#Internment camps

[uwmspeccoll]

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: KEVIN MIYAZAKI

Today we highlight Milwaukee-based photographer and artist Kevin Miyazaki, and his book A Guide to Modern Camp Homes: 10 New Models & Plans for Persons of Japanese Ancestry. Our copy was published in 2024, but editions were also released in 2013, and 2018. Miyazaki’s statement on the final page characterizes the book as “a fictional publication containing only facts.” Styled after Sears Roebuck catalogues of the time, the optimistic salesmanship stands in harsh contrast to both the bleak descriptions of the camps, where Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated during World War II, and the heavy legacy of our nation’s human rights abuses. In a section titled Home Design, the copy assures: “Constructed mainly from wood and tar paper, your new home is designed to conform to international law.”

The book draws extensively from archival materials. Photographs come from the catalogues of the Library of Congress and include documentary work by Ansel Adams, Clem Albers, Fred Clark, Hikaru Iwasaki, Dorothea Lange, Tom Parker and Francis Stewart. First person testimonials are from Densho, a public history project documenting and preserving oral histories and primary source materials related to the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Libby and Patrick Castro of LP/ws Design Studio crafted the architectural designs.

Copies of A Guide to Modern Camp Homes are available for purchase through the Japanese American National Museum.

See more AAPI Month posts!

--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[writingwitch92]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amee Vanderpool at SHERO:

Before World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified German, Italian, and Japanese aliens and claimed they were “suspected” of being potential enemy agents. These people, some of them American citizens, were legally kept under surveillance, and following the attack at Pearl Harbor, people from “enemy nations” and all people of Japanese descent were immediately considered suspect and referred to the US Army. In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under this order the entire west coast was deemed a military area, and was divided into military zones. Curfews were established that included only Japanese-Americans. Voluntary evacuation of Japanese-Americans from a limited number of areas, totaling about seven percent of the entire Japanese-American population, was begun. The issue of human rights had been briefly brought up at Congressional Hearings prior to the issuance of these new laws, but in 1942, no one felt these rights were important enough when compared to securing the United States. On March 29, 1942, Japanese-Americans on the west coast were given a 48-hour evacuation notice, and most of their land and private property was abandoned and never recovered.

From the end of March to August of that year, approximately 112,000 persons were sent to racetracks or fairgrounds, which had been re-labeled as “assembly centers.” People were tagged like cattle and sorted for removal to a more permanent "relocation center" where they would be imprisoned for the remainder of the war. In these "relocation centers,” also called "internment camps,” four or five families shared tar-papered army-style barracks for nearly three years or more until the end of the war. The people in these camps shared eating facilities and restrooms and had limited opportunity for work or school. Nearly 70,000 of these evacuees were American citizens, who were denied their due process rights as the federal government froze their ability to appeal their circumstances under the guise of “American security.” This was just 80 years ago. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, through the the Texas General Land Office, offered Donald Trump the 1,400-acre Starr County site to build new detention centers to fulfill his promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in the Tuesday letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”

We are again on the brink of repeating some of the most shameful and abhorrent lessons that America should have learned long ago. While Donald Trump and his Project 2025 implementation team move to enact the fascist promises made during the election, many of Trump’s cronies are already aligning themselves to profit from the impending migrant prison system that will be nothing short of a concentration camp. Due Process Rights will again be frozen, as amnesty and human rights will cease to exist within these militarized zones. Dismissing any warnings about where we are headed by calling these claims hyperbole will cease to matter after Donald Trump assumes his office on January 20, 2025.

Amee Vanderpool wrote an excellent blogpost on SHERO that the dark days of internment camps (or concentration camps) are back again, this time aimed primarily at undocumented immigrants. But will it stop with just undocumented immigrants? Absolutely not.

[theworldatwar]

USMC Staff Sergeant Federico Claveria of Baldwin Park, California stops to give sweets to a Japanese child in the internment camp on Tinian Island - Aug 1944

[hale-my-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Trump Needs To Learn From History!

