I came across this article while searching for a poll of Americans as to what they know about the German concentration camps and genocide of the Jews and other minorities. Spoiler Alert: They don't know jack. Or at least a large number of them don't.
Website claims child immigrants kept in dog kennels, concentration camps. Here are the facts By Amy Sherman on Friday, June 22nd, 2018 at 9:37 a.m.
The article is talking about whether or not the detention facilities for immigrants qualify as concentration camps, as well as a few other things regarding them and "click-bait". The article seems to come to the conclusion that, while the facilities come nowhere near being as bad as Nazi concentration camps (high bar), they do qualify as concentration camps.
Debórah Dwork, Founding Director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, said the term "concentration camp" is applicable if used more broadly and not specifically to the Nazis.
From Website claims child immigrants kept in dog kennels, concentration camps. Here are the facts By Amy Sherman on Friday, June 22nd, 2018 at 9:37 a.m.*
I really didn't expect that conclusion. The article has a narrative voice that seems to be against the article it's addressing. They also bury the fact that they are possibly considered concentration camps behind the fact that they aren't as bad as the Nazi concentration camps. I guess that we probably do have to clarify when using the term that we are not saying that they are as bad as facilities in one of the worst most heinous times in history. It is at least a little crazy though, because there are few other things where you have to clarify that you aren't saying that they're as bad as the worst example.
What we do know is that there are facilities where immigrants are being detained, without trial, having committed no crime, as far as we know, sometimes in large rooms segregated from the rest of a facility behind chain-link fence, forced to sleep on the floor with emergency blankets, in extremely overcrowded conditions. There are reports of these "detainees" having limited access to water, and some supposedly being told to drink from the toilet. They want us to call them "detainees", but everything points to them being prisoners. Maybe some of them entered illegally, but that's a misdemeanor crime for your first offense, and it certainly doesn't warrant being kept in horrible conditions indefinitely, until a judge just happens to get to your case.
But, we actually don't even know what conditions any of these people are being kept in. We have pictures that they decided to release of some facilities, but these could be some of the best facilities.
Jeff Sessions Cites Bible to Justify Separating Immigrant Children from Parents June 18, 2018 by Universal Life Church Monastery
Well, I guess at least this particular facility is not exactly like a dog kennel, since they at least usually give dogs their own room. All of these immigrants have to just sleep next to each other on the floor, perhaps with a cot or pad, if they're lucky.
Stray animals become on base nuisance By Staff Sgt. Kenya Shiloh, 18th Wing Public Affairs / Published March 28, 2008
We don't really know what these facilities are like though. They aren't letting people in to report on what they're like. They're shadowed in mystery. For the longest time we had to just hope they were housing these immigrants humanely, but now we kinda know they aren't.
The center in McAllen, Texas. Photo: RGV-FCB/Center for Border Protection
What to Know About the Detention Centers for Immigrant Children Along the U.S.–Mexico Border By Amanda Arnold @aMandolinz
We also know that there are at least some cases where people were being kept in jails, temporarily or not. The original article that started me talking about this mentioned a case where a father reportedly committed suicide while in custody of a jail after being separated from his child after he asked for asylum. I can only guess that perhaps he wasn't mentally stable and feared he would never see his child again, if the story is true. These people have the legal right to see asylum, no matter how they get into the country, and due to the intentional difficulties that the Trump administration has put on applications for asylum, many feel that their best options are to enter the country in any way possible, in order to seek asylum.
If you are trying to escape from any of the many things that might cause you to seek asylum, waiting for days or weeks trying to get into the US might put your life at risk.
But they don't care.
They don't care if these people have a legal right to seek asylum. They consider them all the same. [Trump even called refugees illegal immigrants](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-refugees-illegal-immigrants_n_58939bb6e4b0c1284f24f58b( in the past. Refugees would be an example of people that likely are fully qualified to seek asylum.
You might remember a particular group of refugees escaping genocide in recent history, the Rohingya of Myanmar. I myself do. I think about them occasionally, and wonder why it seems like no one really cares what happened to them.
What would these people that support the detention of these immigrants think about refugees escaping racial genocide? Would they just be more illegal immigrants?
I don't know if calling these facilities dog cages or kennels is really accurate. I do know that these are inhumane conditions. I do know that we need to know what's happening in there. I do know that we need reporters to be allowed into those facilities, or at least oversight and reports on them by independent organizations. I do know that they're technically concentration camps, and we might want to consider calling them that, because it is a word that evokes powerful emotion, and this entire situation is just fucked up. We need more info about what's happening in these facilities, and people to investigate it, because everything that's coming out about them suggests that they're not right.
These facilities aren't as bad as the concentration camps during the holocaust, or even concentration camps in certain other horrible times during history, but they are concentrating individuals who's only crime was coming to America and seeking asylum. Okay, maybe some of them tried to cross a border rather than stand in line. For that they shouldn't be locked up indefinitely in holding pens with tons of other immigrants, with no proper beds or facilities or even access to soap or toothpaste. WTF!