B (1:52)

the back and left to die in the street.

A (1:54)

And even when they survive, despite the murderous tactics of officers without even the

B (2:00)

decency of our lawless government investigating their

A (2:04)

deaths, people like Montessori teaching assistant Marimar Martinez in Chicago have been portrayed as

B (2:10)

a domestic terrorist by the Trump administration. But the evidence released within the last 24 hours paints a different picture of what actually happened.

A (2:18)

It's important to track all these abuses. The body cam footage shows just before the shooting, an agent was seen holding an assault rifle and saying, quote, do something B word. At the same time, there's another phenomenon I don't want to lose sight of. Stacey Abrams is the founder of Fair Fight Action and lead organizer of the 10 Steps Campaign against the Rise of Authoritarianism in the U.S. today, they launched an initiative to end ICE family detention just as Violence surged on the streets of cities and towns across America in an attempt to send people to a network of domestic concentration camps. We have children, we have babies who are in detention facilities right now being fed moldy food, being denied access to health care. The Trump apparatchiks have been busy exporting parallel cruelties around the world. It's been a little while since we talked about Stephen Miller, and that might be by design. In a previous episode, I mentioned that the US Government was negotiating with dozens of countries to set up detention agreements to hold people flown from U.S. soil. Joining us now to discuss Paula Ramos, Ms. now contributor and author of the Rise of the Latino Farce Right and what It Means for America. And now, via the very useful Third Country Deportation Watch website, it's possible to examine what we know about the discussions and perhaps agreements that the US has carried out or made with at least 27 countries. Now, what Stephen Miller does very well is that they govern from rage, right? That's when he is most effective, when they're pissed off, when they can't get what they want. So today I want to talk about this still forming network of camps and some precedents for them in the past. When they can't get rid of daca, what do they do? Stephen Miller tries to make it almost impossible for dreamers to access education and public health, the larger threat they represent to both the US and the world. He can't deport Guilima Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. What does he do? Let's deport him to Liberia. And what can be done to push back against them? One of the challenges for Trump and Miller right now is that they can't deport everyone where they want and when they want. In some cases, courts have forbidden them from sending detainees from a given country back to that country, often due to the detainees risk of persecution there. In other cases, countries simply refuse to take detainees who do not wish to return. One news story to come out not long ago on this was a New York Times feature that told the story of 17 men and women accused of crossing the US border without papers. Those deported were sent to Cameroon, though none of the detainees was from there. The Times reporting indicated that Cameroon had accepted these people in exchange for implicit or explicit benefits, including the US Looking the other way on corruption and recent human rights abuses following the October presidential elections. There we turn to the case of a group of West African men who were granted protection from deportation to their home countries on account of legitimate fears of persecution or torture at home. So the Trump administration instead sent them to Ghana. The same story referenced at least 25 countries with which the US has made similar agreements getting them to accept detainees from third countries, even if deportees have no historical connection or ties of citizenship with the destination country. But it appears the deportees did not stay in Ghana for long. In the case of those sent to Cameroon, there is video footage of an official of that country telling the detainees that they will be sent back to their home countries. Upon arrival, they were detained, and within days, it appears Ghanaian officials began repatriating the men to their home countries, exactly where they feared going. Two of the 17 deportees have already been sent as of late March. The rest were enduring one of the hallmarks of concentration camp systems, indefinite detention. I've mentioned before and wrote a whole story for New York magazine about the Venezuelan and El Salvadoran detainees that Trump deported to the prison known as SICOT more than a year ago. There they faced permanent detention without due process, reported beating, sexual assaults, and deliberately harmful conditions.

B (6:42)

When we got there, the Sukkot director was talking to us. The first thing he told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again. He welcome to hell. I'll make sure you never leave.

A (6:55)

Following the lead of lower courts, last summer the US Supreme Court ruled against the president's attempt to use the Alien enemy Act of 1798 to declare the immigrants part of an invasion, a move that the American Immigration Council called one of the worst abuses of government power in generations.

B (7:14)

This law, adopted in 1798 during the Quasi war with France and that has only ever previously been invoked during declared wars, is in fact a wartime authority and not something that can be used to deport Venezuelan alleged gang members without any due process whatsoever.

