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While the elite of the nation argues over Sarah Huckabee Sanders getting mildly inconvenienced at dinner not over a protected characteristic but rather the reprehensible policies she chooses to lie about and defend at taxpayer expense, the Trump administration is in the planning stages of building two “short-term detention camps on two U.S. military bases” in Texas to imprison as many as 20,000 migrants, maybe more:
Construction crews will begin building temporary housing at Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base for the growing number of migrants swept into the federal system due to the Administration’s policy of referring all border crossers for prosecution, according to U.S. officials.
A policy implemented by choice by this administration, and a separation policy that remains a national crisis despite the sham executive order signed by Donald Trump a few days ago. According to NBC News, “Defense Secretary James Mattis said he could not confirm how the bases would be used when asked if they would house adults, children or families.” What is known, however, is that the government’s action “smacks of totalitarianism,” retired Air Force colonel Steve Kleinman told the Daily Beast, just one of the active-duty and retired military members condemning the planned internment camps.
Some warned about imminent abuses, citing “complete anonymity for the program safely tucked behind gate and guard.” Already, there have been countless reports of federal elected officials being denied access to detention facilities holding migrants detained as a result of this “zero tolerance” policy. “Not anyone in particular,” said one intelligence officer, “but commanders can barely handle sexual assault, retirement ceremonies gone wrong, command overreach, and operational tempos. Are they going to be in charge of this?”
This comes as the administration has yet to say how it will reunite over 2,000 kids stolen from parents. This is a humanitarian crisis that the administration only intends to worsen—and leave many serving members of the military in a moral bind. “America’s military once liberated people from concentration camps,” Raf Noboa, an Iraq War veteran and former Army sergeant, told the Daily Beast. “It beggars the mind and our morality that it might be used to secure them.”