ICE detention
Words matter. In debate, you quickly learn if you let the other side define central words, they win. This is happening today with ICE so-called detention centers. “Detention” is a soft a word they use to hide the ugly reality. Whenever opponents of ICE thuggery use this word, the thugs win.
In high school, we had detention. Arrive late to school: detention. Consistently miss homework: detention. Cause trouble: detention (plus a talk with the principal). No deaths. No beatings. Detention was a proportionate reminder. Nobody sees ICE confinement as detention.
ICE separates families. ICE arrests and holds children. ICE prisoners have died in captivity. ICE illegally confines American citizens and those legally permitted to live here. Whatever ICE thugs call it, this isn’t detention. What name do they deserve?
Call them “concentration camps.” This echoes the first use of the term when the British built camps to punish Afrikaners during the Boer War. The Nazis copied them and inflicted their own insanity. Now it’s ICE’s turn to copy. What insanity does ICE impose on their captives?
ICE concentration camps are not “warehouses,” “detention centers,” “immigrant detention facilities,” “service processing centers,” or “residential centers/campuses” (Campuses?). They are concentration camps and we should use this term, not the ones ICE gives us. Using “concentration camp” reminds us that when ICE thugs debase humans, they shame our country.
Empty the camps, follow the law and respect all people. Anything less is unamerican.