Leaked footage has been posted from inside the ICE black site at 31 Hopkins Plaza in Baltimore, Maryland. First-hand accounts of the horrific conditions individuals face inside ICE detention facilities are plentiful, but video documentation of these conditions is rare.
The Footage
This footage gives viewers a short glimpse into some of these conditions. The camera pans across a small, overcrowded room. People are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, some standing, some sitting, and some lying on the ground wrapped in emergency foil blankets. The person filming the video addresses the viewers in Spanish. Two commenters have offered their versions of an English translation.
His message is brief and powerful: Look at how they’re keeping us. Listen to how they treat us. Listen to how they hit us, how they deny us medication, how they deny us sanitary conditions, and how they starve us. We cannot take it anymore.
The Response
Commenters are, rightfully, horrified, with many saying the footage shows a concentration camp. One commenter offered their support for these sentiments by stating the definition of a concentration camp as it appears on wikipedia, which read as such: ‘A “concentration camp” is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitation or punishment.”‘
Many commenters are drawing similarities to nazi Germany, a fitting comparison, though I would argue some closer-to-home examples also need to be noted. After all, the blueprint for Nazi Germany was based largely on American endeavors like the forced slaughter and displacement of Indigenous Peoples into reservations, boarding schools, slavery, and the Jim Crow South. One commenter seemingly alludes to this, saying: ‘Not the first time America’s Govt kidnapped people, stole their property, and housed them in inhumane conditions. Until there are real consequences for these atrocities, it will happen again and again.’
