Pandemic Priorities: Public Health, Not Immigrant Detention
The United States is now fully subject to the rampaging effects of Covid-19. Whether the Trump Administration admits it or not is no longer relevant. The virus is unmoved by pleas to focus on the economy or on Trump’s re-election ambitions. In the midst of this void of leadership, a public health hot spot is about to erupt. The Trump Administration is holding tens of thousands of foreign nationals in detention centers around the country. The people inside are already getting sick, and some are dying. They are very aware of the precarious situation they are in, and that we are choosing to keep them there, unnecessarily, despite our knowledge that doing so is a death sentence for them and for us. In the midst of this, ICE is detaining even more people unnecessarily, which exacerbates the public health crisis we are already fully immersed in.
Big Brother Is, In Fact, Watching
The US government is tracking people who oppose its unlawful and inhuman practices. In February of 2019, I filed Communiques with UN Special Rapporteurs, asking for their intervention with the US government. UN human rights mechanisms are a last resort, utilized when a person’s own government is harming them, and refuses requests for transparency about their abuses of power.
It’s Time to Pay Attention
For the past two years, our government has been steadily eroding the rule of law, chilling speech, riding rough shod over state’s rights, engaging in retaliatory activity against activists, and violating the constitution. You may not have paid attention, because much of this activity has been centered in the field of immigration law. If you thought that as a consequence, these moves do not impact you, however, you’d be very wrong.
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