A (7:33)

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the damage from Trump's illegal actions continues to have repercussions. Juan Papier is a deputy director at the nonprofit Human Rights watch. In an 81 page report released in November, the organization concluded there was systematic torture and other abuses at Sicot, though more than 250 Venezuelans sent to Sicot prison who had been accused of being gang members despite no formal charges or

B (8:00)

proof, ICE's own records say that only 3% of them had been sentenced for a violent or potentially violent crime.

A (8:07)

Though they were returned to their home country, many remained traumatized by their captivity and now threatened again by the kind of persecution that led many to flee the country for the US in the first place. Sent back to Caracas in exchange for 10Americans that had been imprisoned in Venezuela. Even More disturbing are the 36 Salvadoran men the US sent to Sicot, whose whereabouts remain unconfirmed, with their families unable to contact them.

B (8:36)

Among the mostly Venezuelan men being ushered into Secot was a sign Bukele was starting to get what he wanted too.

A (8:44)

Prior reporting has suggested that several men from El Salvador were returned so that President Nayib Bukele could keep them from testifying about his alleged collaboration with gangs as he solidified his hold on power. It was a deal within a deal, as shown by the Frontline investigation this week about the deal between the two leaders. You had on the surface a deal where Trump sent deportees to Bukele's prison, but in fact the US was sending back a criminal who Bukele wanted in El Salvador to protect his story and to hide information. In that case, Bukele had already subverted his country's legal system and accountability on human rights by building the Sikot prison.

B (9:26)

We've been in here discussing with the president his Project Vulcan or Task Force Vulcan, targeting the higher level players in the MS.13 operations.

A (9:37)

But Trump's actions furthered corruption there by reportedly agreeing to pay millions in a lucrative detention deal to take the men.

B (9:44)

After Grenyas was sent back, a federal judge blocked for now the administration's effort to release another MS.13 leader captured by

A (9:53)

Vulcan and by helping to further entrench Bukele's rule by delivering up witnesses to his corruption who could then be silenced.

B (10:01)

I think that this is still a very hot issue for Mr. Bukele because Mr. Trump is not going to be there forever. A new administration can come that doesn't see these kind of agreements with very good eyes. And the gang members still have the possibility of testifying the details of their path with Mr. Bukele.

A (10:22)

And all this is just what we know so far, a partial story, but the US is creating populations of the disappeared abroad. The Trump administration has arranged more deals, some valued at millions of dollars, to offload US Deportees to other so called third countries, nations to which they have no connection. Among them war torn South Sudan and Uganda, which have well documented histories of torturing prisoners. The nonprofit Mobile Pathways has identified more than 13,000 immigrants to the US who are facing deportation to third countries. And they are often targeted aggressively, illegally and nonsensically.

B (11:04)

The United States can't take care of daycare.

A (11:06)

In most cases, a combination of what effectively appear to be bribes, threats and rewards pressure less wealthy countries to partner with the US we can't take care of daycare. All this means that along with the harm done to detainees and international law, the US Is destabilizing less powerful countries around the globe, undermining human rights and furthering criminal behavior abroad.

B (11:29)

We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare.

A (11:33)

And they are doing it via the path of one of the most dangerous institutions invented in human history. The kind of civilian detention without due process, done in an end run around existing law that has come to be known as concentration camps.

B (11:48)

Here with me now, author Andrea Pitzer, who literally wrote the book on the subject. It's called One Long A Global History of Concentration Camps.

A (11:54)

Even where countries have limited traditions of this or where a few detainees are held, the US Is still encouraging and in many cases paying host countries to hold detainees in extralegal conditions. I looked at how this idea of rounding up a whole bunch of civilians, non combatants, and putting them in detention without trial, how did that get to be seen as a good idea? And it turns out it's been tried all over the world again and again. It is as if the US in the wake of the destruction of usaid, is imposing its evil inversion on the globe. My research showed pretty conclusively that these camps don't close themselves. Multinational and international detention networks have existed in the past and have typically been set up by some of history's worst actors. The German population of Jews was quite small during World War II. Nazi Germany made use of transit camps and hubs to deport targeted populations, especially Jewish detainees, but also members of various resistance groups, eastward to Germany and to Poland. As they invade Poland and they're moving eastward, they are encountering places where the populations of Jewish communities is quite large. After the Nazis were defeated, the Soviet Union converted many Nazi camps in territory under their control for use in deportation, bringing dissidents opposing the Iron Curtain to death camps or remote exile inside the borders of the ussr.

