Central Falls RI immigrants disappearing. Families find them in high security detention center.

[madfloridian]

This is just heartbreaking to me. According to the story these detention centers are popping up around the country. Of course we already knew that. We've talked about them here before. We probably only are aware of the surface, the tip of the iceberg. What a sad story in the New York Times.

City of Immigrants Fills Cells With Its Own



Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., was built on the hope that it would revive the city’s economy.

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Few in this threadbare little mill town gave much thought to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the maximum-security jail beside the public ball fields at the edge of town. Even when it expanded and added barbed wire, Wyatt was just the backdrop for Little League games, its name stitched on the caps of the team it sponsored.

Then people began to disappear: the leader of a prayer group at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church; the father of a second grader at the public charter school; a woman who mopped floors in a Providence courthouse. After days of searching, their families found them locked up inside Wyatt — only blocks from home, but in a separate world.

In this mostly Latino city, hardly anyone had realized that in addition to detaining the accused drug dealers and mobsters everyone heard about, the jail held hundreds of people charged with no crime — people caught in the nation’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Fewer still knew that Wyatt was a portal into an expanding network of other jails, bigger and more remote, all propelling detainees toward deportation with little chance to protest.

More than 800 people attended a Spanish-language Mass at St. Matthew's in November. "People know they cannot be caught in church," Father Gomez said. "I tell them, you are secure here." He added: "They live in fear. I tell them, 'If we live in fear, we are already dead.'"
Photo: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Last spring, The New York Times set out to examine this small city of 19,000 and its big detention center as a microcosm of the nation’s new relationship with immigration detention, which is now sweeping up not just recent border-jumpers and convicted felons but foreign-born residents with strong ties to places like Central Falls. Wyatt, nationally accredited, clean and modern, seemed like one of the better jails in the system, a patchwork of county lockups, private prisons and federal detention centers where government investigations and the news media have recently documented substandard, sometimes lethal, conditions.

But last summer, a detainee died in Wyatt’s custody. Immigration authorities investigating the death removed all immigration detainees this month — along with the $101.76 a day the federal government paid the jail for each one. In Central Falls, where many families have members without papers, a state campaign against illegal immigrants spread fear that also took a toll: People went into hiding and businesses lost Latino customers in droves. Slowly, the city awoke to its role in the detention system, and to the pitfalls of the bargain it had struck.

Mr. Canté leads a prayer group for fellow Guatemalans at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Central Falls. For three days after his arrest by immigration agents, his family didn't know where he was. After calls to many jails, a friend learned that he was at Wyatt, only blocks from home, but in a separate world.
Photo: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

We are a different America than we were 8 years ago, before the Bush administration used fear and terror as a tool.

Be sure to view the slide show there. Only 10 of the guards being trained are local, the others in the 200 are from other places.

Making a profit off prisons, making a profit scapegoating immigrants. Taking people off to jail with no notice to their families.

Sickening.

[madfloridian]

1. Lawyer wonders if they are picking up immigrants to fill these prisons.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/27/nyregion/20081227DETAIN_5.html

"Mr. Canté's sisters borrowed money to hire a lawyer, Lidia Sanchez, left. Though she reopened his case for a hearing in Boston, he ended up as one of 2,000 detainees in a privately run tent city in Texas. "You almost have to wonder whether there's some kind of policy to track down these undocumented persons just to fill up these detention centers," she said.

Photo: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times"

[Tansy_Gold]

41. The lawyer may "wonder," but I think the rest of us pretty much know.

Of course they're rounding up "immigrants" to fill the jails and make money.

It's just another way the privateers are making taking money from the taxpayers.


TG

[Hannah Bell]

2. Clue: detention centers & prisons don't "revive the economy". They line

the pockets of gov't contractors on your dime.

Fuck the parasites. The same corps who lobby for more immigration to drive down wages make money jailing them when the economy goes south.

We pay for their wealth, either way.

[norepubsin08]

3. Good for you!!!

I run a peace and justice project in Tacoma and this is one of the issues we try to address. Thanks Hannah Bell

[Hannah Bell]

12. thanks for your work. i've read there was a big "detention center"

built in your general neighborhood too - is it the case?

[norepubsin08]

21. Yes there sure is, it's on the tideflats

they put it in area well away from where many people go...so it is out of sight and out of mind of most of the citizens in Tacoma!