[gwydionmisha]

Trump/Immigration/Rule of Law Round Up Pt. 2: Published 7/12/25

ICE Is About To Be EVERYWHERE

Here are some ways to help Immigrants and the anti-ICE Protesters:

Immigrant Defenders: https://give.immdef.org/give/545119/#!/donation/checkout The Bail Project: https://bailproject.org/ National Bail Fund Network: https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/en/nbfn-directory Amnesty International: protect asylum-seekers: https://donate.amnestyusa.org/page/113080/donate/1 The Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights: https://www.theyoungcenter.org/ CHIRLA: https://www.chirla.org/ AL Otro Lado: https://alotrolado.networkforgood.com/projects/63833-al-otro-lado-fund Mid-South Immigration Advocates: https://miamemphis.org/ "Know Your Rights:" https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights

[queerazonbooks]

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei

New York Times Bestseller! Discover this award-winning masterpiece before the release of George Takei's deeply personal follow-up, It Rhymes With Takei (June 2025).

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.

George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.

#GeorgeTakei #JapaneseAmerican #InternmentCamps

[thoughtportal]

TPM has obtained and analyzed over a dozen contracts and invoices related to the construction and operation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The documents identify eight previously undisclosed companies — including two firms with a Fortune 500 pedigree — involved with the controversial facility. They also show that, in at least one instance, resources allocated for the state’s “disaster preparedness” apparatus were diverted to the site as DeSantis’ office used emergency powers to quickly establish the camp, causing a shortfall that needs to be addressed during the ongoing hurricane season. 

The camp was first announced by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is DeSantis’ former chief of staff and was manager of the governor’s unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign, late last month. The state began to move quickly to stand it up. That quick pace was captured by the contracts, which included at least one with “rush” fees, the diverted disaster resources, and indications the facility was still being built out and supplied after it was officially opened on July 1. 

In the weeks since plans for the site were revealed, opponents have raised alarms about its potential environmental impact, whether it would afford due process to detainees, and the harsh conditions in the swampy region. There have also been concerns about transparency, including attorneys’ access to the people being held and the identities of the firms that received contracts for equipment and services provided to the facility. 

TPM has identified contracts and invoices totaling $19,983,785.03 in the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System (FACTS) that were issued to nine different firms. In one instance, the chief executive of a company contacted by TPM stated that he was unaware the business’ products were being used for the detention camp. 

The FACTS system, which is maintained by the state’s Department of Financial Services, lists all of these contracts and invoices as coming from the executive office of the governor and categorizes them as “Emergency procurement per Executive Order.” At points during the reporting of this story, TPM observed figures changing on the FACTS website. It is not certain the figures cited in these contracts represent the final amount paid. For 11 of the contracts and invoices in this story, PDF files of the “original” were initially available in FACTS. All of those PDF files were removed during the course of our reporting. Except in one instance, all of the data cited in this story is from these “original” documents. The Department of Financial Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

DeSantis is building the facility, which will reportedly cost at least $450 million a year, by leveraging an ongoing state of emergency that he first declared with an executive order in early 2023 in response to what he described as an “alarming influx of migrants.” All of the contracts and invoices cited by TPM mention “TNT,” an acronym which has been used to describe the site of the camp, which was constructed at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Big Cypress National Preserve. 

One of the contracts, which the system identified as being created on July 1, provided for $499,869.60 to be paid to Baker’s Electronics & Communications Inc. for an “Atlas trunked radio system,” a platform often used by public safety agencies for critical and emergency communications. The contract specified that the system was for the “TNT” facility and that the “Atlas systems deployed at the site” were “pulled from disaster preparedness platform” [sic]. The document further indicated that, as a result of radio systems from the state’s emergency infrastructure being “pulled” to “Alligator Alcatraz,” the system needed to “be back-filled to prevent a response gap during hurricane season given the unknown duration of detention center operation.” 

While the contract outlined a plan to address the issue, it also indicated the push to quickly supply the detention camp led to a shortfall of necessary disaster preparedness equipment during hurricane season, which runs from June 1 until November 30. 

Douglas Baker, the CEO of Baker’s Communications, did not respond to a request for comment from TPM. DeSantis’ office also did not respond to a request for comment on this story. 

‘I Do Not Know What They’re Doing With That’ 

“Alligator Alcatraz” has been part of DeSantis’ efforts to assist with President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda in his state. It has provided the governor a political boost and helped heal the rift between him and Trump that emerged after they ran against each other in last year’s Republican presidential primary. The detention camp officially opened on July 1 with a ceremony attended by both DeSantis and Trump. 

