Lee Stinton is a 45-year-old Northern Irish hairdresser. He once lived in the US as a legal resident with a work permit. The Social Security Administration had checked his bona fides and given him a Social Security number. He paid his taxes. And he had a spotless legal record both in the US and back home.
Regardless, on June 8, ICE "kidnapped" him off a Florida street and detained him for a month in barbarous conditions. Because, as the immigration enforcer explained to Stinton, "You look Mexican." Which, according to the Supreme Court, is currently sufficient grounds to detain someone without due process.
After his incarceration, the authorities expelled him back to Northern Ireland.
In an interview with the Belfast Times, the former detainee described his experiences with ICE. His narrative reveals that America’s immigration enforcement is an exercise in wanton cruelty. The original article is behind a paywall. (Update: DKer expatwhereitsat found the article on archive.today)
However, Mediate reports:
Stinton, who is from Lisburn, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, told the Telegraph that he was "kidnapped" off a Florida street and held in inhuman conditions for around a month before being deported back to the UK.
Stinton told the paper that he had all the correct paperwork to be in the United States, legally paid his US taxes, and that federal agents told him, "You look Mexican," while arresting him.
The Telegraph did tweet a video (see below, or CLICK HERE) of Stinton describing his experiences with ICE. He starts by saying that on June 8, as he was bicycling to work, he was arrested. Or "kind of kidnapped", by an ICE officer. He was taken to Krome detention center, an ICE processing facility in Miami. Stinton then details the conditions.
In doing so, he paints a picture at odds with the official position that ICE staffs its detention facilities with humanitarians who cosset well-fed inmates who, in turn, are receiving all the medical attention they need. In Stinton's words
"The conditions in Krome were the most inhumane thing that I've ever experienced in my life. I'm sorry. Had nowhere for anyone to sleep. They weren't feeding people, and they were very abusive to the inmates.
The holding cell that they had us in for almost eight days was meant to have 10 people in it, and there was at least 100 men. We were like sardines, all just stuck on like a concrete, cold concrete floor.
Stinton continues by calling another administration claim — that ICE is only arresting criminals — a lie.
"I want people to know that it's not just criminals that are being taken. It's like normal everyday people."
Statistics confirm Stinton's observation. As DHS ramps up its removal efforts, people with no criminal record or pending charges have gone from a tiny fraction of all ICE detainees to roughly a third.
Stinton then explains that he was one of these "normal everyday people."
"Like myself, like I… I had a correct visa. I had all my paperwork together. I had a social security number. I paid my taxes. I've never been in trouble with the police before in my life, either in America or Northern Ireland. And still they took me."
I cannot understand how it took ICE a month to figure out that Stinton was in the country legally and that he had no criminal record. Stinton himself points to the reason for his unwarranted and extended incarceration.
“You know, I think they're just looking for numbers at this point.”
His explanation smacks of the truth. The administration has been frustrated that their purge has not produced the quantity of mass expulsions Trump had promised the MAGAs. Even though the braggart no longer claimed he would deport every undocumented alien, as he had in 2015, he had still promised the 'largest domestic deportation operation in American history.'
To that end, the administration has lowered the standards for new ICE recruits. And logic suggests that psychological profiling to weed out bullies and sociopaths has long been dropped.
Note: It is hard to know the exact numbers of expulsions as the data lags. However, Trump has made it a priority to pick up the pace. In June, he ordered the "entire administration to put every resource possible behind this effort". The rational thinker will know this means that DHS is cutting corners. And supervisors are "looking for numbers," not excuses.
Inevitably, this has put care for the detainees in jeopardy. Even if ICE were well-meaning — and judging by the rhetoric and masked swagger of its agents, as well as the growing length of detentions, that's not a realistic assumption — the increase in the number of people in ICE lockups is going to put the inmates' well-being on the back burner.
Unsurprisingly, this callous indifference leads to tragedy. Stinton reports:
"A lot of things that either happened to me and happened to others. There was a guy that I'd been asking for his medication for days for his heart. And when we were out in the rec hall, he, or the rec yard, sorry, he dropped dead of a heart attack in front of everyone.
They kind of just moved us all the way from him, but it's something that I'm never ever gonna forget. You know, it's ingrained in my head."
Taken by itself, Stinton's story could be dismissed as an aberration. But it is consistent with nationwide reports of non-criminals and innocent people being swept up in the administration's fascistic drive to incarcerate as many 'others' as possible.
Hearing what the unfortunate Irishman says reinforces the currents reality that America's immigration authorities are not protecting citizens against criminal aliens. They are instead carrying out unquestioned the capricious wishes of a madman.
