Close ICE detention centers; Wealth and power should not ‘Trump’ life | Letters – NJ.com

Moral urgency to free ICE detainees

Shortly after Donald Trump took office, I became involved with a coalition of groups calling for the closure of Northern New Jersey’s ICE Detention Centers in Essex, Bergen, Hudson, and Union counties.

I had long known about America’s history of xenophobia, but with President Trump’s increasing attacks on my immigrant neighbors, friends, and family members, I felt a sense of moral urgency to join others in demanding the end of ICE detention. As a descendant of Jews who immigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States at a time when anti-semitism was at its peak, I had been taught the lessons of “never again” since I was a child and the horrifying reports coming from ICE detention centers made me realize how no group of people is immune from the hatred my ancestors experienced.

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the conditions inside of the detention centers in northern New Jersey were already atrocious. The Department of Homeland Security’s own Inspector General found moldy meat, substandard medical care, unsanitary living conditions, and an overuse of solitary confinement in a horrifying report about the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark. Many accounts from the four detention centers in North Jersey from the detainees themselves include physical and psychological abuse and should be described as nothing less than torture.

After reading the Inspector General’s report, I couldn’t imagine that things could get worse for the human beings inside of ICE’s detention centers, but the spread of a global pandemic once again brings to light the moral urgency of releasing immigrant detainees.

Medical professionals are now calling the detention centers “ticking time bombs” as these already unsanitary and overcrowded facilities make it impossible to practice social distancing and follow other CDC guidelines. Doctors report that ICE is engaging in the deadly practice of “cohorting,” where infected and non-infected detainees are quarantined in entire cell blocks together, making the spread of COVID-19 significantly more likely. If any other workplace in America was so brazenly flouting public health guidelines, it would be shut down immediately.

To make matters worse, ICE is notoriously unreliable when it comes to reporting information about the conditions of its detention centers. Phil Alagia, the Essex County chief of staff who oversees the county’s ICE detention program recently reported that “ICE has prohibited us from reporting any information regarding their detainees including all of our test results.” Due to a lack of both testing and transparency, the number of positive cases inside the detention centers is likely to be significantly higher than any numbers that have been reported.

For the Americans who believe that they are not affected by what happens inside of ICE detention centers, I urge them to think of the thousands of civilian employees who work inside the detention centers including guards, maintenance staff, and food service workers who must go back into their communities at the end of every shift. We know that COVID-19 knows no borders and that what happens inside a detention center can affect all of us.

That is why thousands of medical professionals, religious leaders, union members, and activists are calling for all politicians from the federal to the state and local level to support the demand to Free Them All.

As a member of the North Jersey chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, I am part of an organization that has long called for the closure of all ICE detention centers, but in order to make that happen, we need more groups and individuals to join our movement and echo our demands to Gov. Murphy and other New Jersey politicians. Now is the time for ordinary people to make their voices heard about the intolerable conditions that thousands of immigrants are being held in by ICE.

Sen. Cory Booker and Congresswoman Pramila Jaylapal have introduced the Federal Immigrant Release for Safety and Security Together Act, which would require the release of detainees over 50 and under 21, as well as those of all ages with chronic health conditions.

While this bill provides a step in the right direction, the demands of those in the DSA and others who are calling to Free Them All go a step further. We do not believe anyone should ever be held in ICE detention in the first place and we demand the immediate release of all detainees regardless of their age and health with the eventual goal of abolishing the agency entirely.

ICE detainees are being held on civil and not criminal violations. The majority of detainees have never committed a crime beyond having the incorrect documentation and are being held solely to make sure they show up to court. We do not believe that anyone — and especially those being held on civil charges — should ever be put in conditions as appalling as those in New Jersey’s ICE detention centers. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing into the indefinite future, now is the time for us to stand in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters and demand an end to ICE detainment. We will all be safer, healthier, and better human beings for doing so.

Karl Schwartz, Newark

Despite Trump, hope is all around us

It was shocking to hear President Trump suggest a disinfectant injection as a possible way of not getting the coronavirus. When I add this shock to so many other shocking deeds done by Trump — like his constant name calling and hate speech, his lies upon lies, his stealth of babies and little children from their mothers’ arms and caging them in crowded spaces, etc., etc. — I want to scream out against such evil doings.

Here is what I am beginning to think – that in Donald Trump’s sick and twisted mind, wealth and power are life itself. And that to achieve and keep that wealth and power he can and will do so by any means necessary – even to the point of world and self destruction. Like a martyr to a cause.

Thus, to Trump and the Trump-alikes, wealth and power trump life. Thus is their imminent danger to all that lives and breathes on Earth.

The above is frightening and can leave us very tempted to despair. But then we must remember all the lights of loving, yet unsung, brother and sister humans here and everywhere on our planetary home. And know full well that hope givers abound in our midst as they assure us that life will endure forever and beyond.

Jack Egan, Highland Lakes

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