B (13:22)

Moscow forced the Baltic states to host Soviet bases on their territory. The Red army moved in without firing a shot.

A (13:30)

Operation Preboy was one such Soviet operation in the Baltic States.

B (13:35)

It was one of the largest of the Soviet Union's mass deportations of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, which tore more than

A (13:43)

90,000 people from their homes in the spring of 1949.

B (13:48)

While the U.S. and other Western powers never recognized the Soviet annexation, after the war, they were powerless to oppose it. But controlling the Baltics proved troublesome.

A (13:59)

Tens of thousands of those declared enemies of the state were women and children.

B (14:04)

Thousands of Soviet secret police and Interior Ministry troops moved in, and thousands more militia and Communists from within The Baltics were enlisted to help the operation effectively put an end to the anti Soviet insurgency.

A (14:18)

I've mentioned in previous episodes the ways in which various governments coordinated with one another in the Americas under right wing dictatorships in the 1970s and 80s. We're joined by John Dengis, author of the Condor How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents. This kind of collaboration allowed for outsourcing of detention and torture. And these countries carried out their abuses with broad support and sometimes training from the us.

B (14:45)

If you look at the meetings, the transcripts of the meetings between Henry Kissinger and these leaders, both in Argentina and in Chile where we have the records, what do they say in private? You know, understand that you have to assert your authority.

A (15:02)

The synergy that is created in operations like this Operation Condor adds to the overall potential of harm that can be done.

B (15:10)

Try your best to release some prisoners because I'm under a lot of pressure in Congress because the Democrats are trying to make me, you know, defend human rights, do the best you can, but I understand what you're doing.

A (15:23)

More recently, the US bullied and cajoled other countries into violating international and norms in a variety of ways. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a big fight in the beginning of our detention there. What were we even going to call these guys? And so for a long time the government would only call them detainees because they didn't want to give them any of the rights that POWs would have. Many of our key allies aided in illegal renditions. Others were even more complicit as laws and ethical restrictions were subverted or ignored. During the war on terrorists, the United States set up black sites around the globe. Lithuania and Romania hosted such sites, which the US used for detention and interrogations that resorted to torture. So you end up in these incredible twistings and turnings that you can't square with democracy. And so the courts are still choking on that system. In May 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the governments of both countries were complicit and aware of the illegalities of the program, but had never imp accountability on those involved. And I think that Jean Amerie, who was caught helping the resistance in Belgium and was at Auschwitz briefly and survived the war, but then ended up taking his own life. Thailand was also home to another US black site more than two decades ago. He said that whoever is tortured stays tortured. And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind with all this. Not only were 10 detainees held and tortured there before being moved to places like Guantanamo. Station chief Gina Haspel, an undercover CIA officer, personally oversaw waterboarding of at least one detainee and had expressed support for destroying videotapes of interrogations that had been recorded. There was a great deal of concern about the security risk posed to CIA officers who were depicted on the tapes. Those security issues centered on the threat from Al Qaeda. Should those tapes be irresponsibly leaked. The Thai black site reveals clearly the brutal legacy of this kind of detention, both on the ground and in the halls of power. During Trump's first term in office, Haspel was named Director of the CIA. The President has asserted that torture works. Do you agree with that statement,

B (17:47)

Senator?

A (17:48)

I don't believe that torture works. And back in Thailand, the waterboarding that the CIA had introduced there in 2002 became part of a practice of torture and interrogations that local authorities adopted for use on Muslims they arrested. What we're seeing is right now in the world, the pattern of detention without trial for massive numbers of people is alive and well, and that the war on terror has become an excuse for it. US Support for Operation Condor and its creation of the War on terror black sites took place even as the US still publicly at least, embraced human rights and democracy at home and abroad.

B (18:32)

The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests with that apology.

A (18:40)

Now we have a regime in place that no longer even pretends to care

B (18:44)

about these issues, as these organizations can only be defeated with military power. And I see some heads nodding up front because they understand you're dealing with a lot of lawyers in your own country. I'm sure you have my permission not to listen to them.

