I had already completed my column for this week when today, on Tuesday, ICE suddenly abandoned plans to convert this warehouse in Merrimack into a “processing site” that could hold between 400 and 600 detainees. That’s because the project had become so toxic that the Trump administration was forced to pull the plug, fearing that if they didn’t, they would lose control over Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.
While this is a real victory, it is not the end of the fight. Therefore, I will continue with my previous piece to illustrate what’s at stake: the false premises and the catastrophic consequences of ICE becoming a rogue, ultra-powerful police force with a budget greater than what a vast majority of countries spend on their entire military establishment.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has consistently claimed we need this new facility because “There are a lot more illegal alien criminals left in our homeland. That includes in New England.” But the facts on the ground tell another story.
Records show that in the past year, ICE detained only 350 individuals in New Hampshire, most of whom had no criminal records. Since the average time they are held in detention before deportation is 60 days, why do we need another detention center? After all, ICE already has a sprawling network of over 200 facilities all around the country.
Even the words ICE used to sell this facility are deceptive, evoking an Amazon warehouse where merchandise is collected before shipping. But this is qualitatively different: ICE wants to repurpose this Merrimack warehouse, not to store cat food and shaving cream but to hold human beings against their will. That is why opponents of ICE are calling them “concentration camps,” and I think they are right.
Moira Donegan, writing in the Guardian, reported that a detainee at the Otay Mesa detention facility near the Mexican border smuggled out a note protesting the conditions: “It’s cold here, the food is very poor, for 290 [days] we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit … We’re in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We’re constantly sick.”
That fits the official Merriam-Webster definition for a concentration camp: “a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard.”
Increasingly, even Republicans are opposing these camps, not because they have suddenly become soft-hearted but because of the fierce public outcry against them. Even Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who is far from an immigration dove, wrote to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, asking her to back off the plan to open a camp in his state.
Looming over all of this is a more fundamental — and terrifying — reason to oppose these camps, as put forward by Ty Cobb, who served in the first Trump administration as White House special counsel.
According to Cobb, Obama deported roughly the same number of immigrants as Trump has to date, without violence and in accordance with the rule of law. He then poses a critical question: What if Trump were successful? What would be the purpose of these mammoth detention centers after all the immigrants are deported?
The answer is dark and scary. Here is the worst-case scenario:
It’s inevitable that Trump’s heavy-handed enforcement will result in more and larger protests as time goes on. The fear is that when they reach a certain level — perhaps at the next massive “No Kings” rally — he will be given the excuse he is looking for to enact the Insurrection Act.
At that point, he will use these detention centers — the ones Merriam-Webster calls concentration camps — to round up the protesters, whom he will label enemies of the state. As luck may have it, that may include you and me.
Jean Stimmell, retired stone mason and psychotherapist, lives in Northwood and blogs at jstim.substack.com.