[madfloridian]

4. Notice I bolded those words for the utter shock value.

It is such a stupid thing for them to say. I guess they think we won't notice they are being cruel and ignorant.

[Hannah Bell]

7. yes, i understand you don't support this. my remarks were directed at the perps.

i only wish they were reading, i only wish they could be publiclly shamed, instead of walking around in hand-tailored shirts & $500 rolexes.

[madfloridian]

8. They probably feel no shame. None at all.

Take a look at the slide show and the warden's statement. They don't have a clue the fear and heartbreak they are causing...nor do they care.

[Obamanaut]

15. This alleged "boon to the economy" was touted locally for years

while some were working for a prison in our county in Fla. I wrote several LTE about this, pointing out that the area around Sanderson - Lake Butler has three prisons, with Sanderson having only one flashing traffic light. The people who make money will be the land owner who sells the land, the broker who makes the deal, and the construction company who gets the project. The paper published three of my letters. I was a prison guard at the time, and subsequent to the letters enjoyed a moderate amount of hostility.

We are getting our prison now, and the local politicians are whining about the cost of upgrading the water and sewage treatment facilities. The county to the north of us (where I worked) has had a prison for years, and it is and has been one of the poorest counties in the area. The "revival of the economy" never happened there either.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[defendandprotect]

6. Disappearing people . . . sounds familiar --

[20score]

9. K&R.

WTF!

[snot]

10. One aspect:

The boomers and successors haven't had enough children to support them in their old age. We desperately NEED immigrants to help with that -- to not only take the jobs nobody else wants, but to pay Social Security assessments, etc.

[Hannah Bell]

13. We don't, actually - this is the storyline used to get the public to

accept influxes into the labor market that drive down wages.

I don't say this because I'm anti-immigrant.

Today's workforce is something like 400% more productive than the workforce of the 1960's.

And this is true internationally, too.

It means one worker produces enough to support 4x more people than the worker in the 60s.

In that period, one wage-earner could support a family of spouse & 2.5 children, & 1/2 a retiree.

Now you tell me two wage earners can't support 2 kids & 2 retirees.

If they can't, it's because most of the value of what they produce is being raked off by the ownership class.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. Hannah Bell

Thanks for those numbers.


I see another disturbing aspect to this: Our country looked the other way for YEARS - it created this 'class of people' that could be used, abused, under paid, and kept in fear. :vomit:


These 'prisons' are NOT the answer.

[bertman]

24. Hannah, based on my experience in the building trades I think you are overplaying that hand.

Until this "recession" hit we were in one of the booming areas of the country. There was a huge influx of hispanic workers to fill the burgeoning new home building market. The work would not have gotten done if only local labor and craftspeople had been used.

Many of our subcontractors who had used local (mostly white, but some black) workers began using hispanic workers when they discovered them. This was due to their WORK ETHIC, not their low wages. The hispanic workers came to work on time and worked hard. They were there every day. They were honest. They didn't look for every excuse to stop work and take a day off.

I have had several of our subcontractors tell me that they could not find reliable local help who did not come to work fucked up on alcohol or drugs, who were dependable and honest. Or who even put in a decent day's work.

It's a sad fact of life that many working-class Americans do not want to work hard. They expect to get paid for standing around or doing half of what a good worker should be able to do in a day's time.

I'm sure there are some who will say that the local American workers were not paid enough or did not have enough benefits, or some other excuse, but that's not true. Around here, if you worked hard and did good work you could make a very good living. I can't tell you how many employees our company has had who were malingerers who ended up falsifying their time sheets or filing false workers comp claims or earned the ire of their fellow employees because they did not pull their weight on the jobsite. We pay top wages for carpenters and laborers, plus we offer one of the best benefits packages in the building industry around here, and we share our profits with our workers, but STILL we have workers who are just lazy and expect someone else to do the work for them even as they get paid top dollar.

On edit: Let me add that I think these "detention centers" are just one more attempt to help Americans accept the police state concept that is being imposed upon us by the corporatists--fascism is control of the state by corporations. The private prisons industry is a disgrace and should be dismantled along with all of the other privatization of government functions. And while I would like to see tighter restrictions on guest workers and immigration, I do favor amnesty for those immigrants who have shown that they are good citizens. But this is not the way to do it.


