DU9598 (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:21 AM
Original message http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3250398
Detention Camp being set up in Iowa? - LBN?
Advertisements [?]I didn't want to post this news in the LBN catagory because I am not sure if anyone else has already posted it early this AM before I logged on.
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?... >
U.S. lease of Waterloo fairgrounds raises questions
Federal officials have imposed a news blackout at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, where they have leased almost the entire property through May 25. Tim Counts, a Midwest spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, declined to say Monday whether an immigration raid is pending that would use the fairgrounds as a detention center.
The Waterloo Courier on Sunday reported that contractors have installed generators adjacent to many buildings at the fairgrounds. In addition, windows on many buildings have been covered up, blocking views inside. A number of mobile-home-size trailers have been transported to the privately owned grounds.
Representatives of Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley said they had no information about what was happening at the Cattle Congress fairgrounds. At Grassley's request, his staff called ICE officials on Monday. "During the call, the ICE officials would neither confirm nor deny anything to Senator Grassley's staff," said Beth Pellett Levine, a Grassley aide.
Armando Villareal, administrator of the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs, said he hadn't heard any reports about impending immigration raids. But he added that many Latinos in Iowa are feeling tension and fear. "Folks have resigned themselves that something terrible is going to happen between now and the election. It is more like a resignation that something is going to happen," Villareal said.
LBN catagory? Lezbians, Bi-Sexuals, Neutered husbands?
madrchsod (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
1. good way to raise food prices and cause problems in the cities
just in time for the election....
uhh....what?
SpiralHawk (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:26 AM
Response to Original message
2. "...something is going to happen between now and the election." - Villareal
Edited on Tue May-06-08 09:29 AM by SpiralHawk
Wow - this realization of how plug-ugly totalitarian the republicon homelanders are, and what they are likely to pull on America, is alive in the Heartland ?
The jig is, like, totally freaking up.
spinningbird is like, all doped up!
OregonBlue (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 11:34 AM
Response to Reply #2
12. I've been saying for a year now that I thought the Repukes were going to make immigration
a huge deal during the next election. Perhaps they plan to start the roundups. Many, Many otherwise sane Democrats are insane about illegal immigration.
For eight years you've been going on about cancelled elections, marshall law, VRWC...
zonmoy (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #12
28. They are more likely to cause a false flag attack to blame either on iran
or on the anti war movement so they can declare martial law and round up all dissenters.
AND, we're off...
chat_noir (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:42 AM
Response to Original message
4. Death by Detention
A chilling article by Nina Bernstein* in The Times on Monday recounted the secrecy, neglect and lack of oversight that are a few of the shameful symptoms of the booming sector of the nation’s prison industry — the detention of undocumented foreigners.
Ms. Bernstein chronicled the death of Boubacar Bah, a tailor from Guinea who was imprisoned in New Jersey for overstaying a tourist visa. He fell and fractured his skull in the Elizabeth Detention Center early last year. Though clearly gravely injured, Mr. Bah was shackled and taken to a disciplinary cell. He was left alone — unconscious and occasionally foaming at the mouth — for more than 13 hours. He was eventually taken to the hospital and died after four months in a coma.
snip
Secrecy and shockingly inadequate medical care are hardly the only problems with immigration detention. Immigrants taken into federal custody enter a world where many of the rights taken for granted by people charged with real crimes do not exist. Detainees have no right to legal representation. Many are unable to defend or explain themselves, or even to understand the charges against them, because they don’t speak English and lack access to lawyers or telephones.
snip
As authorities at the federal and local level continue rounding up illegal immigrants in these harsh days of ever-stricter enforcement, the potential for abuse will continue to grow — largely out of sight. Although immigration law is every bit as complex as tax law — and the consequences for violators more dire — the detention system seems designed to sacrifice thoughtful deliberation and justice to expediency and swift deportation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/opinion/06tue1.html?_...
* Few Details on Immigrants Who Died in Custody
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: May 5, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/nyregion/05detain.htm...
New Jersey....mstly a dem controlled state...
Zywiec (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 11:38 AM
Response to Reply #5
14. Martial Law until May 25th?
That's when their lease is up.
remember the conversation about logic and DUmmies?
smoogatz (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 12:06 PM
Response to Reply #14
18. So, they renew.
Or if there's martial law, maybe they just seize the property.
smoogatz (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. Then no doubt this will seem perfectly reasonable to you, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburto...
Especially this quote: "KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said," paying particular attention to that "new programs" part.
er....two years ago?
Zywiec (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. That article is more than two years old
"The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions."
What this extended in 2007 or 2008, or did it expire? Do you have anything more recent?
-snip-
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.
-snip-
Mr. Church said that KBR did not end up creating immigration centers under its previous contract
Was anything ever built?
Logic doesn't work here..
smoogatz (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. Does it not sound to you as though they're building one in Iowa?
Zywiec (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 02:54 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. Another two year old article? n/t
DUmm DUmm DUMMMMMM!!!!
smoogatz (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 02:59 PM
Response to Reply #25
26. That's when the contract was made public.
The story has since gone swirling down the memory hole. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, isn't still happening, and won't come back to bite us in the ass. But whatever: don't worry your pretty little head.
warren pease (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:09 PM
Response to Reply #14
37. And because the executive branch is absolutely infested with honorable men...
... it's entirely reasonable to expect that ICE, on direct orders from the very top, will honor that lease and abide by their contractual obligations to the letter. Probably obsessively so.
In fact, because they've proven over the years that their word is their bond, I'd expect them to vacate the place a couple of days early just to give the Merry Maids crews plenty of time to make everything spotless for the next tenants.
Unfortunately, the next lease is just a three-day use permit for a rodeo, so maybe that army of Merry Maids is a little excessive after all. But if anything, that just shows what a profound sense of duty these people have.
They'd rather blow a bunch of money needlessly, fulfilling the clause that holds them responsible for restoring the premises to pre-occupancy condition, than risk their hard-won reputations by half-assing the project.
Think about it... What else would anyone expect from an administration that's been perhaps as candid and forthright with the American people as any in history? They'd no sooner duck their obligations than lie to us about the need to battle the evil doers over there so we don't have to fight them over here.
If their seven plus years in the white house has demonstrated nothing else, it's that these are the kind of people you'd be proud to trust with your money, your wife, your property or your life. And I defy anyone to suggest otherwise.
wp
madokie (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 11:41 AM
Response to Reply #7
15. Yes there is no doubt in my mind anymore that they want the hil in the wh
bill and poppys huggy huggy father son relationship is troubling in light of what is going on right now in the primaries. Things are not as they seem indeed
madokie was in vietnam. his avatar tess you this. we must take him seriously.
TwoSparkles (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 03:27 PM
Response to Original message
27. Just my gut feeling...?
Our government is slowly getting us used to the "rounding up" of people and also the detention of
people in camps.
First, they start with "illegals" that they have worked so diligently to dehumanize and incite hate against.
They figure, if we see these people as less-than-human--we won't care so much when they are rounded up and
put in closed-off camps.
Then, when our brains are accustomed to this happening--others will be rounded up--dissenters, anti-war activists, etc.
Are people in this country, really so slovenly and ignorant? Do they not realize what is happening? After
what happened with the Jewish people and the detention camps there---no country should ever be allowed to
create circumstances that are similar. No groups of people should be "rounded up." No groups of people
should be detained in camps, in situations where they are closed off from the public.
That's just sick.
Why would our government even want to behave in this inhumane way?
These actions are the precursors to a concentration-camp-type situation. This shouldn't be happening.
Does anyone trust that the thugs in charge now...are doing nothing wrong and that this is all very innocent?
Unless, of course, they are right-wingers.
Zywiec (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 04:21 PM
Response to Reply #27
29. But won't this all end on January 20, 2009?
Or do you think Hillary or Obama will continue slowly getting us used to the "rounding up" of people and also the detention of
people in camps?
Start signing, "Hail to McCain!" baby!
warren pease (1000+ posts) Tue May-06-08 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #29
39. What makes you think the Bushies have any intention of leaving next January...
...peacefully and on schedule just because the 22nd amendment says they have to? Which other parts of the Constitution have they obeyed to the letter? The part about how it's OK to use signing statements in place of the usual legislative process? The part that specifies that rule by executive fiat is the ultimate form of egalitarian government? The part prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment?
The part that says they're committed to honoring international treaties that the US has signed? The part that says people have the right to vote and that those votes shall be counted accurately? What about the Bill of Rights, of which at least 3/5 are now null and void?
And against that backdrop of absolute disregard for the rule of law, we have all these really disturbing dictatorial powers they've awarded themselves and various pieces of oppressive legislation they've shoved through our useless Congress. They've even encouraged various shadow agencies to ratchet up their overt exhibitions of open hostility toward the American people, who used to be their bosses until the Fourth Reich showed up and seized power in the coup of 2000.
They've all but come right out and admitted to something like: Yup. We're tired of you ****ing dissidents talking all that shit on the Intertubes. HR 1955 says we're out of the tolerance business and in serious suppression mode. DHS calls it "Endgame" for a good reason.
Check these things out and see if you detect some kind of disturbing pattern:
The law of the land now includes various pieces of repressive legislation, executive orders and presidential directives; massive federal invasions of privacy regarding medical and financial records; monitoring US citizens' electronic communications; re-targeting spy satellites for domestic surveillance; the TSA cavity search specialists (for attractive young women only; the rest are presumed to pose no threat to the state); no-fly and terrorist watch lists; Halliburton/KBR's detention camps; RFIDs in all new passports and in the new national ID cards scheduled to be issued this year; new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right;" all this wonderful new stuff from the DHS; private armies featuring mercenaries from companies like Blackwater and SAIC springing up like mushrooms after a light rain... All that and the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, extraordinary rendition (whatever the hell that means) and torture, too. (Note: the torture link is graphic and disgusting.)
Also, see the blockquote in this post, which is a small part of H.R. 1585, the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. Note the orders to prepare to use regular troops -- as opposed to the Guard or Reserves -- to respond to "natural disasters and terrorist events," which are among the triggers Bushie needs to invoke the "continuity of government" provisions in NSPD 51/HSPD-20 (see the link above). In other words, martial law.
Do you get the faintest hint that they're really not ****ing around anymore? Or is this all just one big bizarre coincidence and there's really no sinister pattern at all. There nothing to indicate that the legal and physical infrastructures necessary to implement a full blown national security state are all in place and just waiting for the Bushies to flip the switch.
On the other hand, I suppose some would maintain that we're fortunate to have such men of honor and unswerving dedication to duty running the show. Their inherent nobility assures us no harm will come from any of this. It's all just a big joke and everything's still cool in the land of the free.
So take your xanax and be of good cheer.
wp
and, warrin. In for the closer...
