"Indescribable Cruelty": Commentators on the Concentration Camps Now Being Operated by the United States Under Donald Trump

7/ For 10 years, not one migrant child died in U.S. government custody.

Since September, at least 6 kids have died in the custody of DHS or HHS.

How many more kids must die before we end this madness?

— Alvaro Bedoya (@alvarombedoya) June 21, 2019

The firing of gay employees of Catholic institutions is hardly the most horrific thing happening in the world today. There's also this:

Serena Marshall, Lana Zak, and Jennifer Metz, "Doctor compares conditions for unaccompanied children at immigrant holding centers to 'torture facilities'":

"The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities," the physician, Dolly Lucio Sevier, wrote in a medical declaration obtained exclusively by ABC News. ...

After assessing 39 children under the age of 18, she described conditions for unaccompanied minors at the McAllen facility as including "extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food." 

There are an incredible number of lies people are trying to sell today to get people to look away from Trump's concentration camps. Let's dispense with one of the big ones: the idea that they can't be camps because the conditions inside are fine.

That's a lie. People are dying.

— Jonathan M. Katz✍🏻 (@KatzOnEarth) June 19, 2019

Caitlin Dickerson, "There Is a Stench": Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Children at a Texas Center:

Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met, the lawyers said. Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants. Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk."

The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board believes we need to call migrant camps what they really are — concentration campshttps://t.co/mwFGDLsxVP

— The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) June 22, 2019

‘I have never heard of this level of inhumanity.’ Lawyers speak out about border detention site https://t.co/O2N9o3jyL1

— Daniel P. Horan, OFM (@DanHoranOFM) June 21, 2019

Today, US Christians will sing “Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 kids are locked in concentration camps; sleeping on concrete; refused medical care; begging to be held.

If we do not #CloseTheCamps, our songs are a stench (Amos 5:21).

— Serene Jones (@SereneJones) June 23, 2019

"Quit trying to make us feel teary-eyed for the children. Yes, I love children a great deal, but to me, it's up to the parents to do things rightfully and legally"

What some Trump supporters think of family separations at the border: https://t.co/xWTCHQsfFJ pic.twitter.com/AB9iptDL0S

— CNN (@CNN) June 20, 2018

*I tweet about the treatment of children at detention centers*

*woman responds that they shouldn’t have come here illegally*

*I respond that these children are mostly entering legally at ports of entry, seeking asylum*

*she blocks me*

They don’t want to know. They don’t care.

— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2019

Charles M. Blow, "Trump's 'Concentration Camps'":

Folks, we can use any form of fuzzy language we want, but the United States under Donald Trump is currently engaged in an unconscionable act. He promised to crack down on immigrants and yet under him immigrants seeking asylum have surged. And he is meeting the surge with indescribable cruelty. 

Donald Trump is running concentration camps at the border. The question remains: what are we going to do about it?

Pro tip for Republicans from a Jew who refuses to let you speak for me: if you're offended by the word "concentration camps," don't have concentration camps.

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) June 23, 2019

I’m a Jewish historian. Yes, we should call border detention centers “concentration camps.” https://t.co/bmB851S4Ss via @voxdotcom

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 🏳️‍🌈 (@wdlindsy) June 21, 2019

These are the first words you see when you enter the Auschwitz exhibition at https://t.co/Pu6rCteHPE pic.twitter.com/2UeTncC6Rp

— Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) June 20, 2019

Time is the enemy. The longer kids suffer in these conditions, the more likely it is they will die. If they survive, they will never get this time back. Their parents won't either. The trauma is permanent.

I made this same comment a year ago. Nothing changed but more deaths. https://t.co/WDOcl3ORTC

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 22, 2019