So, let's not blame this soley on the ownership class wanting cheap labor. That is only a small part of the equation.

[Doremus]

46. Malingerers who don't want a good living?

Sorry, but I would need to know a few more facts before accepting this assertion at face value.

How much, exactly, is "top wages"?

How steady is/was the work, i.e. work a few weeks, off until the next job comes in ...? Or are/were the jobs permanent, i.e. 40 hours/week, 52 weeks/year?

[bertman]

51. Doremus, this may be hard for you to believe, but there are lots of people who are always

unhappy with their working conditions, even though they are of their own making. But that's another thread.

Top wages for a remodeling carpenter in our area would be somewhere between $15 and $22 per hour depending upon skill level, tool complement, ability to work with minimal supervision, attention to detail, and ability to produce quality work at a safe and reasonable pace. Of course, when a carpenter becomes a supervisor and takes on more responsibility as a crew member, he/she gets paid more.

We hire only full-time employees and our goal is to give every employee a full work week or 40 hours. There are VERY FEW occasions when we do not give our employees full work weeks ALL YEAR LONG, even though the norm in the industry is downtime on rain days or between projects. Of course, we pay overtime when anyone works over 40 hours during the pay period, but we try to keep that to a minimum due to the constraints of our operating budget on the job (we do not budget for overtime unless a client requests that a job be done in a specified time frame that requires us to have our crew(s) work overtime). Most of our workers have families and prefer an eight-hour day so they can get home and spend time with the spouse and children--or do whatever else they enjoy on their off time.

It is rare that we do not have a full work week for our crews. And when work slows down we "make" work around our office or we donate time to folks who are needy and cannot afford to pay a contractor to do the job. Last year we also paid a carpenter to spend a week in Louisiana doing post-Katrina repair work.

We pay six holidays per year, plus give three or five days extra paid time off at the Christmas/New Year season. Our employees earn vacation time based on how long they have been with the company. Some now get three weeks paid time each year, while most others get two weeks, and the newest get one week after a year with the company.

In addition, we pay profit-sharing bonuses to all of our employees--office and field crews. Last year we paid fifty percent of our profits to our employees, based on their contributions to making our company successful.

FYI, we base our wages on what the other top-quality remodeling companies are paying their workers. We expect high-quality work and lots of attention to the needs of the clients, and we are willing to pay well for employees who buy in to that concept. So we try to pay the highest hourly wages with the expectation of a higher level commitment.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

55. I think you're the one who is overplaying now.

Those apocryphal "lazy American workers" are akin to the "jobs that Americans won't do" canard: an excuse to exploit a desperate, impoverished, and politically neutered work force. "WORK ETHIC" my ass. Do you seriously think that Hispanic immigrants have some kind of coding in their DNA that makes them more inclined to work like slaves for shit wages and not talk back? Like it just comes naturally to them? It's called being SCARED and when the owner class has it's way we will ALL be like that. Do you have ANY idea how racist you sounded?

And if some American workers ARE lazy and entitled, might that attitude stem from the behavior exhibited by so-called Titans of Industry like Bernie Madoff? One of the side effects of trickle down deregulated bubble economies is that *some* people start to see honest toil as a sucker's game. That said, I believe that your subcontractor friends' tales of not being able to find "reliable" help sounds like an exaggeration or their subjective impression of what a "good worker" should be able to do in a certain time. As Hannah pointed out, worker productivity has gone up tremendously and corporations (including the ones you contract for) are always looking for ways to cut corners and stiff workers.

[seemunkee]

44. What do you mean by jobs no one wants

If you pay the right wage someone will want those jobs. This is like McCain's arguement that America's wouldn't be willing to pick lettuce for an entire season at $50 and hour. When someone in the audience stood up to say he would take the challenge McCain laughed it off.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

57. It cracks me up when companies claim they can't find legal workers at any price.

Typically you will hear this from fruit and vegetable farmers and meatpacking plant owners. There are 2 basic responses to this:

The first is what you'll get from cheap labor apologists, who will say, "These are Jobs That Americans Won't Do and we must do whatever is necessary to get them the workers they need!"