“Welcome to Alligator Alcatraz — I like that name by the way,” DeSantis told the president as Air Force One arrived for the event. 

Trump and other Republicans have reveled in that nickname and in the idea that the harsh environment surrounding the site would prove hazardous for the migrants detained there. The project has inspired mocking memes from White House aides and even merch sold by the House GOP with an image of a smirking gator and the slogan “ICE WITH A BITE.” As he toured the grounds, Trump declared that it was “not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon.”

“We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator … if they escape prison,” Trump said. “You have a lot of bodyguards, you have a lot of cops, that are in the form of alligators.” 

Since that opening event, other officials have been allowed to tour the facility. While Republicans have defended the conditions there, Democrats have described it as inhumane. In a news conference after she visited the site on July 12, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) blasted it as an “internment camp.”

“They are essentially packed into cages, wall to wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Wasserman Schultz said. 

In addition to the Baker’s Electronics contract, TPM identified 11 other contracts and invoices that the FACTS system indicated went to eight different companies for products and services provided at the “TNT” site. The largest was an $11,903,977.18 contract with Meridian Rapid Defense Group LLC, a firm that builds “anti-vehicle” barriers that are used to secure facilities and events. Meridian’s products have been deployed at many high-profile gatherings, including the 2024 Democratic National Convention and DeSantis’ 2023 inauguration. 

According to the system, the contract, which was executed on July 9, provided for the “purchase of 100 meridian barrier trailer sets – to be delivered in increments of 20 per month over the next five months.” It specified these items would be used for the “TNT” facility and indicated they would be delivered between August 31 and December 31 of this year. 

In a conversation with TPM on Tuesday evening, Peter Whitford, Meridian’s CEO, suggested that his company was unaware where state officials were using its products. 

“When we supply the Division of Emergency Management out of Florida, we supply product to them,” Whitford told TPM. “What they do with that product is not part of our purview.

“You’re reading a contract I have no visibility to,” he added.

Whitford declined to review the contract TPM obtained via the FACTS system. 

“I do not need to see any document other than what I get from the division of Homeland Security,” he said. “I do not know what they’re doing with that. I do not know if one set is going there or 100 sets are going there. So, for me to make a comment on hypothetically where they’re going would not be appropriate.”

“We have received the purchase order,” he added. “We are advised prior to delivery where they are going.”

Whitford referred all questions to Florida’s Department of Emergency Management, which was listed as the purchaser on all of the detention camp contracts identified by TPM. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Heavy Equipment

After the Meridian contract, the next largest payment that TPM could identify going to a company was a $5,955,875.35 invoice to Lemoine CDR Logistics LLC, a company that works on projects related to construction, infrastructure, and disaster response. The invoice was part of a $36,848,875 contract that went to another business, Longview International Technology Solutions Inc., which does business as “LTS.” That contract was created on July 9. Since then, its status has been listed as “terminated” in the FACTS system and the total amount reduced to zero dollars. It is not clear if this invoice was paid. All of the other contracts cited in this story have, as of this writing, an “active” status in FACTS.

According to the documents posted in the FACTS system, the larger LTS contract was for “initial TNT site preparation” that began on June 24, the day after Uthmeier, the Florida attorney general, said the detention camp plan was approved by the federal government. The LTS contract lists an address located at the airport site as the “mission location.” Lemoine CDR Logistics LLC did not respond to a request for comment. 

Williams Communications, another firm dedicated to “mission critical communications,” has two contracts that appear in the database. One, which was executed on July 1, said they would be paid $245,141.04 for the purchase of LRAD100X systems “to be used in conjunction with the TNT mission.” The LRAD100X is marketed as a device with a “warning tone” that “commands attention to the voice messages that follow and provides a safer alternative to non-lethal and kinetic measures for changing behavior.” A second contract, executed on July 4, said Williams would be paid $47,730 for 300 “Batteries for XL series radios” for the “TNT” facility. Williams Communications did not respond to a request for comment. 