A (18:58)

And that regime is pressing countries to violate humane and legal considerations and pervert their own domestic detention systems.

B (19:06)

This whole period that happened after World War II, where the west began apologizing and groveling and begging. I don't even know what you're talking about right now.

A (19:16)

This is all in the early stages, but due to lack of reporting and or lack of oversight in many of the countries to which the US has effectively rendered these immigrant detainees that it's managed to offshore, we don't yet even know the outlines, let alone the worst abuses of the systems that we're helping to build. For now, I think the country should realize that conditions in these camps likely match or exceed the worst treatment we've seen in the US So far. In places like the Everglades Camp in Florida, or at Camp East Montana and Texas, where multiple detainees have died in

B (19:52)

one case, officers are accused of blocking a security camera before violently grabbing a 19 year old's groin and beating him. My consciousness faded in the medical tent, the man said in a written declaration. When I regained consciousness, I was in an ambulance. Ambulance on the way to the hospital.

A (20:13)

Those who are worried about what Trump is doing to spur overseas detention without trial might feel particularly helpless to act. And it's true that as a whole, this kind of detention for now, is more opaque and less available for Americans to be able to organize around. You know, not in my backyard. NIMBY opposition is great for domestic warehouses that are being turned into concentration camps, but it's harder to do abroad. Yet there are still things that can be done. In fact, there have already been successes. Last May, lawyers got word that some of their clients were on a bus about to be put on a military aircraft in Texas and would soon be deported to Libya.

B (20:56)

Attorneys for some of these detainees say that their clients that these detainees are from places like Laos and the Philippines.

A (21:08)

They were able to file an emergency filing and get a court injunction preventing the government from sending any immigrant detainees to Libya, where people are routinely trafficked and tortured.

B (21:18)

The State Department, under this very Trump administration, warns Americans not to travel to Libya because of terrorism and threats of kidnapping.

A (21:25)

As I've mentioned before, if there's a point at which it seems impossible to intervene in everything that's happening, try working your way backward in the chain of bad events. Try to address the harm at earlier stages. So one way to keep those detained from being deported to a third country, or at all, is to make sure they have legal representation. News 8 has been tracking these types of cases filed in the federal court since last year and found dozens in the Western District of Michigan alone. Some of them are represented by immigration attorney Robert Alvarez. Few things are as critical as this.

B (22:02)

The legal community that represents immigrants have had to resort to this constitutional protection of the habeas corpus petition, which was used sparingly before this administration, to now file them on an almost daily basis.

A (22:19)

Groups like the National Immigrant justice center, which works in the Midwest, exist all over the country, and they can help to make sure that detainees get legal representation for people who can't afford representation. They could be held in the detention center for months even if they choose to leave the country, which is often something that makes the difference from a

B (22:40)

constitutional this is America, this is the United States of America point of view that should be scary to everybody.

A (22:48)

Support journalism that covers what's happening to immigrant detainees. ProPublica has been doing an extraordinary job of late. New reporting from Propa Publica is giving us a rare look inside a South Texas immigration detention center through the eyes of children. Letters and drawings reveal what life is like for kids inside the Dilley Immigration Processing center, and independent journalists like Gillian Brackell have newsletters tracking different aspects of ICE movement and operations. In the end, of course, this won't stop until we use our community networks, elections and protests to demand change on a variety of fronts and get rid of the corrupt leaders who have made ethnic cleansing and camps possible and made it their mission.

B (23:34)

Damn straight.

A (23:35)

But to do that, it's worth it to make overseas concentration camps at least a small part of the story. Organizers, candidates for office, and protesters can mention not just those held in domestic camps, and note that others are even more out of sight because they're held in inaccessible or dangerous places overseas as part of a deliberate strategy to not only harm specific detainees, but to terrorize all immigrants. If Americans can't remember that children do not deserve to be incarcerated and tortured, then our democracy is already lost. And so we're asking everyone to join us in reading them home. Tie these places to the warehouse initiatives and declare that the US should not be in the business of running or creating concentration camps anywhere on the planet. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next Comes what? Please share this with one person who's looking for ways to survive this mess. To support this podcast, please become a paid subscriber@Andreapitzer.com and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts.