigration status and submitted fraudulent documents and/or information to seek employment.’” The statement added that officers executed a federal search warrant as part of a broader “criminal investigation into the unlawful employment of aliens.”
Because the Trump administration is facing multiple lawsuits over its immigration practices, including illegal detentions and deportations, raids by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Investigations are under intense scrutiny. Tuesday’s raid at Eagle Beverage Products was a rare enforcement action, but in this single case, it appears the government dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s.”
Raids for Form I-9 fraud are rare, and convictions are even rarer
Formal Form I-9 inspections by ICE are rare, raids are rarer, and arrests of employers are almost unprecedented.
An April 15 report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), authored by Daniel Costa, revealed that the number of I-9 inspections carried out by ICE has fluctuated through four administrations. The Obama administration steadily increased the number of inspections through 2013, peaking at 3,127, before falling to around 1,250 a year.
During the first Trump administration, ICE carried out 1,360 inspections in 2017, before surging to 6,456 in 2019. No inspections were conducted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a temporary policy loosening I-9 verification requirements was implemented the same year. That program didn’t end until July 31, 2023.
The only year the Biden administration was not impacted by the pandemic and eased ICE policies was 2024. According to the EPI, only 264 inspections were carried out, in part because the administration prioritized “labor exploitation.”
Even at the 2019 peak, the number of annual inspections was tiny, with 17.77 million companies in the U.S., according to the NAICS.
The IRS, DHS, and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) provide very little information about criminal enforcement against employers. The most recent data is from April 2018 to March 2019, during the period of heightened enforcement by the Trump administration. A study from the University of Syracuse using Freedom of Information requests and data compiled from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) found that only 11 people and no employers were criminally prosecuted for I-9 fraud or related charges. A search of federal records found that no one was sentenced to jail time.
e-Verify is an online portal that enables employers to gain an additional layer of verification that the documents provided by a worker are authentic. The U.S. government e-Verify portal shows that Eagle Beverage Products (dba as Eagle Beverage & Accessory Prod.) opted into the program on December 14, 2015, and opted out on June 12, 2024. A second record shows the company opted into eVerify on March 1, 2010, and opted out on January 1, 2017. The overlap in dates may have been caused by the company changing its Application Tracking Systems (ATS) or introducing a new online employee onboarding software system with e-Verify integration.
It is important to note that none of the federal agencies involved in yesterday’s raid has provided specific information about the alleged employment eligibility fraud, and Eagle Beverage Products has not released a formal statement.
A Brief History of Form I-9 and e-Verify
Anyone who has held a job in the U.S. in the last 40 years has completed Form I-9. Introduced in November 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the law requires all companies to verify the legal status of their workers by reviewing and holding copies of documents that provide proof of eligibility.
Over the last 39 years, Form I-9 and the list of acceptable documents have changed little. Workers can provide a single document from List A, such as a U.S. Passport, Passport Card, or Permanent Resident Alien Card. Or, they can provide one document each from List B and List C, such as a Social Security card, certified birth certificate, driver’s license, military ID, or Native American tribal document. Employers are required to make copies of the provided documents and keep them with the signed Form I-9.
A problem that arose after the new law was implemented was that companies had no way to verify whether the provided documents were authentic. Some undocumented migrants provide fake or stolen identity information, while some employers willingly use forged documents to circumvent the law.
In November 1997, a program called Basic Pilot was rolled out in five states to provide an additional layer of electronic verification. In 2007, that program became known as e-Verify.
e-Verify is a government portal where employers upload the information provided by the employee. The document numbers and expiration dates are verified as authentic, and the employer is shown a photo of the person, typically using their driver’s license picture, based on the information provided. The employer is required to verify that the photo in the database matches their new employee.
When e-Verify cannot authenticate a document, and a manual government review by the Social Security Administration or the Department of Homeland Security can’t resolve the problem, it is called a Tentative Nonconfirmation. The employer has ten working days to notify the employee, and then the employee has ten working days to tell their new employer if they intend to fix the issue. Then, they have eight more working days to resolve the problem with their documentation. During that time, they are still eligible to work.
There are many reasons that e-Verify could flag a person who is legally eligible to work in the U.S. with a Tentative Nonconfirmation. However, if the issue is not resolved, the employer is required to fire the worker.
For some workers, I-9 verification isn’t a one-and-done process. Employees who are legally working by holding visas or work permits must have their information reverified before the documents expire.
The biggest problem created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act is that enforcement action almost exclusively targets the undocumented worker and not the employers who hire them. For large employers, the biggest risk after a raid is fines and increased scrutiny by ICE, which isn’t enough of a barrier to resolve the root cause.
Full Disclosure: The author of this story was the Director of Product Marketing at TalentWise, an employee screening and new employee onboarding solutions company originally based in Bothell, Washington. The company offered its customers an integrated e-Verify solution. In January 2016, TalentWise was acquired by SterlingBackcheck (now SterlingONE).
Over the last 12 months, over 1,100 unrecorded charter flights have arrived in Managua, Nicaragua, carrying more than 80,000 people from North Africa, the Middle East, India, and China, with hopes of reaching the United States. Border incidents spiked in early 2024 as Russian state media, propagandists, and their proxies amplified stories about the southwestern border crisis.
A months-long investigation, including interviewing victims, uncovered a complex web of propagandists, government officials, charter flight executives, and human traffickers selling hope of a better life in the United States via Nicaragua. What many find on their road to the southwest border is crippling debt to human smugglers, a dangerous journey through Guatemala and Mexico, and no guarantee of entry or asylum when they reach the United States.
Nicaragua’s involvement started in 2021, but in the spring of 2023, French language immigration ads targeting the citizens of Africa’s coup belt in the Sahel exploded, promising easy access to the United States. Some of the ads are financially backed by self-described Stalinist Luc Michel and his Rossosphere network and other Russian and pro-Russian sources. The social media influence campaign worked, fueling a 500% increase in United States Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) encounters with African nationals in 2023 that continues today.
According to CBP data, through June 2024, 54.5% of all encounters at the southwest land border of the United States were with citizens from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In 2014, it was 96.2%. Some of the shift is due to a sharp increase in the number of Haitians and Cubans attempting to cross the border, who are also part of the Nicaraguan pipeline.
Lost in the CBP 2023 data, an estimated 60,000 people from African nations were arrested at the southwest border, a 500% increase from 2022. Over one-third of those arrested from July to December 2023 were from Senegal.
US: Large numbers of single adult men from all over the world are crossing illegally into Border Patrol’s Tucson, AZ sector.
Our team shot this video in Lukeville, AZ, where men from Africa have been crossing daily, Bill Melugin reports.
A shadowy network of travel agents, tour companies, and charter airlines, supported by advertising on WhatsApp and Telegram and social media influencers on TikTok and Twitter (also known as X), charge migrants $10,000 to $100,000 for transport to Nicaragua, then a taxi ride to Honduras, and overland travel by handlers to the United States-Mexico border.
Changes in Nicaraguan visa laws and the selling of special immigration visas by the Daniel Ortega regime have turned Mangua into what some activists call a hub for human trafficking.
Russia and its alliance of nations have weaponized immigration in Europe, with Poland and Finland bearing the brunt of attempted border crossings. Moscow has learned that anti-immigration sentiment is a hot-button issue for pro-Russian isolationists and uses information warfare to amplify fear and misinformation, with increasingly violent results. In 2023, investigators in Europe found that Moscow went further and was directly involved in funneling migrants from Northern Africa and the Middle East to the Polish border through Belarus and the Finnish border.
Nicaragua’s Weaponization of U.S. Immigration is Profitable
Passports from African nations are among the weakest in the world, requiring travelers from a majority of countries to apply for visas before arrival. In late 2021, Nicaraguan Dictator Daniel Ortega loosened visa requirements for Cubans, Haitians, and several African nations and made further changes in early 2023. Despite the formal immigration policies, a program was created to sell visas at Nicaragua’s points of entry to immigrants arriving on charter flights. Their information is undocumented, and they don’t receive a passport stamp.
May 2024 – Irregular migrants from Africa outside the main airport terminal at Augusto Cesar Sandino International Airport in Managua, Nicaragua, awaiting transport to the Honduras border – photo credit AriosMedios, photographer name withheld for their protection
Called irregular migrants, upon arrival, they pay between $150 and $250 in cash to Nicaragua’s General Directorate of Migration and Immigration (GDMI). The funds are classified as “other service fees” and “fines” by the Ortega regime and netted $43.5 million in 2023, almost 65% of the income collected by the GDMI. Reviewing public records from 2021 and 2022, the revenue from “other service fees” grew by 62% in 2023.
