“That Conversation about Race” category archive

Via Boston.com, one man, whose only offense was overstaying his visa and marrying an American woman, tells his story. Here’s a tiny bit:

Culleton told an Irish radio station about his detention at the ERO East Montana ICE Detention Camp in El Paso, Texas, describing poor sanitation and hygiene at the facility along with rampant sickness.

“It’s like a modern day concentration camp. We’ve got no human rights down here,” Culleton said. “People are starving, people are sick, people are tired … It’s just hell down here. Hell on earth. I wouldn’t wish it on any human being at all.”

Follow the link for the full account, including, natch, the Trump maladministration’s claims that, au contraire my sweet, staying in their camps is akin to vacationing at a Hilton or a Marriott.

Reuters runs the numbers:

Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.

More numbers at the link.

Again we are reminded that that’s not scripture.

That’s a Republican family value.

At SFgate, a report of the purging of the history of the Blackfeet people at Glacier National Park contains this nugget (emphasis added);

The myriad signs reportedly flagged for removal in Glacier National Park join a growing list of materials the Trump administration has deemed out of line with a directive to restore “truth and sanity to American history,” including “partisan ideology” and anything considered to “disparage Americans past or living.” Brochures, signs, videos and informational displays in parks that include Grand Canyon, Big Bend and Zion are vanishing, or are slated to soon be.

Methinks an edit is called for and that this phrasing more accurately describes what’s going on here:

They want to “restore truth and sanity to American history” as long as the truth does not “disparage white, racist Americans past or living.”

Sam and the crew dissect what MAGA’s furor over Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl tells us about the culture war mongers.

The EFF reports that the Trump maladministration wants to track those who disagree with its tactics. A snippet:

In the past year, DHS has consistently targeted people engaged in First Amendment activity. Among other things, the agency has issued subpoenas to technology companies to unmask or locate people who have documented ICE’s activities in their community, criticized the government, or attended protests.

These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it. When a handful of users challenged a few of them in court with the help of ACLU affiliates in Northern California and Pennsylvania, DHS withdrew them rather than waiting for a decision.

These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it.

At Above the Law, Jonathan Wolf reports that :ICE “kidnapped” some of the staff of his favorite burrito shop. Later on in the article, he explains his use fo that term (emphasis added):

I say “kidnapped” because this most definitely was not an “arrest” and there is no better word for what actually took place. When a police officer takes another person into custody, he or she is acting under the color of legal authority. This police officer must respect the constitutional rights of the accused, and must have probable cause indicating that the person being arrested has committed a crime. When police officers make arrests, their badges and the badge numbers on them are visible, their last names are stitched into their uniforms, and their faces are uncovered, so that if your rights are indeed violated while you are in custody, you know who to complain about later on. When a police officer goes beyond the legal authority with which he or she is entrusted, that police officer is subject to disciplinary action, civil liability, or even criminal prosecution.

The color of someone’s skin or the fact that they speak English with an accent does not amount to probable cause.

Thom has seen this before. A snippet:

Every modern society that normalizes hunts of the poor, the dark-skinned, the undocumented, or the politically inconvenient eventually discovers that the culturally acceptable definition of undesirable keeps expanding.

At Above the Law, in the midst of a longer story about efforts by lawyers and law students to pressure (the Republican-controlled) Congress to require the Trump maladministration’s ICE to obey the law, lies this little fact:

Minnesota is presently a constitutional law dumpster fire. The Constitutional Accountability Center identifies at least five constitutional amendments that the Trump administration is repeatedly violating on the ground.