"The investigation found a hidden world of flawed medical judgments, faulty administrative practices, neglectful guards, ill-trained technicians, sloppy record-keeping, lost medical files and dangerous staff shortages. It is also a world increasingly run by high-priced private contractors. There is evidence that infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and chicken pox, are spreading inside the centers.What is it with Republicans and contractors? Don't they cost more money? Is it a way to simply move the cost around?
Federal officials who oversee immigration detention said last week that they are 'committed to ensuring the safety and well-being' of everyone in their custody.
Some 83 detainees have died in, or soon after, custody during the past five years. The deaths are the loudest alarms about a system teetering on collapse. Actions taken -- or not taken -- by medical staff members may have contributed to 30 of those deaths, according to confidential internal reviews and the opinions of medical experts who reviewed some death files for The Post."
Either way, this is just another story that makes me hang my head as an American. We need a good conversation on immigration--I don't deny that. But what the Republicans have given us is not that. They have given us a knee jerk fear based approach with the typical Bush style of administering the problem. Ten bucks says the person running this system is friends of someone--not someone with experience.
Sigh.
1 comment:
Working at an immigration firm, I see a lot of the stupidity first-hand. What is especially appalling is that we have $300 billion--that's $300,000,000,000--from social security tax payments withheld on behalf of people using fraudulent SSNs, that we can't touch because we don't have regulations on the books to explain what we're allowed to do with it. The equivalent of 4% of the national debt just sits there, doing nothing.
That's something to think about the next time people say illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs. It's true that the violent criminals who pass into the country without inspection are a big problem that we need to take better steps to address, but nearly all the ones who come to work have taxes withheld just like everyone else, and don't apply for the refunds that legal immigrants would be entitled to. (This is not including the sales tax that they pay automatically, just as everyone else does.) They're a net boost to the economy, much moreso than multinational corporations who funnel jobs overseas and profits to offshore tax shelters.
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