Migrants have been instructed to hire a taxi driver, who will charge around $50 for the 5-hour drive to the Honduras border or are met by handlers. The drivers who wait for the migrants are authorized to access the airport and use the same taxi stands for tourist and business travelers. They gather as the charter flights arrive, with some walking outside the airport, holding up the pictures and names of the irregular migrants they’ve been pre-hired to transport.
People from Africa and the Middle East pay agencies between $5,000 and $10,000 for charter flights from Dakar, Dubai, Madrid, and Casablanca and another $3,000 to $5,000 for the journey to the U.S. border. Citizens of India and China, which make up a much smaller percentage of immigrants, are charged as much as $96,000 while receiving a “white glove” experience. The common experience between them all is the charter flight to Managua.
The human trade isn’t limited to the Middle East and Africa. Through October 2023, charter flight operators flew over 35,000 people out of Haiti and up to 20,000 from Cuba, charging $3,000 to $5,000 for the short flight to Managua. On October 31, 2023, the Port-au-Prince government banned all charter flights to Nicaragua, leaving thousands stranded and in debt. Before the ban, 60% of Haitians arriving at the Southwest border connected through Nicaragua.
In June, the U.S. government accused Ortega and his wife of putting in place “migration policies that have introduced opportunities for migrant smuggling and trafficking networks to exploit migrants for economic gain and fuel dangerous, irregular travel towards the U.S. southwest border.”
Fear Sells Plane Tickets and Funds Human Smugglers
The cheaper route for migration to the United States is via flights to Brazil, Columbia, and Venezuela. However, this route requires a 130-kilometer crossing of the Darien Gap. The region divides Panama and Columbia and is made up of mosquito-infested swamps, rainforests, and steep mountains. Less than 9,000 people live in the region, which has no infrastructure, not even primitive roads. The terrain isn’t the only danger. Human traffickers, cartels, kidnappers, and robbers operate throughout the gap, targeting people moving north.
In May 2023, the migrant route through Managua became so popular that the Nicaraguan government hired a Dubai-based company to train Nicaragua’s civil aviation officials to create and manage immigration procedures for the charter flights.
El Salvador was also a growing port of entry for migrants seeking access to the United States. In October 2023, the country added a $1,130 per person tax on travelers arriving from 57 countries, mostly in Africa, to deter irregular immigration.
Russia’s 40-Year History with Dictator Daniel Ortega and a Renewed Relationship
Ortega has opposed the United States since the 1980s when he led the Soviet-backed Sandinistas against the United States-backed Contra rebels. He and his wife, Rosario Murillo, have ruled Nicaragua as dictators since 2007 and embraced Russia in 2015. In 2016, Moscow donated 50 T-72 main battle tanks, with Nicaragua’s neighbors expressing concern over the import of heavy weapons. In 2017, Russia built a GLONASS satellite navigation ground station and, in 2022, established a small permanent military base.
Also, in 2022, the U.S. State Department imposed sanctions on three Nicaraguan entities for “repressive actions” and a failure to decrease human smuggling through the country. One of the sanctioned companies is a Russian training center operating in Managua since October 2017 that enables anti-democratic behavior and repression. A press release from the Treasury Department said Russia was one of Nicaragua’s “main partners” and accused Russia of providing specialized courts for the Nicaraguan National Police. Moscow backs “a repressive state apparatus, carrying out extrajudicial killings, using live ammunition against peaceful protests, and even participating in death squads.”
Highlighting the strength of the relationship between Managua and Moscow, on October 12, 2022, Nicaragua was one of only four countries in the United Nations that voted against condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, joining The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and Syria.
Honduras Supports the Nicaraguan Route by Creating a Legal Path
In response to the growing tension along the Nicaragua border and the increasing number of undocumented migrants reaching Honduras, the government created a program that permits undocumented migrants to pass through the country if they exit within five days. In 2023, Honduras also waived fines normally levied on irregular migrants trying to buy bus tickets, as it left thousands stranded.
