5 ms·

Quit calling them concentration camps. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. No one forced people to cross the border illegally, whereas Jews were rounded up and

Quit calling them concentration camps. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. No one forced people to cross the border illegally, whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death. Not even a close comparison. By your logic, all prisons are "concentration camps". If you don't want them held until trial, what should we do instead? They are essentially prisons, because that is what we do with people who break the law.

duk3luk3 7y ago
A point made to fight misinformation: The vast majority of people in immigration detention are not suspected of having committed any crimes.
- sundbry 7y ago
  That's total bullshit. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
outworlder 7y ago
> They are essentially prisons, because that is what we do with people who break the law. If you cross the border to request asylum, doesn't matter if walking or by using a star trek teleporter, you are committing no crime. They are breaking no laws.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  At a port of entry only. At which point, you can't be released into the country while you wait, because 90% don't actually show up for hearings.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    So said Mike Pence, and was later shown to be "not correct". The only people who were being released were the ones which border authorities themselves deemed "low risk", and were released with ankle monitoring, and even then only released because we refuse to process them in anything approaching a timely manner.
- ng12 7y ago
  So why don't we want to help ICE do their job? We can provide better living situations for people waiting for their case to be processed and better IT solutions to improve our ability to process cases. Taking petty stabs at ICE (like making it harder for them to do CI/CD) seems pretty unhelpful.
- Fellshard 7y ago
  Yet we have seen budget after budget blocked that would fund more humane facilities. If you care about stabilizing the asylum pathway, you have to be willing to fund it.
- maxk42 7y ago
  False. If you cross the border illegally you are a criminal, period. It is not suddenly legal if you subsequently request asylum and asylum may only be granted if entering at a legal port of entry, so these people do not qualify for asylum.
  - tzs 7y ago
    If you cross the border to reach a port of entry to request asylum, it is not an illegal border crossing.
    - maxk42 7y ago
      A port of entry is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. There is no law carving-out an exception to lawful entry for people who plan to eventually travel to a lawful port of entry.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
    I committed roughly equivalent crimes driving to work today, as did everyone else on the highway driving 75 in a 60 zone, should I be detained in a standing room only facility with no amenities for hygiene?
  - outworlder 7y ago
    EDIT: technically, you are breaking a law, as it is a misdemeanor. Have you found any instances where this was prosecuted, following a successful asylum application? It is NOT false. You need to be either at a port of entry or in the US to apply. You have one year to do so. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-asylum-eligibility-and-applications https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/qu... > You may apply for asylum regardless of your immigration status and within one year of your arrival to the United States. You may apply even if convicted of a crime (although it doesn't mean it will be granted) > Yes, but you may be barred from being granted asylum depending on the crime
kungtotte 7y ago
Quit calling them concentration camps. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. It walks like a duck and talks like a duck. No one forced people to cross the border illegally, It depends on how you look at it, really. There weren't any individuals forcing these particular people across the border, as such, but due to the terrible living conditions south of the border they were indirectly forced there. Some of those conditions are the direct result of US policies and actions in Central and South America. whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death. People are starving to death in these camps. By your logic, all prisons are "concentration camps". Not all prisons are run in the way these camps are. I object to any prison run like these camps are too. If you don't want them held until trial, what should we do instead? Short term they should be held in humane conditions, trials should not take months and instead take weeks at most, families should not be separated. It's not rocket science. Take some of the money you're burning up every day and spend it here instead (and on other things that improve the lives of people).
- big_chungus 7y ago
  > It walks like a duck and talks like a duck. Nope. It's so, so different; you clearly know absolutely nothing about what actual concentration camps looked like. > due to terrible living conditions south of the border they were indirectly forced there. That's debatable, but why is is the job of America to hold every displaced guy on two continents? > People are starving to death in these camps. Source? The only deaths of which I have heard are as a result of days of dehydration and malnutrition after many days of hiking through blazing-hot desert beforehand. > they should be held in humane conditions. There are about 4,200 who seek asylum at ports of entry. Where do you propose to put 4,200 people in "humane conditions"? Who should shoulder the burden of that cost? > Take some of the money you're burning up every day and spend it here instead We're already running a massive deficit for the year. I agree there are stupid things the government does, but hell will freeze over before either side of our political system cuts spending. This is a very hard situation, to handle this many people per month. For quite some time, the dems wouldn't even pass strictly-humanitarian money to fund better conditions. It takes time to put up that much infrastructure, especially in these somewhat-remote places. I think we have similar end goals (letting good people become Americans legally), I just think I'd disagree with how to go about it. Also, "concentration camps" is a ridiculous term for these facilities.
frenchyatwork 7y ago
> whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death Those are called death camps. A concentration or internment camp is where you stick people who you don't trust, so you can keep an eye on them. Prisons are essentially a form of concentration camp, but the key distinction is that you have to be found guilty of something to end up in prison. It's probably more accurate to think of a concentration camp as a long term jail.
- tomp 7y ago
  > > whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death > Those are called death camps. I try to not engage in political discussions, but I'm going to strongly disagree with you. The popular definition (i.e. actual living language) of a "concentration camp" is "where people are killed" - for example, see Wikipedia page Auschwitz concentration camp.
  - pfranz 7y ago
    I get that this is a sensitive topic and understand the association, but the first sentence on Wikipedia's Auschwitz page says, "The Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps" The first section of the "Nazi concentration camps" wikipedia page ends with, "Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps (described in this article) and extermination camps, which were established by Nazi Germany for the industrial-scale mass murder of Jews in the ghettos by way of gas chambers." Google gives the OED definition, "a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz." While colloquially a lot of these terms are conflated, the literature seems to make a clear distinction.
  - frenchyatwork 7y ago
    I see where you're coming from. The problem is that German death camps are by far the most talked about type of concentration camp. Canadians and Americans had concentration camps for the Japanese, for example, where the conditions were significantly better. Even most of the German concentration camps were relatively humane. One pattern I've seen, is that some people use "concentration camps" to refer to bad ones, and "internment camps" to refer to okay ones, and maybe that's a an okay distinction, but the reality is often a lot less black and white than our words would like to suggest.

