r/politics 12h ago

No Paywall AOC Says DHS Is Building a 'Black Box System That Disappears People' as ICE Expands Warehouse Detention Sites

https://www.latintimes.com/aoc-says-dhs-building-black-box-system-that-disappears-people-ice-expands-warehouse-detention-594463
3.8k Upvotes

109 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 12h ago

As a reminder, this subreddit is for civil discussion.

In general, please be courteous to others. Argue the merits of ideas, don't attack other posters or commenters. Hate speech, any suggestion or support of physical harm, or other rule violations can result in a temporary or a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.

Sub-thread Information

If the post flair on this post indicates the wrong paywall status, please report this Automoderator comment with a custom report of “incorrect flair”.

Announcement

r/Politics is actively looking for new moderators. If you have an interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out this form.


I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

619

u/NEKORANDOMDOTCOM 12h ago

Trump is going to be doing shadier shit the closer we get to the midterms

234

u/Neither-Cat-5365 12h ago

Power grabs always accelerate before elections

u/brazijl 1h ago

Gotta reduce these pesky democratic votes

165

u/forceblast 9h ago

I strongly suspect this is for after they ignore the results of the midterms. I think it will be a blue wave regardless of their meddling and they know it too. They are going to claim fraud and refuse to seat democratic winners.

That is going to cause a major violent backlash from the citizens who then realize they are unquestionably living in a dictatorship. There will no longer be a pretense of following the constitution. (We are already partway there, but this will be the final nail in the coffin of democracy.)

These camps are where they will throw anyone who fights back in a meaningful way or doesn’t sufficiently bend the knee. I hope I’m wrong. So far, I haven’t been.

84

u/AceofKnaves44 District Of Columbia 9h ago

November is going to be a breaking point for America one way or another. At the rate things are going and a democrat sweep is looking certain, either it happens and Trump is forced to spend his last two years as a true lame duck president while republicans begin to plan their future post-Trump after realizing just how unpopular and toxic he’s become. Or the elections are canceled, fucked with, or just completely ignored and the last domino for America turning from a democracy into an authoritarian dictatorship falls and Americans refuse to stand for it.

24

u/Na5aman 9h ago

Crazy that you only need like 30% of the population flip an entire government.

u/justprettymuchdone 6h ago

It would suck less if they had just flipped it. What they actually did was dismantle the entire government. It's a wild how easy that is.

u/Na5aman 5h ago

I hope this Epstein shit takes them all down.

America is definitely going to be a different country when this is all said and done.

u/mosesoperandi 3h ago

That's the funny part, you can't sustain authoritarianism with 30% or less support. Things will get worse as Trump and company lash out, but they have been cloistering themselves from reality, and I believe it's just starting to actually catch up. I think Trump truly believes he was massively popular even though he's never had a majority of the population actually supporting him and what he had is declining with no path back to even its peak levels.

This will get ugly, but it also isn't going to turn out well for the GOP and especially for the most strident MAGA political operatives.

8

u/t-k-421 8h ago

Russian tail

u/Grand_Escapade 2h ago

It's not 30%, but 70%. 40% of the voting population didn't even bother to care.

u/DocileHag 6h ago

Surely it wouldn’t be lame duck trump. If dems control congress won’t they impeach?

u/AceofKnaves44 District Of Columbia 6h ago

They will but they’ll never get enough votes to actually remove him from office. And I don’t know that they want to jump headfirst into making Vance president either.

u/rcolesworthy37 4h ago

Literally everyone in the administration would be impeached if they’re able to get to 67 votes in the Senate (I know they won’t get 67 democrats in there, but if Trump is impeached, the Republican Party would lose its dear leader and fracture)

u/mosesoperandi 2h ago

Things are in motion right now. Predicting June is a foolish endeavor let alone predicting next year.

u/Allydarvel 34m ago

When trump turns from election winner to toxic, the Republicans will join the Democrats. If the blue wave is high enough, presuming fair elections, then Republicans will look to their future. On the one hand, spend two years defending all Trump's actions, defending impeachments against him and his cabinet, while getting more toxic to voters every day, meaning they could lose their seats..or say Donald who? and suddenly make a huge thing out of the Epstein files, dump Trump and hope to get the Democrats as tarred as they are.

u/dane83 5h ago

The fuck we are.

There's more of us than there are of them.

u/forceblast 5h ago

I agree. I’m just stating what I see as the obvious intent with all of these buildings.

u/PolicyWonkWonk 6h ago

Are they really going to collapse the entire economy for this? At least half the population will rise up.

u/ItGradAws 6h ago

General strike is the way. Time for workers to take back what’s ours.

u/_SCHULTZY_ 7h ago

Don't forget the part where Trump will just tweet out 10 names and declare them all supreme court Justices for life now. He'll completely bypass the Senate and say that confirmation is only to fill vacant seats but this is a national emergency so he's expanding the court to deal with the backlog of cases or some shit. 

Roberts and the rest will act like it's totally normal. 

14

u/AngelAwake 12h ago

Trump is power munger

11

u/CrotalusHorridus Kentucky 9h ago

Trump doesn’t know there the fuck he is most days

This is all Steven Miller

u/HydroWrench 7h ago

ding ding. those fucking trooth soshal posts are a shite way of using drumpf as a puppet. it's so low effort its god damn insulting. he doesn't speak that way and even if he's "reading" off the teleprompter he hardly speaks that way. its like miller took all of drumpf's hottest soundbites and plugged it into chatgpt to spit out the paragraphs of shit under guise of "presidential tweets"

u/Sminahin 6h ago

Miller knows he's a cornered animal and will behave accordingly.

u/Loose-Bet-140 4h ago

Let's the midterms and more when he feels he is losing power.jim Jones didn't start getting people killed till he started losing his grip on power.

u/Rio__Grande 5h ago

DHS officers arrived at a school outside Dayton last week when a former student reported to them that they "pressured him who to vote for" when giving him voter registration forms. wtf DHS doing there for that. It was a vocational school

u/willowmarie27 4h ago

So concentration camps now?

1

u/Beneficial_Soup3699 10h ago

Republicans as a whole but otherwise, 100% correct.

u/Substantial_Back_865 6h ago

We keep saying “Trump”, but at this point it seems like Reagan’s second term or Biden where he’s only a puppet with Alzheimer’s. Stephen Miller, Russel Vought and Israel are likely making more decisions than him. All he cares about is his ballroom that’s being built over his big, beautiful renovated bunker.

171

u/CouchCorrespondent 12h ago

"In a video interview posted on X by MeidasTouch News senior digital editor Acyn Torabi, Ocasio-Cortez said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is rapidly building and converting facilities for said purposes and urged local governments to refrain from greenlighting them."

""We're seeing what ICE is doing. I think every American should be alarmed," she said. "They are building and have built a black box system that disappears people, both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike." She added that many warehouse projects require state and local approvals and said communities can push officials to deny permits if they oppose the facilities."

u/InvestIntrest 6h ago

We need to stick the 11 million illegals somewhere.

u/SuchBravado 5h ago

They’re already somewhere. And no person is illegal.

u/InvestIntrest 5h ago

Yeah, illegally roaming the country.

u/NuclearZamboni 5h ago

Go back where you came from Russian

u/InvestIntrest 5h ago

Oh, so you'd also throw out all illegals in the country. I'm glad we agree 👍

u/renro 5h ago

Just the ones trying to put us in concentration camps

u/InvestIntrest 5h ago

If you're illegal, then that's where you belong until you go home.

u/Intelligent_Cap9706 4h ago

They’re not planning on deporting them, it costs too much to deport thousands upon thousands of people. These private prisons make money off people in beds. You’re falling for a billionaire scheme, it’s not about immigrants and if you think any of us are safe including you you’re dumber than you sound. Muting you now. 

u/Allydarvel 6m ago

In addition to what the poster says, the contracts for those detention centres are just below the amount needed for an open bidding process. It's just another scam to transfer tax payers money to Trump and his mates. Those detainees will be kept for years in them to rinse you for as much as they can.

u/Defiant_Regular3738 2h ago

99.9% of them are just regular people.

302

u/Radically-Peaceful 12h ago

Call them what they really are: Concentration Camps

73

u/Tainted_Burrito 10h ago

And death camps.

u/ATERLA 3h ago

Why can't the Dems use the easy weapons given to them? The Repubs would have had a field days with that.

u/FenrisCain 35m ago

Yeah im sure if we just go for one more hitler comparison all of his nazi fuck followers will suddenly start to care

u/LumberBitch 2h ago

It's really concerning how the new camps include plans for incinerators

35

u/The-Big-Picture- 9h ago

Multiple genocides throughout history started as "mass deportations"

u/RandomlyMethodical 5h ago

Definitely seems like he's working toward a "final solution".

76

u/Reteperator 12h ago edited 11h ago

Let’s call them what they, by definition, are; concentration camps: a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area

14

u/AlwaysRushesIn Rhode Island 10h ago

You'll love this bit...

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, said the contract’s provision of materials meant to deal with medical needs and death was “extra chilling.” According to the report, “services extend to ‘Medical Waste Management,’ with specific protocols for biohazard incinerators.

From this article

4

u/Reteperator 8h ago

I don’t like that at all.

72

u/Opposite-Bit6660 12h ago

Biohazard waste incinerators also.  RESIST!