The second is from people who have an ounce of reason or human compassion within them, which is to ask, "What the FUCK kind of a shithole outfit are you running, such that you can't get an American to work for you for ANY price??"


BTW, working conditions on U.S. farms and meatpacking plants are so bad that human rights organizations from all over the world have condemned them.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

54. Wrong.

The "Echo Boomers", that is, the children of the Baby Boomers are a larger group. Did you catch that? Larger. The cheap labor lobby has been spreading the lie about low birth rates and a "labor shortage" to justify flooding the job market with cheap immigrant labor. And the millenial generation will find higher education increasingly unaffordable and out-of-reach, even as college degrees are considered mandatory for any kind of decent paying job.

[Truth2Tell]

11. Can we call it fascism yet?

:shrug:

[ThomWV]

16. No, we can't. You should at least take the time to pick up a dictionary and see what fascism means.

This has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with fascism, unless the detention facility happens to be run by a private corporation and even then there is nothing what so ever in the OP that tells us that corporate power had, in any way, coercive power or influence over the municipality or any other body of governance concerned.

[Hannah Bell]

28. yes, they're run by private corporations.

http://www.correctionscorp.com/

[madfloridian]

29. Many of Florida's prisons are private, and some are overtly religious

in their nature. One I heard about gives special living quarters if you accept Jesus as your savior...they called them God Pods.

Some even allow baptisms.

The privatization of prisons for profit is spreading, and it is a dangerous concept.

[Truth2Tell]

30. OK, you just let me know when it's OK.

I will turn to you for all my authoritarian-friendly definitions. You always seem such an expert.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

56. They may not have coercive power but they sure as shit have influence

We have a big private prison industry here in AZ and some of our legislators are invested in it. Lobbyists for private prisons are constantly pushing for increased penalties for minor crimes.

[SpiralHawk]

14. "Welcome to the Homeland. Smirk." - Republicon Fascists

"You thought you were in America? Bwaaa ha ha ha ha. Think again. This is still the Republicon Homeland, therefore American ideals and morals are not welcome. Smirk."

- Republicon Homelanders

[slampoet]

18. This is all Governor Donald L. Carcieri's fault. He Directed police to arrest immigrants

even though it is NOT THE JOB OF THE POLICE TO DO IMMIGRATION!! He then fired or forced into retirement ANY Law enforcement that opposed it. My landlady with 20 years experience just left her job at the prisons over this to go to South Carolina which oddly enough is where the prisoners were supposed to come from to fill this jail when they first built it.


Second, PLEASE notice that this is NOT being reported by the Only newspaper in the state.


This is because the Providence Journal (or Urinal as we call it) has been in the pocket of government for decades.

[lala_rawraw]

19. Bella Maryanovsky

[coalition_unwilling]

20. Surprizingly good journalism for the NY Times. This is a national

scandal, awaiting this generation's Upton Sinclair.

In the meantime, I highly recommend the film "The Visitor," a fictional treatment that exposes the absolute brutality of this.

[madfloridian]

31. It is good journalism, and greatly needed.

:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. The way illegal immigrants are treated goes beyond any "need to control our borders"

People can be moved around the country without their attorney's knowledge, denied medical care, separated from their families, and, in one notorious case involving an Iranian family, detained as "illegal immigrants" simply because they were on a plane that was forced to make an emergency landing on U.S. soil.

I'm all for throwing the book at EMPLOYERS who hire illegal immigrants. Confiscatory fines sufficient to shut down the business would be appropriate.

However, the actual immigrants are literally the fruits of decades of U.S. support for corrupt dictatorships and economic oligarchs in Latin America.

[madfloridian]

26. You make very good points.

I agree. They started being scapegoated for political reasons, and now they are being scapegoated for financial gain most likely.

All those expensive prisons need to be filled. :sarcasm:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

59. Exactly.

The cheap labor lobby wants us to conflate their interests with those of the immigrants and will play the xenophobia card when convenient. No child in Mexico or Guatemala grows up with a life's dream of traveling thousands of miles away from their home and family to go work for 12 hours a day at some cruddy dangerous job in the U.S., while being spat on by racist natives. Yet, you have people on both "sides" (nativists/cheap labor exploiters), and even some so-called progressives who will argue just that.

[leftchick]

23. after 9/11 prisoners became "DETAINEES"

it is orwellian. Thank you for the post mf and yes we all saw this coming.