When taxi drivers drop off the irregular migrants on the border, they are greeted by handlers who provide one-night lodging with a meal and assistance on their journey through Honduras. The agencies and handlers complete the government paperwork and give the migrants a bright yellow bracelet. The bracelet identifies them as “legal travelers” through Honduras, so the police do not stop them. They travel in groups of 20 to 100 and connect with new handlers in Guatemala.
These programs have turned Honduras into a sort of rest area before the harder and more dangerous journey through Guatemala and Mexico.
Nicaragua is Working with Russia to Influence U.S. Politics and Elections
Speaking with El Pais, Manuel Orozco, a migration expert and analyst at The Inter-American Dialogue, said that Ortega’s ultimate goal is to provoke the United States. “Ortega said that they were going to send migrants to the United States. So, the motivation is fundamentally political and ideological due to the hatred that Ortega has for the U.S.”
Russia has run similar hybrid warfare campaigns across Europe with mixed results. Illegal immigration, particularly from the Sahel and Northern Africa, was front and center during recent elections in The Netherlands, Germany, and France.
In November 2023, Finland closed its border crossing with Russia due to the weaponization of immigration and Moscow’s direct involvement.
The situation on Poland’s border with Belarus is worse. Middle East agencies have created videos mocking Polish border guards, openly showing that Russia and Belarus are directly involved in their transit. In May, a Polish soldier was stabbed to death by a migrant attempting to cross the Belarus-Polish border. On July 13, the Polish Seym approved a law that authorizes border guards and soldiers to fire live ammunition at migrants for “self-defense” and in a “preventative manner.”
Russian and Iranian Anti-immigration Disinformation Campaigns Fueled Riots in the United Kingdom
A shocking demonstration of how powerful Russia’s hybrid warfare campaigns have become played out in the United Kingdom. On July 29, 17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a British citizen born in Cardiff, entered a studio in Southport, stabbed three children to death, and seriously injured eight more and two adults. The victims were attending a summer Taylor Swift-themed dance lesson, and the injured adults tried to stop the attack. A Russian disinformation campaign amplified by far-right parties in the U.K. led to two days of riots, dozens injured, and shops, cars, homes, and a mosque vandalized and burned.
On July 29, while emergency services were still removing the injured, a Russian disinformation campaign started. It was quickly picked up and amplified by the targeted audience. Posts on social media, especially Twitter (also known as X), alleged the attacker was a 20-year-old Islamic extremist who arrived illegally in the U.K. by crossing the English Channel in a boat. They claimed he was a political refugee seeking asylum despite being on a terrorist watch list, and the stabbings were an act of Islamic-motivated terrorism. Those claims were picked up by fake news sites with legitimating sound names and amplified by British tabloids and even ITV, better known as Channel 3.
The false claims spread on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, and Instagram and were viewed over 18 million times and amplified by large accounts, including Tommy Robinson, accused rapist Andrew Tate, and British politician Nigel Farage.
On extreme right-wing social media channels, white nationalists and isolations planned protests, which quickly devolved into riots. In an attempt to quell the unrest, British officials made the unusual step of providing as much information about the suspect within the law as British born with immigrant parents. It did nothing to quell the unrest, which left Southport shattered and local residents feeling they were attacked for a second time.
On August 1, the British court took the extraordinary step of releasing the juvenile attacker’s name and providing press access to his first hearing. Rudakubana didn’t arrive by boat, wasn’t on a terrorist watch list, and isn’t an Islamic extremist.
Prosecutors told the court that he was diagnosed with autism and had been “unwilling to leave the house and communicate with family for a period of time.” The British tabloid The Mirror interviewed neighbors, who described the teen as shy but happy, a lover of singing and music, actively involved with the local church, and, from outward appearances, having supportive parents.
In the aftermath of the disinformation-fueled violence, new U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed that the far-right rioters would face the “full force of the law.” He added that the “criminal disorder” was “clearly driven by far-right hatred” and issued a warning to social media firms. “Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them. Violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”
Hours later, Twitter’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, responded with exclamation points to a tweet by Tommy Robinson, condemning Starmer for calling the rioters “thugs” and for giving “police more power to prevent further protests.” While a small act, Musk alleges to have over 190 million followers, wielding massive global influence.
The protests are far from over, with up to 30 right-wing and anti-immigration organizations planning to descend on Southport this weekend. A new disinformation campaign is spreading on Twitter, accusing a Muslim extremist of being arrested for having a knife near the damaged mosque in Southport. The man arrested was Jordan Davies, 32, a known British white supremacist.