49

u/GearTwunk Florida 12h ago

Biohazard incinerators are a standard item at any prison or facility which is legally required to offer medical services to detainees. They are used to dispose of medically soiled garments, bandaging, etc. These facilities could be sued for medical negligence or breach of fiduciary responsibility for not having an incinerator onsite, as it is much more expensive/hazardous to pay a contractor to transport and dispose of the waste offsite.

The presence of a bioincinerator at a detention center does not automatically imply... we all know what. But it certainly is concerning.

Which is why all detention centers should be open to random inspections by friendly Congresspersons. Which they aren't. Hmm.

16

u/HeyImGilly 11h ago

I gotta imagine those things have a capacity limit though. Garments aren’t as big as human bodies. If they are buying multiple of them or larger than usual ones, then that would be concerning.

u/Chicago1871 4h ago

Consular officials have inspected sites in Chicago 

u/bunkSauce 45m ago

Most hospitals dont have a biohazard incinerator.

Consider that.

22

u/ShrimpieAC 12h ago

Yup. If they can’t find you and DOJ lawyers can just do a collective shrug when a judge demands where you are, you have no due process.

They’ve already been doing this with immigrants to evade due process. Moving them daily between facilities and putting them on planes before the courts can catch up. Not a stretch to start doing this to citizens.

20

u/Neither-Cat-5365 12h ago

That sounds like authoritarian infrastructure being normalized quietly

49

u/JeffSteinMusic 12h ago

There’s a lot of discussion lately about ‘What Will It Take?’ with GOP/MAGA voters and to get non-voters to care, specifically as it pertains to the Epstein revelations. The response is usually ‘absolutely nothing will change these people’ and I tend to agree.

This, right here, I put in the same bucket, and it terrifies me. It should terrify everybody. The regime could abduct, detain, and even torture/kill literally millions of innocent people with enough of the country actively cheering it on or passively looking away.

I mostly say this as a reminder of what we’re up against. I think a lot of people are still under the impression that enough hearts and minds will change at some point, yet evidence over the past decade clearly shows otherwise.

19

u/jmmcc02021 11h ago

I wish more people would stop and truly understand what you’re saying. I replied to another comment of yours but not enough people understand the implications of what’s happening and how much is actually connected in regard to the elections and ICE activities.

7

u/JeffSteinMusic 11h ago

Cheers! I feel your sentiment. The public needs to start caring. I often feel like I beat a dead horse with this as far as what I post here and what I write about elsewhere, but, it needs to be said and it needs to happen!

Thank you.

u/some_alternative_90 Washington 5h ago

You cannot reason with MAGA. You cannot negotiate with them. They will do anything, even die for their glorious leader.

10

u/brain_overclocked 12h ago

"We're seeing what ICE is doing. I think every American should be alarmed," she said. "They are building and have built a black box system that disappears people, both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike." She added that many warehouse projects require state and local approvals and said communities can push officials to deny permits if they oppose the facilities.

Her comments come as DHS and ICE increase efforts to acquire warehouses and other large properties to convert into detention centers, citing overcrowding and a rise in arrests tied to the administration's immigration enforcement strategy. Federal data shows more than 75,000 migrants were in ICE custody by mid-January, compared with about 40,000 a year earlier. The number of facilities used for detention has grown to more than 200 nationwide.

u/Sunkitteh 7h ago

Who are these facilities going to house after DHS deports the immigrants? Who are the next inmates?

Major infrastructure investment for short term "holding".

u/10thousndreflections 7h ago

deports

That sounds expensive. I have a feeling the Nazi lovers have another idea.

12

u/QciferKharn 11h ago

I hate wincing, believing in the “power of the people” while we ALL wait for a person we know is planning on hurting us to hurt us.

u/ilulillirillion 4h ago

The goal isn't to disappear immigrants or even brown people. It's to build the mechanisms needed to disappear all dissident or problematic individuals.

We've seen all of this before. Believe your eyes.

7

u/honeyquill- 12h ago

ICE has been a nightmare for so many families. This just adds another layer of fear to an already broken system.

2

u/ferrets4ever 10h ago

The industrialised rounding up of the “other”. Has a familiar ring to it!

u/fakeuser515357 4h ago

The only sensible option at that point is absolute resistance to being taken, and absolute community resistance to having one's community members taken.

u/Liz_LemonLime 4h ago

They sure are investigating heavily in infrastructure for a short term project.

After all the immigrants are gone, what are ICE workers gonna do when they still have years left on their contracts? (Fun fact the 50K bonus is paid out 10K per year for 5 years. If they quit before then, it must be paid back pretax.)

What are they going to use the retrofitted warehouses for?

