During the Trump administration, many ICE raids were made which caused overcrowding in the detention centers. Inhumane conditions were normalized and children were often separated from their parents leaving the kids scared and alone. With the appearance of COVID and the overcrowding of these detention centers, there is a public safety issue taking place in these detention centers. The surge of COVID places everyone in the detention centers at risk, therefore, the Brennan Center recommends ICE to stop arresting people unless someone is a “threat to public safety”. This condition isn’t going to halt the arrests because this is something deeper. It is a racial issue.
Detention centers are the new internment camps. The United States has history when it comes to finding racial groups to scapegoat and blame everything on. This isn’t a technique that this country is foreign to. We can see this technique used on Mexican Americans in the beginnings of Los Angeles. Many were discriminated against and because of this they weren’t given the opportunity to work. At this time, the majority of LAPD’s arrests were due to “vagrancy” therefore, many Mexican Americans were arrested. They wanted to work but weren’t able to due to discrimination. This scapegoating is also seen with the creation of the internment camps for Japanese Americans. This took place after the explosion in Pearl Harbor. Propaganda was created to make it seem like Japanese Ameircans were spies. However, many were born in the United States and considered themselves loyal Americans.
This shows that this issue is deeper than citizenship and legality. It is an issue involving race and discrimination. It is showing the intentions for the creation of the United States, making it a white country.
Sources
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/immigration-detention-and-co vid-19
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