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ICE guards are betting on which detainee will kill themselves next. The AP just exposed the savage conditions of a detention camp in El Paso.
The Associated Press got inside Camp East Montana. What they found should be on the front page of every newspaper in this country until it closes.
About 3,000 people packed in per day. Loud, unsanitary quarters crawling with insects. Food so scarce that detainees steal from each other just to eat. Disease spreading through filthy rooms, showers, and restrooms that go uncleaned. People losing weight. People unable to see a doctor. People losing their minds.
Staff made nearly one 911 call per day in the camp's first five months. One call captures a man sobbing after being assaulted by another detainee. Another has a doctor describing a man banging his head against a wall while expressing suicidal thoughts.
A nurse calls about a pregnant woman in severe pain with coronavirus. Detainees suffering seizures, some resulting in serious head trauma. Ages ranged from a 19-year-old who fell from a bunk to a 79-year-old who couldn't breathe.
And then there's the detail that should haunt this administration for the rest of its existence.
Owen Ramsingh, a former property manager from Columbia, Missouri, who spent weeks in the camp before being deported to the Netherlands, told the AP he overheard a security guard talking about a betting pool among the staff. They were wagering on which detainee would be next to die by suicide. The guard said he had put $500 in. The total pot rode on the outcome.
Ramsingh said the talk was particularly devastating because he had contemplated suicide himself.
Guards are gambling on the deaths of people in their custody. People who are hungry. People who are sick. People who are begging for help through 911 calls that come in every single day. And the staff turned it into a game.
This is not some rogue facility. This is the system working exactly as this administration designed it. Overcrowded by policy. Underfed by neglect. Understaffed by choice. They built a place where human beings deteriorate and then the people paid to watch over them place bets on who breaks first.
The AP has the data. The recordings. The interviews. The court filings. This is documented. This is real. This is happening right now in El Paso, Texas, in the United States of America.
Share this. Do not let them bury it under another news cycle.
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