A recent Guardian report said that migrants at a Miami ICE jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates like dogs. Detainees were made to use toilets in full view of others being held there, and were denied access to showers or adequate food. Detainees reported that they were held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot. Men and women were confined together, and unshackled only when they needed to use the single toilet, which quickly became clogged.
When the group was finally admitted into the facility, many spent up to 12 days crammed into a frigid intake room they christened la hielera — the ice box — with no bedding or warm clothing, sleeping instead on the cold concrete floor. In one incident in April at the downtown Miami jail, staff turned off a surveillance camera, and a disturbance control team brutalized detainees who were protesting about a lack of medical attention for one of their number who was coughing up blood. One detainee suffered a broken finger.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez often touts her willingness to commonly work with Republicans on policy. She crossed the aisle recently, being one of only three Democrats to back House Speaker Mike Johnson’s measure to fund the federal government on a short-term basis. The almost unanimous Democratic opposition stemmed from the inclusion of the GOP’s Safeguard America’s Voting Eligibility Act, which required a person to provide proof they are a US citizen when registering to vote in a federal election. Tucked into the bill was a line praising ICE, expressing gratitude to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel for protecting the homeland. Consider where basic human decency was when Marie Gluesenkamp Perez voted to praise the thugs working for ICE. Gluesenkamp also voted for the Laken Riley Act, Trump’s signature mass deportation bill, and she continues to echo MAGA lies that blame undocumented immigrants for the fentanyl crisis.
Brent Hennrich, a local Democrat who hopes to replace MGP in the 2026 election, states migrants are human beings, packed into cells while denied food, dignity and even the most basic decency. He asks, saying every time he hears these disturbing reports that he can’t help but think, what if this was happening to someone you loved? In the upcoming election, Hennrich offers a clear choice from Gluesenkamp Perez. He says that when he is elected to Congress, you can count on him to fight like hell to investigate these abuses, shut down facilities that violate human rights and hold ICE accountable. What you’ll not catch him doing is rubber-stamping Trump’s mass deportation agenda like his opponent.
It is a perilous time in history. Persisting to elect MAGA and Democrats-in-name-only will increase the speed in which we drop into the dark chasm of fascism. Think deeply the next time you vote. It could be the last time you may be allowed to vote.
Larry Kerschner
Centralia