[Kaleko]

25. K & R

[madfloridian]

27. A couple in Florida allowed to see each other once a week, across a table.

I guess this goes on all over. Does anyone know the name of the Broward county detention center? I did not know of it.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article949287.ece

"They came to the United States and asked for asylum, but their request was turned down. Then, two months ago at dawn, there was a knock on the door of their Dunedin home. Immigration officials put handcuffs and leg shackles on them and took them away, saying the couple had overstayed their visa.

They ended up in a immigration detention facility in Broward County, where they were allowed to see each other only once a week, while sitting across from each other at lunch. Mrs. Akapo celebrated her 61st birthday last week while locked up in Broward. Members of Union Street were outraged at the treatment the Akapos received.

"Technically and legally, they could do that because their visas had expired," Mayeux said. But, she said, no one expected the government to take action while the Akapos' case was on appeal.

"They weren't hiding," Mayeux said. "We were shocked. We were all surprised when they got picked up."

The church rallied around them, collecting money to pay their bills and working to free them."

[kcass1954]

40. All of the articles reference Broward Detention Center, but that’s the county lock-up

operated by Broward Sheriff’s Office. It looks like the real name is Broward Transition Center, privately operated by GEO Group Inc., formerly a part of Wackenhut.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/dro/facilities/broward.htm

http://www.thegeogroupinc.com/northamerica.asp?fid=4

GEO owns the property that the Center sits on - http://www.bcpa.net/RecInfo.asp?URL_Folio=484215310020 .

[madfloridian]

43. Thanks...no wonder I could not find anything about it. Formerly Wackenhut?

Interesting.

GEO has 3 facilities just in South Florida, as well as one on Gitmo.

http://www.thegeogroupinc.com/northamerica.asp?fid=24

Ooooh...look at Texas on that map. It is filled with those detention facitilies operated by GEO.

[madfloridian]

32. That Chinese immigrant detainee died from undetected, untreated cancer.

He was denied medical care.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/IMMIGRANT_DEMONSTRATION_08-16-08_ATB85CG_v29.412149a.html

"Members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation are seeking a Homeland Security investigation into the death of Hiu Lui Ng, a Chinese immigrant who died last week at Rhode Island Hospital while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lawyers for Ng, a 34-year-old computer engineer from New York, say he died from complications of cancer and a fractured spine after being denied medical care at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, and a Vermont jail where ICE contracts for detainee bed space.

“This is a serious matter that should be thoroughly investigated and we are sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking for an investigation,” said Chip Unruh, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed. “While ICE is conducting its own internal investigation, Homeland Security has jurisdiction, and we want someone with oversight to take a hard look at this,” Unruh said.

The letter to Chertoff is being sent jointly by Reed, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James R. Langevin.

Meanwhile, Ng’s lawyers yesterday released a letter they sent Tuesday to Chertoff, Wyatt officials and prosecutors in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut, that widens allegations made in earlier affidavits. The affidavits alleged Ng was denied proper medical care and legal access at Wyatt, where he spent the final month of his life as his undetected, undiagnosed cancer withered his body, and fractured spine left him unable to walk."

[McCamy Taylor]

33. It keeps wages down for all workers by keeping immigrants wages low.

If they deported the people, there would be no low wage immigrant workers. By keeping a few locked up in prison, business makes money housing low risk people AND they encourage their family members to stay here and work for low wages while they try to get their loved ones out. Permanent second class citizenship. Protest your unsafe work conditions---they lock you up rather than sending you home.

Just wait. Soon they will force the locked up immigrants to work for no wages.

[skepticscott]

47. Except that

there is no prohibition against the government detaining people who have entered or remained in the country illegally. On the other hand, it is unconstitutional to make them work for no wages unless they've been convicted of a crime.

[McCamy Taylor]

34. Here is a link about how immigrants are the prison laborers of choice. Free and safe

since they are not criminals. Plus you have their children as hostages.

http://www.utne.com/2007-02-01/TheHumanCostofCashinginonImmigrantDetentions.aspx?page=2

Incarcerate them all and then clog up the court systems. Then put these immigrants in chain gangs to work picking the crops that no American will pick and pay them nothing---but pay some corporation $100/day per head to house them.

