"You can have this country" Journalists Jailed by ICE Are Revealing the Horrors of Incarceration

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://truthout.org/articles/journalists-jailed-by-ice-are-revealing-the-horrors-of-incarceration/

Journalists Jailed by ICE Are Revealing the Horrors of Incarceration
The Trump administration’s attacks on journalists have a side effect: further exposing the violence of prisons.

British journalist Sami Hamdi was traveling the country on a valid U.S. visa for a public speaking tour when he was abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at a California airport. The Trump administration revoked Hamdi’s visa in response to a campaign by far right social media influencers who didn’t like Hamdi’s criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. For more than two weeks, Hamdi endured the trauma of being held in multiple ICE jails.

“It felt unreal, almost like being in a movie,” Hamdi told Truthout in a recent interview.

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Steve Held, a Chicago-based journalist and co-founder of Unraveled Press, was detained by federal agents outside an ICE facility while reporting on a protest in September. His captors apparently realized what authorities elsewhere did not — when you lock up a journalist, they’re likely to report what they see. Their solution, however, was not to change their practices, but to tape up the windows of Held’s cell so he couldn’t see out.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The accounts of people being detained by ICE show how being held for months or even years before being afforded an opportunity to challenge one’s detention before a judge comes with serious personal, financial, and social costs. But their experience is not new. A significant number of U.S. citizens endure this daily all across the country.

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Hamdi described how an elderly man from Uzbekistan who had been broken by 13 months of ICE detention confided in him that he was ready to volunteer for deportation back to his impoverished country, despite knowing he would be able to win his case in court.

“You can have this country,” Hamdi said the Uzbek man confessed.

[Klarkashton]

1. Sure this place is sooooo much better than the rest of

The dictatorships.

[Jim__]

2. The US prison system is a disgrace. I imagine ICE jails are even worse.

[Layzeebeaver]

3. Are we finally on the "shithole country list"?

What an honour!