Weaponized immigration also brought unrest to the United States. In February 2024, hundreds of protesters descended on Eagle Pass, Texas, after Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of emergency and blocked federal officials from accessing a small area of the United States-Mexico border. Those protests were fueled in part by a surge in immigration fueled by the actions of Nicaragua and amplified on social media platforms.
Russian disinformation campaigns made wild claims and actively encouraged the decades-long Texas Secession movement. The right-wing protesters who arrived at Eagle Pass discovered that undocumented migrants arrived in a steady stream of small groups, and along nearby areas on the border, only desert could be found. Others were surprised to find few Latin Americans crossing the border.
The Biden Administration and Other Nations are Quietly Fighting Back
The Biden Administration has quietly taken steps to stem the flow. Sanctions announced on May 15 included over 250 members of the Nicaraguan government, including “select non-government actors for their roles in supporting the Ortega-Murillo regime in its attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms, repression of civil society organizations and profiting off of vulnerable migrants.”
On June 13, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on an unnamed executive of a “charter flight transport company” for facilitating irregular migration to the United States via Nicaragua from outside the Western Hemisphere.” Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the State Department, said the unnamed individual preys “on vulnerable migrants by operating services designed primarily to facilitate irregular migration to the United States. At the same time, the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua continues to financially benefit from the exploitation of vulnerable migrants.”
Two days later, it was announced that more sanctions had been imposed. Visa restrictions were added to additional “owners, executives, and senior officials of companies providing transportation by land, sea, or charter air designed for use primarily by persons intending to migrate irregularly to the United States…for knowingly facilitating the travel of irregular migrants to the U.S. southwest border.”
On July 3, an agreement was reached with Panama to cover the costs of repatriating migrants who enter Panama illegally through the Darien Gap. Last year, over 500,000 people made the dangerous journey.
Two weeks later, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino announced security forces had closed some unofficial access points and started installing barbed wire fencing to funnel migrants to a single checkpoint.
In May 2024, according to the State Department, an Egyptian court initiated the trial of 16 people accused of smuggling migrants to the United States and have been charged with acts of organized crime and human smuggling. According to Egyptian officials, the group arranged air transportation of migrants and placed them in “dangerous, degrading, and inhuman circumstances throughout the smuggling process.”
Also in May, authorities in Jamaica refused landing rights to a charter plane carrying irregular migrants.
In June, the number of migrants trying to cross the U.S. border dropped to the lowest level since 2019. Most Americans have forgotten about Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Operation Lonestar, and the standoff between federal officials and the Texas National Guard.
That’s probably set to change. Less than 12 hours after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, the Associated Press reported that a caravan of 2,000 migrants from over a dozen countries, waiting in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, had started their journey to the U.S. border.
The city sits on the border with Guatemala, and some of the irregular migrants told reporters they had waited for weeks for travel permits, which were unexpectedly approved shortly after Biden’s announcement.
Let that image sink in. As a nation, our Democracy is dying. We the People are extinguishing the beacon of freedom that was the United States. Our country is losing our moral high ground on a global scale and our ability to say, “you can’t treat humans like this.” We have become the enemy of ourselves.
The implications of what we have become will echo for decades. You may read this and go, “I’m white, male, Trump-supporting, agree with all of these actions, and it can’t happen to me.”
Study your history. It can happen to you because, through history, people thought the same thing. It is acceptable right up to the point they are in a concentration camp, or slave labor camp, or forced into conscription in an aborted war. There was no one left to go, “what the Hell, stop this!” Or maybe it will be your child, or your spouse, or your parents who will run afoul of the state.
Here are some facts that should keep every American awake. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates as an extra-judicial organization and primarily outside of Constitutional protection.
FACT: Immigration and Customs Enforcement can do enforcement action at will up to 100 miles away from the borders of the United States. That includes waterways and ocean boundaries. Almost 70% of the United States population lives within this area.
FACT: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has set up checkpoints within this 100 miles zone. They are demanding proof of citizenship and operating outside of Constitutional protections.
QUESTION: If you had to prove your citizenship on the spot, can you? What if ICE says your paperwork is fake aka, “your papers are not in order,” and that you need to go to headquarters, errr detention. Think it doesn’t happen? Multiple United States citizens have ended up in ICE detention and held for months, told they have no Constitutional rights while in ICE custody.
