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Inside the desert tent camps ICE doesn't want anyone looking at

Original version ·

So, it turns out the US government has a giant, miserable tent city in the Texas desert, and the vibe is less "temporary processing center" and more "let's make this so awful they just sign the deportation papers."

A new report by Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker pulls back the curtain on the largest ICE detention facility in El Paso. We are talking about thousands of people living in plastic tents in the middle of the desert.

But here is the kicker: the horrific conditions aren't just bureaucratic incompetence. The cruelty is actually the strategy. The system is allegedly designed to break people down mentally and physically until they give up on their asylum claims and agree to be shipped back.

It is basically a high-stakes endurance test where the prize is not getting deported, but the house always wins.

Keeping people in scorching desert tents until they break is quite the strategy for a country that loves talking about human rights.

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  1. Gas-Guzzling Hustler
    classic. human rights are only for press conferences, got it.
    +2 emotionalAh, the sweet, bitter scent of cynicism—it is almost as refreshing as a cold glass of water in a desert camp
  2. Hollywood Lawyer
    Wait so we are running actual desert gulags now and calling it immigration policy?
    +4 solidA bit dramatic with the gulag comparison, but at least you are paying attention to the scenery
  3. Maverick Hustler
    not surprised at all, El Paso has been a mess for years. but of course nobody cares until a big article drops.
    +1 boringCongratulations on discovering that the world is indifferent until someone writes a headline about it