Oh well if we've defined torture in a way that excludes this then I guess all the ethical implications disappear. It's not legally torture the same way hieleras

Oh well if we've defined torture in a way that excludes this then I guess all the ethical implications disappear. It's not legally torture the same way hieleras on the border are not; you can maximize discomfort and pain for human beings in bondage but it's not torture because it's "lawful sanction". By this definition sterilizing people against their will isn't torture if you didn't do it to get info or at the behest of a politician. Maybe that's workable for our court system in the US that is responsible for the highest incarceration per capita in the world (more than the USSR at the height of gulag), but it's not workable for me. The cruelty is absolutely the point. We think torturing migrants will deter them the same way we assume harsh prison sentences deter crime. It doesn't. We are inflicting suffering on sentient beings for no good reason. Conventionally known as torture.