FACT: ICE courts do not roll up into the Judicial branch of the United States government. They are part of the Executive Branch. Yes, that’s right, courts in the United States operate outside of the balance of power, and report directly to the Attorneys General. Run by the Executive Branch, this has created a system that works outside of the Constitution. Judges must meet deportation quotas. There are new rules invented out of thin air, and asylum seekers, even children, have to represent themselves with no translator and no legal council. The appeals process, which provides balance in the Judicial Branch by enabling defendants to argue that laws were violated in making a decision, are little more than kangaroo courts.
FACT: Illegal border crossing and the number of people seeking asylum has skyrocketed under the current administration, the “we must be tough,” polices are not working. Further, the actions taken against the governments of several Latin American countries, obstinately to reduce immigration, has only increased it.
FACT: The seal of decency, the outrage that would typically follow a savage attack on minorities, simply because they were minorities, is gone. The Latino population in the United States is living in fear because of almost three years of exaggerations, lies, and vile hatred directed at them.
All of these actions, all of these systems, this has happened before. Every dollar, the current administration gets, goes to building a private army for the Executive Branch. If fully weaponized, this system could move on almost 70% of the United States population at will. The Executive Branch could detain people into detention camps to disappear among the immigrants, to have cases heard by judges that report to the same branch. Not only are the seeds of dictatorship planted, but they are also growing into a tangled vine. The Legislative Branch is impotent and paralyzed, and leaders like Mitch McConnell are in lockstep alignment with the Executive Branch. You could argue, coherently, that McConnell helped lay the foundation for where we are today.
If you’re not familiar with your history, in Germany, an individual leader didn’t sweep to power illegally. A vote legally made by the Reichstag made him Chancellor. During this era, the political party didn’t openly support or organize violence against minority classes but didn’t do anything to stop it. They used language like “good people on both sides.” The vote by the Reichstag was tainted by the arrest, delay, and detention of politicians that would vote against giving the Chancellor dictatorial powers. However, there weren’t enough votes to stop it. The point becomes only academic.
If you’ve read this far to tell me what an idiot I am, please study your history. The Reichstag fire enabled the mass arrests of Communists, Socialists, trade union leaders, college professors, intellectuals, reporters, editors, and dissenters. Dachau became the first concentration camp for political prisoners. By effectively silencing any opposition by the end of 1933, the ire of the party could then focus on racial minorities, LGBTQ, Romani, the mentally ill, the disabled, Eastern Europeans, and Jews. The Final Solution started in 1942, a full nine years after the first concentration camp opened.
When it came to enforcement of the fascist state, the Gestapo was an organization with roughly 10,000 employees. Yes, you read that right, the secret police in Germany operated with an iron fist with that few people. They used citizens against each other. All it took was to talk ill of the state. But I love Trump! I would never speak evil of him! I am willing to bet that some of the same farmers that threatened USDA officials this week would have said the same thing 18 months ago.
An admission that up to 30% of US farmland couldn’t be planted because of historic flooding, levee collapses, and tariffs would be an admission of things we don’t admit. The farmers are outraged at the USDA because the crop forecast is beyond pure bullshit. The unintended consequence of hiding reality with the doctored USDA crop forecast was a collapse in grain prices. Farmers will get paid less due to the price collapse on a smaller harvest, cutting their profits even more. Enemies of the state – and I’ll repeat it – tariffs are socialism because tariffs represent price controls.
The Executive Branch has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold families, including children, indefinitely in concentration camp conditions. The due process comes from courts that work for the Executive Branch, where judges have quotas to achieve on deportations. You can’t even say that this is acceptable because “well, it is only illegal immigrants.” Multiple American citizens, including children, have been caught up in this system and held for months. They have been held outside of Constitutional protection and in conditions that violate the Constitution.
We are on the precipice of a cliff that history has shown leads us not to greatness, but as a shattered nation.
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.
Journalists, activists, and researchers defending the First Amendment
Subscribe to Malcontent News
Register to feed your head holes with the Malcontent News newsletter.
Submitting your e-mail address gives us permission to send you e-mails. We do not sell or distribute our e-mail lists or share them with third parties.
