Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great having you with us.
Immigration was an important issue in this last election. It remains so now. The first group among several caravans of Honduran and Central American people are now camped out in Tijuana, right by the U.S. border. Trump has sent down thousands of American troops to that border at a cost of at least $200 million. We’re incarcerating more people now than ever before, over 44,000 people at last count. Over half of those incarcerated have been in custody for over two years, many with no deportation, nor hearings, nor court dates. People are arrested and often shipped thousands of miles away from where they were arrested; away from their families and any legal assistance they were used to. More than 14,000 children are being held alone without their parents, or having been separated from their parents. The conditions in many of those facilities where immigrants are being detained have been reported to be abysmal. People are being denied medical treatment and assistance, access to attorneys, held in facilities either too hot or too cold, and vastly overcrowded. And if they protest, it’s been reported they’re being separated from their children.
Chomsky: In terms of immigrant detention more broadly, aside from the child detention system, this is actually, like–the numbers are higher now, but they’re not that much higher now, because the norm over the past 10, 20 years has been having 33,000 beds filled a night. So now we’re up into the 40,000s. So it is a significant increase, but it’s not something that’s like completely unprecedented or new the way what’s happening with the children is. Most of these immigrants are kept in private detention centers. There’s very little oversight–that is, privately run detention centers. Part of the private prison system. It’s a for-profit system. And the conditions tend to be very, very bad. And the other thing that you should know about the immigrant detention system is that because it’s separate from the criminal justice system, the minimal rights that people have when they’re detained under the criminal justice system they don’t have under the immigrant detention system. So there’s no guarantee–they don’t even have to be informed as to why they’re being detained. They don’t have to be offered bonds, or even have a bond hearing. They don’t have the right to legal representation. So people are just basically being thrown into dungeons.
Me: The term is "concentration camps." And Avi shows that sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. A decade of death threats doesn't deter her.
So what's our excuse, pray?
Immigration was an important issue in this last election. It remains so now. The first group among several caravans of Honduran and Central American people are now camped out in Tijuana, right by the U.S. border. Trump has sent down thousands of American troops to that border at a cost of at least $200 million. We’re incarcerating more people now than ever before, over 44,000 people at last count. Over half of those incarcerated have been in custody for over two years, many with no deportation, nor hearings, nor court dates. People are arrested and often shipped thousands of miles away from where they were arrested; away from their families and any legal assistance they were used to. More than 14,000 children are being held alone without their parents, or having been separated from their parents. The conditions in many of those facilities where immigrants are being detained have been reported to be abysmal. People are being denied medical treatment and assistance, access to attorneys, held in facilities either too hot or too cold, and vastly overcrowded. And if they protest, it’s been reported they’re being separated from their children.
On top of that, the entire process of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation of immigrants is being privatized. The cost of private imprisonment is now $150 a day per person, as opposed to the public cost of detention at around $99 a day. Private prison corporations are making hundreds of millions of dollars. They seem to be totally unaccountable and unanswerable to the conditions in those facilities to anybody.
Our guest is Dr. Aviva Chomsky, professor of history and the coordinator of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Salem University in Massachusetts. She’s a noted author of numerous books. Some of those books including the book Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal. And her latest book is They’re Taking Our Jobs, and 20 Other Myths About Immigration. And Aviva Chomsky, welcome back. Good to have you with us.
[...] Chomsky: In terms of immigrant detention more broadly, aside from the child detention system, this is actually, like–the numbers are higher now, but they’re not that much higher now, because the norm over the past 10, 20 years has been having 33,000 beds filled a night. So now we’re up into the 40,000s. So it is a significant increase, but it’s not something that’s like completely unprecedented or new the way what’s happening with the children is. Most of these immigrants are kept in private detention centers. There’s very little oversight–that is, privately run detention centers. Part of the private prison system. It’s a for-profit system. And the conditions tend to be very, very bad. And the other thing that you should know about the immigrant detention system is that because it’s separate from the criminal justice system, the minimal rights that people have when they’re detained under the criminal justice system they don’t have under the immigrant detention system. So there’s no guarantee–they don’t even have to be informed as to why they’re being detained. They don’t have to be offered bonds, or even have a bond hearing. They don’t have the right to legal representation. So people are just basically being thrown into dungeons.
Me: The term is "concentration camps." And Avi shows that sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. A decade of death threats doesn't deter her.
So what's our excuse, pray?