Another contract in the FACTS system that was executed on July 3 indicated Will-Burt Integration & Elevation Systems, Inc. would be paid $259,012 to provide a “New Alumitower” for the “TNT” facility. The company offers “tower-trailer-shelter systems that withstand the harshest environments of today’s battlefields.” Will-Burt did not respond to a request for comment. 

There are two “TNT” contracts in the FACTS system with CDW Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fortune 500 IT firm CDW. One of the contracts, which was executed on July 3, said CDW Government would be paid $128,132.40 for “Pepwave items for WiFi at TNT.” A pdf file of the second contract was not posted in FACTS, but based on information displayed in the system as of this writing, it was executed on July 12 and provided $42,828.24 “for the [computer-aided dispatch] system in the TNT dispatch center. with additional items for the radio system.” 

Another Fortune 500 corporate giant, Motorola Solutions Inc., has two “TNT” contracts that appear in FACTS and were executed on July 3. The company, which is the legal successor to Motorola Inc., was formed after that business split off its mobile phone division. One of the Motorola Solutions Inc. contracts indicated $27,865 would be paid for “the purchase of 150 batteries, 50 belt clips and 50 Multiband antennas” for the “TNT” facility. The other provided $2,192 for “Motorola belt clips for 200 radios” for the “TNT” facility. A spokesperson for Motorola Solutions Inc. did not respond to a request for comment. 

Memes and NDAs

In its previous reporting on the “Alligator Alcatraz” contractors, the Miami Herald identified three that “have given money to Gov. Ron DeSantis or the Republican Party of Florida for statewide campaigns.” The biggest donors were Carlos Duart and Tina Vidal-Duart, who the paper reported “have given a total of $1.9 million to the two state political action committees supporting DeSantis’ bids for governor and to the Republican Party of Florida.” The pair are married Miami socialites who are the chief executives of two firms involved with the facility, CDR Maguire and its affiliate, CDR Health. In a text message exchange with TPM earlier this month, Duart declined to comment and said they were “under NDAs.” 

There was only one DeSantis donor among the chief executives of the companies newly identified by TPM as being involved with “Alligator Alcatraz.” Ed Mansouri, the owner, founder, and chief executive of WeatherSTEM Inc., gave $3,000 to DeSantis in late November 2021. According to FACTS, WeatherSTEM Inc. received a contract that was executed on July 3 and stipulated $24,740 would be paid for “2 lightning alert sirens” that would be “added to the portable WeatherSTEM station located at the EMS base and at the staff village of the TNT site to efficiently alert staff of lightning detection for safety purposes.” The contract listed an address located adjacent to “Alligator Alcatraz” and indicated there would be a $750 “rush fee” charged for delivery of each siren. 

In a phone conversation with TPM on Tuesday afternoon, Mansouri described himself as “a big fan of Governor DeSantis.” However, he stressed that his donation and support “has nothing to do with my business interests.” 

“I was very grateful for how he handled the situation with the lockdown, keeping the schools open,” Mansouri said of DeSantis. “I just want to make sure to be clear and unambiguous that my admiration for Gov. DeSantis has nothing to do with my business.”

Mansouri also discussed his firm’s involvement with the detention camp. He said WeatherSTEM Inc. works “very closely” with Florida’s Department of Emergency Management at multiple locations to provide “lifesaving weather technology” that can warn of lightning, winds, and high heat.

“When the Florida Division of Emergency Management reaches out to us and says they need to deploy some weather-related technology, we’re just going to do whatever we need to do to support them,” Mansouri said. “We’re focused on how can we develop technology that protects people, if those people are prisoners, if those people are guards, if those people are on a beach or in a football stadium. We are focused on deploying technology that keeps people safe.”

Mansouri said he initially didn’t realize the contract was related to “Alligator Alcatraz” — until he saw the chatter online. 

“I gleaned that just because of some of the social media,” Mansouri explained. “I had sort of seen some of the memes with pictures of the alligators.”

By Hunter Walker | July 16, 2025 11:21 a.m.

[ikuneko]

I'm taking a brief recess from Black History Month posting because today is the Day of Remembrance, the day the U.S. acknowledges the horrible injustice they committed against Japanese American citizens on their own soil. (Injustice they have completely failed to learn from, but is immortalized nonetheless.)

I did not cry at a con listening to George Takei tell us the story of his family being rounded up for internment to allow the gov't to erase history. Even if they won't acknowledge it, I'll remember.

