U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers have frightening similarities to the concentration camps set up in Nazi-Germany and there needs to be more awareness of what is going on at the front gates of the United States to create a real change.
Jewish people and other minorities during Nazi-Germany suffered because of a political agenda claiming to cleanse the nation. Today, we have a similar political agenda in the United States that has already begun propagating false information about immigrants and minorities to push for that agenda and arguably affecting the treatment of immigrants at the border.
Mexicans have been called rapists and criminals by President Donald Trump, mirroring the rhetoric Adolf Hitler used to claim the Jewish community was taking advantage of the German people to push forth a narrative in his 1939 Reichstag speech.
To make matters worse, people seem to be oblivious to the fact that the ICE detention centers resemble the concentration camps that those oppressed years ago were forced into. Though not to the extent of extermination camps in Germany, immigrants are being stripped of their identities and human rights within these camps.
The United Nations defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy… a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Most of these points can be checked in relation to the detention centers in the United States.
Families are being separated, all in the effort to “destroy” the intent of people from crossing the border.
Women are allegedly being sterilized at the borders according to a whistle blower complaint filed by Project South, a non profit organization advocating for the elimination of poverty and genocide. The whistle blower, Dawn Wooten, was a licensed nurse at the facility. She explained that there were not any translators and there was not any informed consent among the women who had hysterectomies performed, a surgery that would deem a woman unable to conceive.
Detainees have also come forward to claim that they are being gassed with a dangerous amount of sterilizer amidst the COVID-19 pandemic multiple times a day. This is the claim that Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Freedom for Immigrants, an organization for the civil rights of immigrants has stated in a complaint to Homeland Security about the Adelanto Detention Center in California.
One person in the complaint report claimed that after inhaling the spray they began bleeding and after five hours the bleeding continued. When they complained to officers they were told it was not the officer’s problem.
This type of psychological distancing was seen by Nazi officers, when they committed atrocities in concentration camps. Such is proven in the Nuremberg trials where most of their defenses were that they were only doing their job and had no choice but to follow through with instructions.
Hiding behind the facade of the American dream is an American nightmare, hidden behind the glamour that it means to be an underdog and make it against all odds is the truth. There is a modern day genocide happening in our front yards and the blinds in our eyes need to be shed now to provide human rights to even those who are not Americans within our borders.
Remember, these are the same borders that stood proudly against genocide and alongside the allies in World War II. Let’s rediscover our roots and demonstrate who America really is and why she is the land of never-ending possibilities. These modern day concentration camps need to be shut down, and the people in charge of them need to be held accountable.
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.