The Delaney Hall detention facility in New Jersey received national attention recently because of ongoing protests over the dehumanizing conditions there. Reports from people detained there include inadequate medical care, expired food, food with live worms, and mistreatment by staff along with placing people in solitary confinement. While the Department of Homeland Security disputes the claims surrounding the facility run by the private for profit GEO Group Inc., the state of New Jersey filed a law suit against that company, because state health inspectors were denied full access to the facility. A June 3 editorial in The Washington Post called out the denials of mistreatment not only at Delaney Hall but at detention facilities around the country:
There’s reason to be skeptical about the administration’s nothing-to-see-here attitude. Eighteen individuals have already died in the government’s custody this year, matching its count for all of 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Last year, 33 detainees died, and multiple facilities reported outbreaks of tuberculosis, a disease associated with poor living conditions.
The same editorial emphasized that the administration is violating the very purpose of detention centers:
Immigration detention centers are not supposed to be punitive; their purpose is to temporarily house immigrants while courts review their cases.
At the heart of the Trump adminstration’s punitive approach to detention is the intentional dehumanization of immigrants, especially brown and black people. An undeniable and horrific example of this is the recently launched federal government website aliens.gov. It features a sadistic attempt at humor equating a fictional invasion by extra-terrestrial aliens with the presence of undocumented people. The following quote from that website reveals this disturbing form of dehumanization:
For 60 years, the U.S. government has kept a closely guarded secret.
Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives.
They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences.
With one exception — they do not belong here.
Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society.
Any of us who are committed to the Biblical assertion that all people are made in the image of God are called to resist all forms of dehumanization and act in solidarity with our immigrant sisters and brothers who are being targeted by the unjust practices and policies that dehumanize them. There are no “two sides” to consider when people’s humanity is at stake.
The first video posted below features Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey who is advocating for the just and humane treatment of people at Delaney Hall. The second video features a discussion about the racism at the heart of the appalling government website mentioned above.