By all criteria, this a concentration camp. Not “concentration camp” as rhetorical inflation, or emotionally manipulative shorthand, or edgy metaphor—but as in: literally.
As in: detention without trial, state control, inhumane living conditions, forced labor, dehumanization, brutal violence, isolation from accountability, psychological torture, and—by every available logical extension—murder.
That last one we can’t yet verify in the strict evidentiary sense, but the circumstances suggest it like smoke suggests fire, and they are already trying to hide their actions and deny what is occurring.
Also look at FDRs concentration camps for Japanese Americans. This shit is a time honored tradition in this country.
I don’t want to minimize the suffering of Japanese Americans in the camps in any way, but from the history I’ve read they seem to be a few steps up from whatever the hell is going on at CECOT.
I’m not trying to compare them. We have no idea what’s going on at CEDOT. It could very well be worse, that’s true. My point is FDRs camps were, by definition, concentration camps. This country has a long history of throwing people into concentration camps.
From all the reporting I’ve read CECOT is significantly worse than the Japanese internment camps. What America did to Japanese Americans was cruel and unjust, and I wouldn’t say conditions in the camps were good, but CECOT seems to be on a whole other level. Prisoners are confined in crowded bunk rooms, outside time is limited to one hour per day, and physical violence from the other prisoners and the guards seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
The concentration camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the 19th century sense of the word - simply a place to hold a group of civilians during a conflict. CECOT is a concentration camp in the Nazi sense of the word - an extermination camp.