duk3luk3 7y ago

A point made to fight misinformation: The vast majority of people in immigration detention are not suspected of having committed any crimes.

sundbry 7y ago
That's total bullshit. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

outworlder 7y ago

> They are essentially prisons, because that is what we do with people who break the law. If you cross the border to request asylum, doesn't matter if walking or by using a star trek teleporter, you are committing no crime. They are breaking no laws.

big_chungus 7y ago
At a port of entry only. At which point, you can't be released into the country while you wait, because 90% don't actually show up for hearings.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  So said Mike Pence, and was later shown to be "not correct". The only people who were being released were the ones which border authorities themselves deemed "low risk", and were released with ankle monitoring, and even then only released because we refuse to process them in anything approaching a timely manner.
ng12 7y ago
So why don't we want to help ICE do their job? We can provide better living situations for people waiting for their case to be processed and better IT solutions to improve our ability to process cases. Taking petty stabs at ICE (like making it harder for them to do CI/CD) seems pretty unhelpful.
Fellshard 7y ago
Yet we have seen budget after budget blocked that would fund more humane facilities. If you care about stabilizing the asylum pathway, you have to be willing to fund it.
maxk42 7y ago
False. If you cross the border illegally you are a criminal, period. It is not suddenly legal if you subsequently request asylum and asylum may only be granted if entering at a legal port of entry, so these people do not qualify for asylum.
- tzs 7y ago
  If you cross the border to reach a port of entry to request asylum, it is not an illegal border crossing.
  - maxk42 7y ago
    A port of entry is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. There is no law carving-out an exception to lawful entry for people who plan to eventually travel to a lawful port of entry.
- SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
  I committed roughly equivalent crimes driving to work today, as did everyone else on the highway driving 75 in a 60 zone, should I be detained in a standing room only facility with no amenities for hygiene?
- outworlder 7y ago
  EDIT: technically, you are breaking a law, as it is a misdemeanor. Have you found any instances where this was prosecuted, following a successful asylum application? It is NOT false. You need to be either at a port of entry or in the US to apply. You have one year to do so. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/questions-and-answers-asylum-eligibility-and-applications https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/qu... > You may apply for asylum regardless of your immigration status and within one year of your arrival to the United States. You may apply even if convicted of a crime (although it doesn't mean it will be granted) > Yes, but you may be barred from being granted asylum depending on the crime

