From: Nick Slabaugh
Columbus
Wombs cut from women without their consent: This latest hideous story is only another revelation in a long history of unconscionable behavior by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
We’ve all seen the images of men, women, and (most painfully) children packed together in concrete and steel cages like dogs at a high-kill shelter. Humans packed by the dozens into concrete cells designed for four or eight, given sheets of Mylar for both blanket and pillow. Held without hearing or trial beyond both legal limits and the limits of our consciences.
The concentration camps run by DHS and ICE are nothing new — they predate the current president. Nevertheless, now we have seen them. By that knowledge, we all gain a burden of responsibility.
Few seem to be aware that migrants have been given substandard medical care and faced their own fast-burning wildfire of disease as COVID-19 runs unchecked through the incarcerated population, with infection rates as high as 75%. Few seem to have seen the images of children dying alone of treatable illness on the concrete floors of their cells. Few seem to be aware of the thousands of rapes and sexual assault in the concentration camps.
Over 4,500 children have been sexually assaulted in government-run concentration camps in just four years.
These are not numbers that suggest a few bad actors are breaking the rules and being swiftly punished. These are numbers that can only exist if the system itself cares nothing for rules and turns a blind eye to abuse. These numbers can only exist if the system has designed itself to inflict willful, wanton, inhumane suffering on those for whom it is responsible.
Now we learn that ICE is cutting the wombs from women’s bodies without their understanding or consent.
This is behavior in naked defiance of our laws and morals. It is a klaxon to those dangerous few whose hatred makes them cheer for unchecked violence against the least among us.
If this vast, systematic violence is the sort of thing that makes us merely shake our heads and turn the page…then this country is lost.
Gov. Eric Holcomb needs to denounce these abuses and demand the camps be closed.
Rep. Greg Pence and Senators Mike Braun and Todd Young need to call the leadership of ICE to the carpet and make known that Indiana believes in justice for all. They need to introduce legislation to close the concentration camps and implement a system of oversight and accountability that might one day enable us to treat immigrants with the dignity all humans deserve — no matter how desperate.
Citizens can’t stand for this. Government must represent our morals and our desire that this nation relentlessly seek to be a just nation. We can’t let elected officials be silent when their silence buys suffering for tens of thousands.