Now that is the American way!

[lonestarnot]

35. Explosion of for profit prison industry, is it too big to stop?

[CoffeeCat]

36. This is incredibly serious...

There are so many things that bother me about this situation.

First, has anyone else noticed how much time and effort the right has spent trying to dehumanize
and objectify immigrants, especially Hispanics? I've heard Rush Limbaugh blaming Hispanics
for bringing disease into this country. I've heard other right-wing radio hosts speaking about
immigrants (especially targeting Hispanics) as if they are the most lawless, sick people.

Make no mistake, this is an orchestrated effort. We are being taught to hate these people or at the
very least--to not care about what happens to them. To look the other way.

That's why this "rounding up" bothers me so much. This isn't just a case of law enforcement sending people
back to their countries because they are here illegally. These people disappear. They are not allowed
to see an attorney. They are not given a fair trial. No Habeas Corpus. They can be transferred to other
prisons. It has been reported that many of this prisons are filthy and conditions are disgusting. It
has also been reported that these people are being treated like animals and in some cases, physically
harmed and denied essential medical care.

I am extremely concerned about this. We all know what BushCo is capable of. We all know how evil they are.

First, the neocons made it legal to detain ANYONE indefinitely--without a trial, without just cause and without
having to furnish evidence against the person (Habeas Corpus). Plus, they've made it legal to torture.

They said this was all about punishing terrorists. Then, a few American citizens (of Middle Eastern dissent)
were detained in this way. Now, they've gone a step further, and they're treating illegal immigrants this
way.

I'm sorry, but this feels like iterative desensitization. They're getting us accustomed to our country
snatching people, detaining them indefinitely with their relatives wondering where they are--and many
are treated barbarically.

Who is next???? What group will be detained next?

This is very serious.

[madfloridian]

37. Agreed, extremely serious., The word "dehumanizing"...very good choice.

That is what they are doing.

[proud2BlibKansan]

38. First they came for the illegals . . .

:cry:

[madfloridian]

39. Our country is becoming heartless very quickly.

I have lived a long time, and I have never seen it like this.

[mountainvue]

42. CF is a hellhole. Always was and looks like it will continue

to be.

[kleec]

45. horrific

I have lived for quite a few years and I find that the actions this government, particularly in the last 8 yrs, has taken are very, very upsetting. The fact that we have such a high population of prisoners in general, and now with the 'disappearing' of and imprisoning of immigrants on the rise, how can we call ourselves a democracy? If this behavior had happened when I was younger people would have been in the streets, in government's faces demanding an explanation and a stopping of this kind of thing. It breaks my heart to see our country be this way. I know it isn't the actions of the majority of people that are doing this, it is the depletion of consciousness in our governing people and the greed of the corporate that have hi-jacked us with the enthusiastic approval and assistance of this president.

A question I have is where are all of those values guys, you know the Religious Right? If they value human life and dignity so much, then they should be championing a way to stop this behavior as enthusiastically as they championed all of their causes that had nothing to do with such indignity! Their silence regarding this is deafening.

I don't have the answers to this other than staying aware and hounding my representatives in whatever way I can, and doing my part in bringing this to the attention to the media and asking what they are doing regarding it.

My heart goes out to those who are caught up in this despicable, unnecessary, inhuman behavior.

[Gwendolyn]

48. They're championing the values as laid out in the OT.

There are many passages related to indentured servitude and this latest development is in keeping with the laws and admonishments pertaining to that form of slavery. As the economic situation worsens, we're going to see a big push to relinquish social programs designed to aid the poor, and a big rush to embrace slavery. Don't forget, this country was built on the back of indentured servitude, long before actual chattel slavery was introduced.

[shadowknows69]

49. I suspect a lot of us will find ourselves here once they're made into debtor's prisions.

[conspirator]

50. That's a 1984 scenario. People treated like lifestock

You either slave for a low salary, and you will be free on weekends(if you are lucky).
Or you are locked up and given ration enough to survive until you die.

[TEmperorHasNoClothes]

52. I hope under obama we return to being a more humane nation-- Bush is a sadistic fuck

[EFerrari]

53. If ANYONE within our borders are treated in this way,

there is no reason to believe YOU will not be treated this way.

[goforit]

58. We should have accountabilty of where these people go.