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Maria Tambien's avatar

A number of farmworkers from the Glass House raids were coerced into signing expedited removal documents and were deported within 48 hours of their arrests. Most if not all to Tijuana, Mexico. They were held at Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Will they show up in detention numbers? Removals Or not at all?

Rachel Rutter, Esq.'s avatar

Appreciate your work, @Austin Kocher

Sarah Towle's avatar

This is all very troubling, indeed, Austin. I'm rather dismayed by it, too. Given the perceived "mandate" of Trump & Co to realize the removal of 1 million people in this year alone, you'd think they'd be flaunting the numbers of detained and expelled. You'd think they'd be boasting about it, rather than leaning on loopholes to keep the numbers on the down low.

Another thing I find troubling is the normalization of the hideous name the Florida monsters have given their pet facility by the mainstream media. This regime is all about inculcating the public to believe that everyone they kidnap is "the worst of the worst" -- just one among their myriad lies, which you know. And words matter because they form thought. So using the name "Alcatraz," even in quotes, perpetuates the trope that one and all are criminals because the name is easily associated in the mind with that once inescapable prison for society's worst offenders.

So do the chart labels, for that matter. As I lay out in Chapter 15 of CROSSING THE LINE, the spate of laws passed from 1988 to 1996 created a category called "aggravated felon," the definition of which got expanded and expanded until civil misdemeanors for you and me, like shiplifting and driving without a tail light, could be manipulated and whipped up into deportable criminal offenses with mandatory detention until expulsion for undocumented and legal residents, alike, including veterans of our armed forces -- 94,000 have been expelled to date for such minor transgressions. Ergo: the use of "criminal" and "criminal history" in the immigration context is always misleading.

Going back to the Everglades facility, I wonder if you've considered fully eschewing DeSantis and Uthmeier's outlandish terminology and opt instead for calling it what it is: a concentration camp and a black site.

Tim Mullaney's avatar

I’m guessing that the criminal history breakdown by felony,

Misdemeanor, traffic offense etc is not

Published by ICE? Also, how often does the population turn? These numbers don’t

Look large, but if there are frequent turns and the population in detention doesn’t drop, there are

More grabs than meets the eye

Mac Cordell's avatar

Is there any reliable source of data for minors being detained/deported?

Ruth's avatar

Do you know if there’s been investigation into the death of the Glass House farm worker who fell 30 ft during the raid there? Or outreach to his wife & child in Mexico regarding legal action against the agencies responsible? I read that he sent money back, so I don’t know how they’ll get by. It’s so sad.

Pablo Andreu's avatar

Is there a precedent for leveraging this "legal grey area," as you put it, in order to keep those numbers off the federal books? It's wrong either way, of course, but I'm curious.

RAEchel Running's avatar

It’s just wrong on so many levels of inhuman atrocities caused by our government -

Is there any way in foreseeable future that there will be justice and accountability? Are these the same contractors who are building the wall and the detention centers here in AZ that former governor Jan Brewer had invested in ?

Thk you for your insight and important work.