"something different is happening now in the breadth and ferocity of efforts to change the makeup of this country"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

‘The System Is Meant to Break You’: What ICE Is Doing to People Here Legally

Immigration and Border Patrol officers have long held extremely broad discretionary powers to welcome or reject noncitizens arriving in the United States. And this is far from the first wave of xenophobia to hit America. But something different is happening now in the breadth and ferocity of efforts to change the makeup of this country.


The stories we were told call into question both the constitutionality and the morality of how the Trump administration is directing immigration policy. That immorality, once unleashed, may ultimately be aimed at others in this country, regardless of immigration status. If a woman returning from vacation with her young children can be suddenly removed from her family and her life, how can we believe that any of us will remain safe?

There was a disquieting sameness to the horror that was described to us. Those we interviewed despaired at how the detention centers were kept purposefully, horrendously cold, forcing some of them to huddle up against strangers. They spoke of lights left on 24 hours a day and of interstate transfers that came without notice. They described food that was inadequately distributed and made them unwell. Of being forced to urinate and defecate in front of fellow detainees and guards. Of being humiliated and mocked by officers. All referred to a destabilizing lack of information, the dreadful understanding that they could be held for weeks or months without anyone informing them why they were being held at all.

----------

After five days, Ms. Rosa was taken to a Massachusetts ICE facility to shower, and then was transferred to a rat-infested women’s jail in Maine. There, she encountered women who had been imprisoned for months. After five more terrible days, she was driven back to the first ICE facility. Then she was released — but she did not walk out to her lawyer, nor her husband. She was left outside in the rain, with no phone and no money, disheveled and frantic. She walked to a nearby mall and begged a kindly passer-by to use a phone to call her family.

paywall free share:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/opinion/ice-immigration-green-card-detention.html?unlocked_article_code=1.208.WYgR.QldPYERDkEr2&smid=url-share

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[70sEraVet]

2. None of this is new. The only thing 'new' is .....

The KKK now have badges.

[Joinfortmill]

6. Gestapo by another name. My hate has no bounds. Justice will prevail. If it doesn't, we're done.

AND I REFUSE TO ACCEPT THAT.

[PunkinPi]

7. That's not even new.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/6/24/the-racist-roots-of-us-police

&list=RDbWXazVhlyxQ&start_radio=1

[yardwork]

8. It is new to the U.S. at this scale.

If you're talking about our history of slavery, I get your point, but this is different in the sense of its randomness.

[Cosmocat]

10. I take your point, but what is new

is that it has moved from simmering in the background to being put into absolute power.

[harumph]

3. That is why if we ever get control congress and the executive:

to paraphrase Orwell, (Our boot) needs to be stamping on the faces of people who instituted this shit show of inequity and sadism until our feet start to hurt from the pounding. Powerful people saying "yes" to this inhuman policy deserve no deference whatsoever. They need to be ruined both reputationally and financially by whatever means. If this sounds mean spirited - it is. Also, anyone reading this, please don't bother with the pearl clutching sentiment that such action would make us as bad as "them" because it is a lazy argument. Unlike Miller, Noam and Vought, on the whole, Democrats haven't been the ones for dreaming up ways to destroy whole classes of people for personal and political gain.

[Joinfortmill]

5. AMEN!

[Buckeyeblue]

12. Republicans will call for healing and unity

Which is all code for "let's not talk about Trump" but at some point post-Trump we are going to have to address what will have been the previous 12 years.

Enough people in this country came to the cross roads and made a deal with the devil. Maybe less of a deal than it was seduction, fell for his ugly charm, were woed by his overt rudeness. Who the fuck are these people? And why should I have any grace for them going forward?

[GAtomboy]

13. Agreed!

Being the party that turns the other cheek has only gotten that cheek battered as well. They all need to be ruined in the professions and wallets.

[Joinfortmill]

4. The Trump Administration is a criminal cabal. Impeach this monster. Now.

[Cosmocat]

9. The same party that has for the entirety of our lives

railed on about how you can't trust government, and how dangerous it can be if allowed to do the very things it is now doing, when those in power actually were operating within the norms and practices of good governance, are cheering for all of this like it was the game winning TD in the Super Bowl.

You are 100% right, that it won't stop where it is now.

This kind of hatred and cruelty does not get a full belly and go to sleep.

It never can be fed enough.

[GiqueCee]

11. Those who support...

... an irredeemably evil man and his psychotic policies are every bit as evil and psychotic as he is. NO mercy. NO forgiveness. And they are the traitors in this psycho-circus, NOT the six veterans who merely quoted the Uniform Code of Military Justice regarding active duty soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen's legal OBLIGATION to defy blatantly illegal orders. That goes double for the malignant shitstains of ICE.

[dalton99a]

14. ICE criminals wear masks because they don't want to be tried for crimes against humanity

[GusBob]

15. American Gulags If you think Im being histrionic

Read Gulag by Anne Applebaum. The third paragraph above is taken straight out of it