[themoderatespeaks]

Okay, this is exactly what I was afraid of the first time Trump was in office. His ultimatum to Iran last night and his mysterious "much bigger" agenda that is "better than a ceasefire" makes it crystal clear that he has already committed the US to war.

Because going to war was always the trump card he was willing to play if public opinion started to really go against him. He will absolutely do this for the sole purpose of being a wartime president—a time-honored way for any wannabe dictator to swing more public opinion and grant himself more emergency powers and really crack down on dissent. And Trump is a man who runs headfirst into gambles like this. And I hate it say this, but it's a smart play.

To be clear, Netanyahu has stated that the bombings have already set Iran's nuclear program back by years. A declaration of war is not necessary at this time.

So yeah, this scares me more than anything else he's done so far.

God have mercy on us, and on the people of Iran.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Once in Hull, the [Communist] internees spent considerable time trying to get out, sending multiple petitions to the government, even though many petitions were initially intercepted by camp commandant, Major Green. Otherwise, it was as an individual that the internee appeared before the consulting committee that would hear the appeal of the internee as to whether he might be released, and make a recommendation thereupon to the minister of Justice. The internees and their lawyers often did not receive all the information presented to the committee by the RCMP. Other than being accused of being a member of the Party, which many internees chose to deny, new grounds for the internment kept appearing during questioning by the consulting committee members. Sometimes, these appeal sessions degenerated into wide-ranging political discussions about war and peace, where internees might be expected to name associates in the Party. In short, the burden of proof fell to the defendant rather than the state. Usually, the  official offence for which he was being held was membership in an outlawed group, that is, guilt by association. Bill Walsh wrote to his wife, Anne, about the nature of his experience with the consulting committee.

The very star chamber nature of the procedure had a stultifying effect upon me… Seeing the indifference written all over their faces at the moment that I am literally turning myself inside-out for them to see and understand; all the time, growing consciousness that your happiness, my freedom… leans so heavily upon such a method of dispensing ‘justice’; it was only with an effort that I could force myself to continue.

Internee Kent Rowley, in fact, refused to participate in a closed hearing wherein his legal rights were denied. Rowley spent two and a half years either imprisoned or interned, never to actually hear any charges read against him."

- Michael Martin, The Red Patch: Political Imprisonment in Hull, Quebec during World War 2. Self-published, 2007. p. 164-165.

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Today is the 80 anniversary of the signing of the executive order which allowed the internment of Japanese Americans — in concentration camps on US soil.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/the-state/76-anniversary-concentration-camps-us

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[secretsofthemourning]

Alligator Alcatraz Is Just a New Kind of Internment Camp

The List of Detainees

Just published today (14 July 2025) by Newsweek and a few other outlets. A list of 700 people that are either already at or going to be at Alligator Alcatraz soon. It seems to be no mistake that this list is almost exclusively men and that everyone on this list appears to be of Latino or Hispanic origin and/or of Middle Easter descent. There are a few exceptions, but there is a very clear demographic being targeted by the Trump Administration.

It's also been revealed that many of these people that have been detained have no criminal record. The only charges they have are the civil charge of being in the United States as an undocumented person. Again, a civil charge and not a criminal charge. Once again, DHS has covered their asses by saying that this doesn't preclude the detainees from having "committed crimes in another country" or that "them being illegal doesn't mean their presence isn't still a crime." (I'm paraphrasing here.)

The conditions of Alligator Alcatraz are nothing short of deplorable. Based on previous descriptions, I thought maybe people were living in a building, but I can't believe I was foolish enough to think that. The facility is tents.

Inhumane doesn't even begin to describe these conditions.

This list was published as I was writing this essay, so I have included it at the top, because it seemed the most important.

Moving on...

(I apologize in advance if any NY Times articles don't open. They should be gift articles or articles without paywalls.)

People are quick to use the term concentration camp, which isn't entirely inaccurate, but I think everyone is forgetting the United States own dirty history with internment camps. Internment camps are nothing new for the United States and these camps were enacted in 1942 by FDR's Executive Order 9066.

WW II internment camps imprisoned approximately 100,000 Japanese-American citizens. This includes entire families, children and all.

