A response to immigration detention centers

I’m going to be a bit more “philosophical” in this post than I’ve been in others because I think it’s always good to articulate one’s principles.  The brother of an old friend of mine challenged a meme I posted about the current administration’s (CA) anti-immigrant policies and this got me thinking.  So, I thought I would take a bit of time to articulate some of the ideas that have been driving my opposition to the CA—I’m not going to try and be comprehensive here, but give some thoughts.

A rabbi and University of Alabama Professor I have gotten to know over the last couple of years, Steven L. Jacobs gave a presentation at a recent Holocaust and Genocide Studies conference, in which he warned against over-playing comparisons between the current socio-political climate with that of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, noting that there are some significant differences, but he did recognize that there are certainly similarities.  In my own everyday life, I have begun to refer to the CA as being “proto-Fascist” (I was grateful when Jacobs agreed with using this strategy).  I think it might be a good time to discuss what it is about the CA that puts it on the road towards Fascism.

For a basic starting point, I’ll take some ideas from Asaf Kedar’s entry on Fascism from SAGE’s Encyclopedia of Political Theory. [1]  I'm not going to try and be comprehensive here, but some of the salient points of Fascism at play in my critique are:

1. “virulent nationalism”—This idea is all over the CA, from the America First policy/doctrine to Steve Bannon’s touting of “economic nationalism.”   This is, of course, the source of the xenophobia and racism at the heart of Fascism.
2. “political authoritarianism”—This shows up statements from the President that he has authority to pardon himself,  to odd demagogic cabinet meetings that  start with praise fests, to his own declarations about "absolute right" to control the justice department, to Stephen Miller’s claim that immigration policy will be "unquestioned."  
3. “a systematic, hierarchical organization of society to harness it in service of the national interest—without, however, dismantling the fundamental structures of capitalism, primarily wage labor and private property”—This is a complex idea, but part of it making economics and national security the central pillar of every decision and pounding the proverbial pulpit with this language at every opportunity.  This showed up in the President’s announcing an end to war games with South Korea because it first “save us a tremendous amount of money” and then because they are “provocative” 
4. “sustain efforts of war and imperial conquest”—The current president’s fascination with the military and political violence is disconcerting from his dropping the largest conventional bomb ever built, to his unveiled threats against North Korea, to his near constant threat posture in the Middle East, even to the point of his own chiefs of staff questioning his judgement—take the proposed new space-oriented branch of the armed forces, or the push back against his desire for a military parade. 
5. “a deep, urgent sense of cultural crisis”—The CA’s rhetoric of crisis shows up in so many of its public statements.  Last year, the President tried to falsely claim that murder rates were the highest in nearly half a century and the administration still tries to make a dubious connection between immigration and a rise in crime…not to mention the claim that immigration is a drain on the economy, when research calls that claim into question at best.  
6. “active, systematic embrace of modern technology and an equally systematic manipulation of mass society, mass politics, and mass communication”—This shows up in multiple ways, most disturbingly in the administration’s attempt to discredit almost all news media outlets, except Fox and other overtly right-wing outlets...and let us not forget his odd relationship with Sean Hanity nor his policy by Twitter tendency.

There are, of course many other aspects of Fascism, but I want to get at the specific point, namely the immigrant detention camps.  Here is the meme I re-posted:

I think it’s important to consider the women who issued this quote, Aviva Dautch.  She recently earned her PhD from London University and is currently Poet in Residence at London’s Jewish History Museum and is the recipient of the Lily Safra Award from Brandies University for her academic work in Jewish Women’s History.  I point this out as a way of showing this is not simple pundit klatch, but is an observation of someone who has put in a good deal of time researching and publishing in the area of Jewish studies.

One complaint I have seen about the claim this quote rests on is that the comparison between these immigrant detention camps and Nazi concentration camps is over blown, that it is simply hyperbolic.  There is no system to exterminate immigrants, the complaints point out.  True enough, but this claim relies on a very narrow conception of Nazi concentration camps: the extermination camps.  In the entire camp system, only six built specifically for extermination: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek.  The hundreds of other camps were for detention and forced labor.  The National Holocaust Museum offers this definition of the concept:

The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. 

Distinguishing between types of camps is crucial for critiques of immigrant detention centers.  The first concentration camps were built in 1933 and were originally for political prisoners, homosexuals, Gypsies, and Jehova’s Witnesses.  Importantly, these camps could be filled with potential enemies of the state, which could be defined as loosely as local authorities and the SS wanted to define it.  Significantly, as the SS took over the entire camp system, their actions were not subject to judicial review.  Jewish persons did not become specific targets until after the annexation of Austria (March 1938) and Kristalnacht (Nov 1938) and the original intent of detaining Jews was to deport them to Poland. [2]  There was even a plan to deport European Jews to the Island of Madagasgar.  Extermination camps did not exist until 1941 with the opening of Chelmno.  I recount this history to show how the assumption of death camps misses the point for those of us critical of immigration camp.  

So how are the immigration centers like concentration camps?

