New photos from inside Donald Trump’s detention centers on the southern border of the United States should shock everyone with a pulse.
The images, released by the Office of the Inspector General, show migrants stuffed into overcrowded cages and lying on cement floors. Many of them pictured are women and children.
In one of the most gut-wrenching photos, a man can be seen in an overcrowded cell holding a sign that says, “HELP. 40 DAY HERE.” In that particular cell, there were 88 males being in shoved into a room with a maximum capacity of 41.
As NBC News reported on Tuesday, one senior manager at the facility called the circumstances a “ticking time bomb.”
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NBC’s Gadi Schwartz shared the disturbing images on Twitter:
BREAKING: Office of the Inspector General releases new pictures of overcrowding at Border Patrol Facilities in TX. One senior manager calling this a “ticking time bomb.†#Immigration #ICE @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/bQdde1LYmB
— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) July 2, 2019
NBC News provided more details on the shameful conditions in which these migrants are being held as a result of Trump’s inhumane immigration policies:
The investigators for the DHS Office of the Inspector General toured five Border Patrol facilities and two ports of entry in the Rio Grande Valley sector during the week of June 10 and published their report as a “management alert” to the department on Tuesday.
The Rio Grande Valley of Texas has the highest volume of immigrants along the United States-Mexico border. At the time of the visits by investigators, Border Patrol was holding 8,000 detainees in custody, with 3,400 being held longer than the 72-hour limit.
…
The report also detailed what it called “security incidents” in which immigrants have tried to escape and once refused to return to their cells after being removed during maintenance. To address the problem, Border Patrol called in its special operations force to “demonstrate it was prepared to use force if necessary,” the report said.
These photos should shock the conscience
Donald Trump – firmly stuffed in his Fox News-MAGA bubble – thinks this issue is a winning one for him.
It’s why he repeatedly goes down the “build-the-wall-immigrants-are-bad” well whenever he needs to rile up his base. It’s why he announced this week that he plans to begin raids on 10 major U.S. cities to target thousands of families for deportation. It’s why his administration is arguing that migrants in detention centers don’t need beds or soap or toothpaste. It’s why all of this is happening on the southern border.
As Atlantic writer Adam Serwer famously wrote in 2018, “The cruelty is the point.”
While this cruelty might motivate or excite Trump and his supporters, it should shock the conscience of the rest of the country – the majority that believes treating migrant families like caged animals has no place in the United States of America.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