kungtotte 7y ago

Quit calling them concentration camps. That's ridiculous and hyperbolic. It walks like a duck and talks like a duck. No one forced people to cross the border illegally, It depends on how you look at it, really. There weren't any individuals forcing these particular people across the border, as such, but due to the terrible living conditions south of the border they were indirectly forced there. Some of those conditions are the direct result of US policies and actions in Central and South America. whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death. People are starving to death in these camps. By your logic, all prisons are "concentration camps". Not all prisons are run in the way these camps are. I object to any prison run like these camps are too. If you don't want them held until trial, what should we do instead? Short term they should be held in humane conditions, trials should not take months and instead take weeks at most, families should not be separated. It's not rocket science. Take some of the money you're burning up every day and spend it here instead (and on other things that improve the lives of people).

big_chungus 7y ago
> It walks like a duck and talks like a duck. Nope. It's so, so different; you clearly know absolutely nothing about what actual concentration camps looked like. > due to terrible living conditions south of the border they were indirectly forced there. That's debatable, but why is is the job of America to hold every displaced guy on two continents? > People are starving to death in these camps. Source? The only deaths of which I have heard are as a result of days of dehydration and malnutrition after many days of hiking through blazing-hot desert beforehand. > they should be held in humane conditions. There are about 4,200 who seek asylum at ports of entry. Where do you propose to put 4,200 people in "humane conditions"? Who should shoulder the burden of that cost? > Take some of the money you're burning up every day and spend it here instead We're already running a massive deficit for the year. I agree there are stupid things the government does, but hell will freeze over before either side of our political system cuts spending. This is a very hard situation, to handle this many people per month. For quite some time, the dems wouldn't even pass strictly-humanitarian money to fund better conditions. It takes time to put up that much infrastructure, especially in these somewhat-remote places. I think we have similar end goals (letting good people become Americans legally), I just think I'd disagree with how to go about it. Also, "concentration camps" is a ridiculous term for these facilities.

frenchyatwork 7y ago

> whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death Those are called death camps. A concentration or internment camp is where you stick people who you don't trust, so you can keep an eye on them. Prisons are essentially a form of concentration camp, but the key distinction is that you have to be found guilty of something to end up in prison. It's probably more accurate to think of a concentration camp as a long term jail.

tomp 7y ago
> > whereas Jews were rounded up and starved to death > Those are called death camps. I try to not engage in political discussions, but I'm going to strongly disagree with you. The popular definition (i.e. actual living language) of a "concentration camp" is "where people are killed" - for example, see Wikipedia page Auschwitz concentration camp.
- pfranz 7y ago
  I get that this is a sensitive topic and understand the association, but the first sentence on Wikipedia's Auschwitz page says, "The Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps" The first section of the "Nazi concentration camps" wikipedia page ends with, "Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps (described in this article) and extermination camps, which were established by Nazi Germany for the industrial-scale mass murder of Jews in the ghettos by way of gas chambers." Google gives the OED definition, "a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz." While colloquially a lot of these terms are conflated, the literature seems to make a clear distinction.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
  I see where you're coming from. The problem is that German death camps are by far the most talked about type of concentration camp. Canadians and Americans had concentration camps for the Japanese, for example, where the conditions were significantly better. Even most of the German concentration camps were relatively humane. One pattern I've seen, is that some people use "concentration camps" to refer to bad ones, and "internment camps" to refer to okay ones, and maybe that's a an okay distinction, but the reality is often a lot less black and white than our words would like to suggest.