But as people often forget, it wasn't only Japanese-Americans that these internment camps housed. Italian and German Americans were also housed in these internment camps, just to a lesser extent.

Internment camps were also known to host Latin Americans of Japanese, Italian, and German descent that the U.S. snatched up and deported. The goal? To take these Latin American citizens - often entire families - and trade them as collateral for U.S. prisoners of war, as these Latin American citizens were often suspected (translation: accused) of being spies and "Axis sympathizers."

Though the Alien and Sedition Act was used in WWII and in the case of FDR's EO 9066, it is currently being used inappropriately and unlawfully by the Trump Administration. The Alien and Sedition Act can only (and should only) be lawfully used in the event of war or invasion of the United States.

The Alien and Sedition Act is not rightfully be used against the men that have been unlawfully sent to CECOT because these men are not associated with MS-13.

Though MS-13 may operate in certain parts of the United States, New York specifically, and Secretary of Homeland Security and ICE Barbie, Kristi Noem can call anything she wants terrorism as given the authority she has in her position. It would appear the men unlawfully sent to CECOT may be there for more politically motivated reasons and not for any reason relating to "terrorist activity."

(To be fair, Kristi Noem cannot call anything she wants terrorism. It is a combination of what DHS and FBI decide are threats in tandem. I am exaggerating a bit when I say it is entirely the decision of Sec of DHS, but I digress.)

Sending people to another country for political and personal gain in 2025 is incredibly similar to what happened in the 1940s with the Latin American citizens that were traded by our government as collateral. History has a way of repeating itself in more than one way.

Now that it's getting even easier to deport undocumented immigrants to other countries like South Sudan, they're also trying to see how much they can get away with on U.S. soil.

How much can the Trump Administration get away with in America? How inhumanely can they treat the people they've interred in these camps before Americans become so outraged as a whole that no one will tolerate this insanity anymore!?

Afterall, the Trump administration is doing all of this and still has no idea if the legal recourse for their "enforced disappearances" means that the U.S. has any responsibility for those they've deported and sent to detention centers in other countries any longer. If it's a question the UN can't even answer, how can it not be considered a human rights violation?

Just remember: it took until 1988 for Ronald Regan to formally apologize to the Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans, and German-Americans, and make reparations for the internment camps. That's 44 years.

It took Biden until 2024 to formally apologize to the Indigenous Peoples of the United States for the Residential Schools their ancestors and even some of them had to suffer through themselves. Residential Schools were not phased out in the U.S. until 1968. That's 56 years until the cruel history of Residential Schools or "American Indian Boarding Schools" were formally acknowledged.

(Some resources are listed below about programs put in place by the U.S. government for Indigenous Peoples after shutting down Residential Schools and the history of these programs - whether or not these programs have been helpful is subject to personal experience and personal interpretation. I will not speak on experience I do not have.)

This doesn't excuse the conditions of Alligator Alcatraz and I didn't write this entire mini-essay with all of these embedded links to draw attention away from Alligator Alcatraz either. What I want to do it show how this all just circles back around like an Ouroboros.

It shouldn't be another 40-50 before we have a future president formally acknowledge how awful and unlawful these actions were decades from now. We need to act now and we need to keep talking about this!

Resources and Reading:

Friends of the Everglades v. Noem Court Documents

Abrego Garcia v. Noem Court Documents - Maryland District

EO 9066

Alien and Sedition Acts 1798

2020 Brookings Article on "What is Terrorism"

Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)

Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) (Wikipedia)

ICWA Resources - (BIA)

Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975

Native American Civil Rights in the United States (Wikipedia)

Trump Second Term Controversies List

Immigration Detention in the U.S.

Alligator Alcatraz (Wikipedia)

[veryverytemporary]

Dorothea Lange, Japanese Americans, having been forced from their homes and with their belongings lining the street, await deportation to remote internment camps, Los Angeles, 1942.

[unstablequeerbitch]

Since I’m on a huge Star Trek kick. I was first introduced to George Takei in psych.

Then I found him in Star Trek TOS. I went to YouTube to find an older clip of him, then send it to my dad saying “it took me about two or three episodes to realize they are actually the same person”. I ended up finding his Ted talk.

Please watch/listen to it

It was relevant 10 years ago and it is still relevant today.