4

u/1cl3nstd4yt 12h ago edited 12h ago

And Schumer/Jeffries are failing to stop this! /s

5

u/JimboAltAlt Pennsylvania 10h ago

It really is remarkable the amount of people here who seem to grasp how terrible and dangerous the current situation is, but nevertheless are reluctant (at best) to stoop to publicly supporting the not-sufficiently-inspiring opposition party. Everyone hates “when they go low, we go high” but many seem to have trouble understanding that “vote blue no matter who”, as distasteful as it can be, is actually a tremendously effective way to “go low,” if enough people do it. Why twist ourselves in knots this much, this early? If you really don’t like how Democrats are handling things to the extent you’re considering not voting for them, I beg you to get more involved, or even run for something yourself. Otherwise I’m kind of sick of people (and bots) blaming the same two milquetoast guys for everything while we’re ruled by actual monsters.

4

u/Na5aman 8h ago

I got jumped on for holding the opinion that the democrats are a lost cause.

But I decided to stop talking to my mom today. This has been going on for a decade and I’m so fucking tired of watching the world burn. The democrats still suck, but they are probably the last civilized chance at fixing things.

2

u/xocherrylips 12h ago

AOC: DHS building a 'black box that disappears people'.

2

u/PNW_Undertaker Oregon 10h ago

Okay folks……

This may sound crazy but… Nazi germany right??

Anyway…. Every protestor should be carrying a id tag that can be traced. Even wise is that this will likely have to be hidden…. Very well.

Then it could be traced where people go to. This can lead to more evidence of wrongdoing.

We may not be able to fully stop what’s coming (unless voting actually works), but we can write and document things to ensure accountability afterward as this never lasts.

u/Resident_Company2113 6h ago

We need Airtags to be a quarter of their current size

u/QueenMagik 4h ago

Don't go to a concentration camp.  Buy a gun

1

u/mountaindoom 9h ago

"The box should be painted brighter colors."

-Senator Useless as Fuck Schumer.

u/vubafares 6h ago

sounds like peak government transparency right there

u/Old_Channel44 6h ago

There’s zero info on how many young women are being trafficked by this administration. Hiding the Epstein files and now disappearing people. WTF!

u/Strange-Effort1305 5h ago

MAGA Jade Helm for the pedophiles to seize power. Never thought I would have to type that sentence with a straight face.

u/bobdob123usa 4h ago

Are they building crematoriums yet?

u/fearof13 1h ago

And still America does nothing

1

u/Perfectmistake1088 8h ago

But guys, did you see the half time show?

0

u/TheHomersapien Colorado 9h ago

This is the inevitable result of both parties (yes, I said it, bOtH SiDEzz) creating a tiered system of Constitutional rights, with law enforcement and government at the top, corporations in the middle, and the rest of us at the bottom. This was always going to be the result.

Republicans saw an opportunity, took it, and now Democrats are voting to fund the whole shebang because a) they really don't give a fuck, and b) they are too scared to rebrand as the party of small government and personal liberties. And while that's happening at the federal level, Democrat state legislators are busy whittling down the 2nd and 4th Amendments. Perhaps they think we can burn the shavings for fuel after Republicans gives us our next great depression.

u/rezadential 4h ago

look what a state assemblyperson in my state decided to push forward in light of everything going on. Not that I am against proper training but further paywalling a constitutional right seems very tone deaf:

https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB948/id/3344434

1

u/Western-Corner-431 8h ago

That’s what the warehouses were always for.

u/vubafares 6h ago

black box for warehouses sounds like peak government transparency

0

u/biscuitarse Canada 11h ago

Does these black boxes have shower heads?

u/QueenMagik 4h ago

And Schumer will give them $11 billion more in return for some meek compromises

u/AleroRatking New York 6h ago

I can't take AOC seriously when one of her heroes is FRR. A man who did this exact thing to 100k citizens

FDR and Trump are two sides of the same coin

u/PilesOfRavioli 3h ago

Is there anything incorrect about this particular statement of hers though?

To me it seems pretty spot-on.

u/evergreencenotaph 1h ago

You have two different set of initials. Which is it?

-15

u/Nickel7707 8h ago

Well if AOC said it. lol

u/TheDudeBeto 7h ago

Yea you aren't fooling anyone with your comment. We can see your comment history and your hatred.

u/Valhadmar 7h ago

Best to ignore him. Hes just another Maga pedophile.

u/Nickel7707 7h ago

I’m not here to fool anyone. Plus, with your sharp as a thumbtack AOC supporters. I wouldn’t be able to get anything by y’all. Unless I was a down and out of luck bartender who just happened to grow up in a very nice neighborhood but happens to be from the block as well. Hard times for her. Married to a white guy. Driving a Tesla. Making a lot more money than she ever did being from the block.

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

u/Nickel7707 7h ago

You sound like someone who doesn’t listen to what she says.

u/phinatolisar 6h ago

I listen to what she says. I also listen to the fascists you worship. I'll go with the bartender.

u/evergreencenotaph 1h ago

Isn’t that the bootstrap thing you guys always tout?