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ICE can't arrest anyone efficiently when they're being obstructed and protested. Isn't that what you're asking for?
Because dragnet enforcement is very legally fraught when local officials won't cooperate by providing access to records, defendants, warrants, etc.
Like, I don't get it, you're asking why ICE can't act more moderately while supporting the very protests that are obstructing them from acting moderately! Why is my steak so overcooked, I only asked for it well done.
ICE (et al.) do not currently have any credibility that they would act moderately and reasonably. Have they apologised or even admitted error for sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison? Have they apologised for detaining someone for writing a milquetoast op ed? Have they apologised for calling people their agents have shot assassins and terrorists based on zero evidence?
Until they express that they have not been acting moderately, and express a desire to change, I don't buy that the protesters are doing anything but revealing abuses that were already happening. Yeah, these specific clashes with protesters wouldn't be happening. But I don't believe that they have any desire or intention to prevent equally egregious actions from happening when the cameras aren't on.
"ICE doesn't have any credibility because I believe in fake news"
That's more or less how that parses to me. "Sending innocent people to a foreign torture prison?" El Salvador was the murder capital of the world until Bukele locked up all the gangs, so now ICE can't deport illegal immigrants back to El Salvador because Bukele will put some in jail? Ridiculous, realize your own part in escalating this conflict because leftist rioters think we aren't allowed to legally deport people the easy way. ICE could be deporting convicted criminals straight out of jail, it would be the easiest thing in the world, all it takes is local officials cooperating with ICE -- oh, but that hurts leftwing bleeding heart feelings so we can't do that.
That is not what happened. Venezuelans, some of whom had not been accused of any crime and were in the middle of asylum cases, were deported to El Salvador with the understanding that they would be sent to CECOT, with the US paying El Salvador for this service. By all accounts "torture prison" is a perfectly reasonable way to describe CECOT, "concentration camp" is another word one could use and only be exaggerating a little. As far as I can tell, no official has apologized for this or outlined what steps will be taken to prevent something equally horrifying from happening again.
I'm not sure how the other two things I listed could be considered fake news either.
Call me a bleeding heart all you like, but this administration cannot be trusted to treat deportees humanely, and so, well I would generally agree that sanctuary city policies go too far, loosening them right now is a terrible idea.
what specific features of CECOT that distinguish it as a torture prison?
That inmates there report things such as:
"Four guards grabbed me. And they beat me until I bled, to the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall; that was when they broke one of my teeth." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/men-on-beatings-in-salvadoran-prison-after-deportation-from-us-60-minutes-transcript/
Yeah, but what did he do?
Why are you asking me a question that is both readily answered by reading the linked article and completely irrelevant to whether CECOT can be characterized as a torture prison?
No, it is not readily answered by the linked article. What did the guy do before the guards attacked him?
In the US, I could imagine a similar one-sided story getting told. Left out would be the detail of what happened immediately before: the prisoner attacking another prisoner with a shank, an attempted rape, or just giving the guard a funny look. Not going to say it's always a justified reason. But things happen from causes. What happened before is always an important dimension.
I am also very struck that the Biden administration held him for six months while investigating his asylum claims. The Biden administration CBP, "just looked at [him] and told [him he] was a danger to society." The reporter takes at face value that he's never had a traffic ticket and this means he never did wrong in his life. But again, things tend to have causes. It seems unlikely to me that these awful things just keep being inflicted by several different authorities to a totally innocent person.
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