1. The first similarity is that the centers are being created for detaining persons the CA would prefer to deport.  Granted, the reasons for deportation are different; thus,while the basic intent is not equivalent, it is comparable.
2. The next is that there is pretty open xenophobia associated with these camps.  The President's antipathy towards people  from south of the border is pretty well demonstrated in his comments about Latino populations and policies that will likely have a detrimental effect on Latino populations. This, of course is just an aspect of his general xenophobia, demonstrated by his "shithole" countries comment in January.
3. Part of the current anti-immigrant wave is the threat of MS-13 gang members and the "rapists" and "drug dealers" coming in to the country.  Evan Sernoffsky and Joe Garofoli pointed out in a recent San Francisco Chronicle piece that while MS-13 is a threat to California communities, that threat is not ubiquitous and has actually lessened in some areas; in Los Angeles, where the gang was first formed, it is at its weakest point, according to Jorga Leap, a UCLA professor of social welfare.   Furthermore, she asserted that the CA's constantly calling attention to the gang may actually be aiding in recruitment efforts.  This, is of course, just one state, but it shows that the threat narrative rests on shaky ground. A Senate Judiciary report found that only 0.02% out of 260,000 youth coming across the border were associated with MS-13.  That is cause for concern, but it seems to fall short of the apocryphal narrative the administration puts forward.  Additionally, as pointed out in point 5 above, there is no real solid evidence that immigration and crime rates are positively related.  Recently, the President has linked a so-called rise in crime in Germany to immigration, claiming that last year there was a 10% increase in crime.  According to Philip Seibt from Germany's news magazine Der Spiegel,there has been no such jump in crime.  Last year, actually, reported crime was the lowest it has been since 1992.  Interestingly, Seibert's work does show an uptick by crime from certain immigrant groups--southeastern Europeans and North Africans—but not enough to warrant the doomsday scenario the President has presented.  Related to this is an exaggerated sense of illegal immigration; Katie Benner and Caitlin Dickinson in a recent New York Times piece wrote that the number of Border Patrol stops this past year has been the lowest since 1971. 
4. Associated with the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany were the Nuremberg Laws, which basically disenfranchised Jews and even criminalized some activities.  Now there doesn't yet seem to be anything this drastic in the works for the current CA, however, Attorney General Jeff Session's recent policy changes regarding people seeking refugee status for fleeing domestic and other "non-state" violence sends a similar kind of message to potential immigrants: You are not wanted, stay and die in your own country.  It is using legal policy in the service of nationalism.[3]  
5. Just this week, the President tweeted that he wants deportations with "no judges or court cases."  He is advocating for ending due process and judicial review.  As stated above, this became a feature of the Nazi concentration camp system.  Thus, the President is openly pushing for a power enjoyed by the SS.
6. Just this week, a papers were filed in federal court in which six Latinos held in a Virginia youth detention center allege they were abused and mistreated, including being handcuffed to chairs, having bags placed over their heads and being "left nude shivering in concrete cells."  This, unfortunately, fits in with a very discomforting pattern of abuse in the Border Patrol and ICE ranks.  The ACLU and University of Chicago Law School recently published a report on over 30,000 pages released under FOIA that document many cases of abuse between 2009 and 2014, including physical, verbal, and even sexual abuse.  Additionally, Alice Speri of The Intercept, recently wrote about 1,224 documented complaints against the Border Patrol and ICE between 2010 and Sep. 2017.  Most of these complaints, of course, predate the CA showing that there may be an pervasive pattern of abuse of child immigrants among immigration services already.  An atmosphere of abuse, of course, was a key feature of concentration camps; and, while the level of abuse may not be as extreme, is any level permissible?
7. Just as I was getting ready to post this, a story appeared in The Daily Beast about current and former military personnel being opposed to these detention centers being housed on military bases.  Steve Kleinman, a retired Air Force veteran said the plan "smacks of totalitarianism."  Raf Naboa, former Army sargent, lamented “America’s military once liberated people from concentration camps.  It beggars the mind and our morality that it might be used to secure them.”

So, many of us recognize that there is not a one-to-one correspondence with the Nazi concentration camps, but there very disconcerting similarities.  Again, the Nazi camp system started as a series of prisons and detention centers, but quickly escalated to something far more sinister.  Would that ever happen in the US?  Well, yes it has.  Concentration camps were used during the forced migrations of Native Americans.  In a column for Indian Country Today, Elicia Goodsoldier quotes  Pulitzer Prize winning author, John Toland, who wrote:

Hitler’s concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America’s extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.

Toland specifically named the Bosque Redondo served as an inspiration.  Naomi Gingold did a piece for PRI about an internment camp in Prescott, AZ in which both Japanese and Native Americans were held, working on a large irrigation project.  This, of course, touches on the Japanese internment.  Many of us who oppose the immigration camps do so with the idea of not seeing this kind of thing happening again. 

1. Asaf Kedar.  (2010).  Fascism.  In Marc Bevir (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.  Retrieved fromSage Knowledge EBooks, http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/ 9781412958660.n168 

2. See also https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144

3. Of course, fleeing non-state violence has not been part of immigration policy for very long (in 2014 Obama made it a valid condition), but it was a policy recognizing the many reasons people immigrate to the US in the first place, including many of European descent.