Coming to a town nearby, or just right inside your city limits — Concentration Camps.
Last night (11/13), citizens crowded Newport City Council chambers and the nearby Recreation Center to make comments about the possibility of a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) detention facility at the Newport Municipal Airport. Each speaker had two minutes to address the City Council.
On July 13, 69-year-old Willem Van Spronsen used incendiary devices to attack a number of vehicles belonging to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. The attack came just hours after an anti-ICE protest outside of the facility. Van Spronsen was fatally shot during an ensuing confrontation with the police. He had been involved in social struggles for over a decade and actively involved in a long-standing battle against the Northwest Detention Center; he was arrested in 2018 at a protest outside of the facility while attempting to prevent police from arresting a 17-year-old demonstrator. As news spread of Van Spronsen’s death and final acts, many were appalled by his actions, while others celebrated them online. Very few, however, were surprised. Though he acted alone, his actions are part of a long collective history of struggle at the Detention Center.
The Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), built in 2004, sits about forty minutes south of Seattle, just blocks from Commencement Bay, a former superfund site and one of the most active commercial ports in the world. Amid this bustling locus of commerce, stands one of the largest immigration detention centers in the United States, generating $57 million annually for the private corrections company GEO Group.
Here, some of the comments from last night collected by Brian, with my radio station, KYAQ — Newport ICE Facility Special Meeting – an Audio Catalog of Public Comment
Listen here, and I try to yammer on around 13:13 in the video:
I mention the pigs at the end of my 2 minutes: And, remember, Willem Van Spronsen, was found dead after four police officers arrived and opened fire, authorities said.
The Tacoma Police Department said the officers responded about 4 a.m. to the privately run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security detention facility that holds migrants pending deportation proceedings. The detention center has also held immigration-seeking parents separated from their children under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, an effort meant to deter illegal immigration.
Then try and not shed a tear for the young Latinx woman, around 17:00!
Abril Almada, 14, gave tearful testimony about how her father was detained by ICE and is now in a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. She described the difficulty this has had on her family and her own mental health.
Abril Almada, 14, giving testimony about her experience of her father being detained by ICE in September of this year.
“I did not know what was going on,” she said. “No one deserves to go through what I’m going through and my family is going through. No one deserves to get picked up. My dad was my everything. My mom has been through a lot these past weeks without my dad. My grandma died a few weeks ago and my dad wasn’t here to comfort [my mom]. Everyone is going through a lot of trauma right now.”
Almada’s testimony prompted a response from Kaplan, the mayor: “I want to repeat that this council will do everything that we can do in support and to fight this.”
“Newport is a city built on trust, diverse cultures, and shared responsibility. We will work together, thoughtfully, transparently, and within the bounds of the law to protect those values,” Jan Kaplan, mayor of Newport said.
Ahh, but jobs, man, bus drivers for the round up, wardens at the concentration camp, food services and medical providers. MONEY and HATE = GEO Group.
The GEO Group runs 99 facilities worldwide, including secure facilities, processing centers, and community reentry centers. As of late 2024, these facilities have a total capacity of approximately 80,000 beds and are operated in various countries, including the United States, Australia, and South Africa.
Local leaders can’t get answers from federal government
Newport City and Oregon state leaders say there is a basis to the rumors, although they have been unsuccessful in getting concrete answers from federal agencies.
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, whose district includes Newport, said they have been able to confirm that the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter that has been stationed there since the mid-1980s has been moved to North Bend.
On Wednesday, Gomberg announced he is pushing to keep the U.S. Coast Guard’s air rescue operations at the Newport Municipal Airport, citing new information that points to plans of converting the site to a new immigration detention center.
Besides the helicopter being moved to North Bend, Mayor Kaplan said another clue that the federal government was interested in space at the airport came from a contractor inquiring about a potential lease and the ability to make changes to the site.
Through a records request, KATU identified the contractor as Texas-based Team Housing Solutions Inc.
Oregon Public Broadcasting was the first news outlet to name the contractor.
The vendor has held a number of federal defense contracts, mostly to build military housing.
Also, on Monday, A Lincoln County septic company got an inquiry from another federal contractor asking about costs to pump sewage from the airport area.
Somewhere around 10,000 gallons a day of human waste. Do your math: At the low end (50 gallons per person), 10,000 gallons would be produced by 200 people (10,000 gallons / 50 gallons per person).
There are also reportedly multiple hiring ads for jobs ranging from medical service to detention officers.
Trains, Planes, Buses, Vans, Paddy Wagons, Jets, Helicopters, Drones — that job you wanted man.
So, the trade off is, well, the Oregon coast has TWO fucking helicopters, Coast Guard, along this most beautiful but rugged and isolated coast?
KATU has contacted DHS to confirm all these details but has not heard back.
“We are still figuring out what we can legally do in terms about city land,” he said. “We are not obligated to lease city land to anyone who wants to lease. The city council has to determine whether it is in the public interest if somebody wants to lease land from us. That’s one thing that we know and we have no intention of leasing land for a facility that is going to be an ICE facility.”
Kaplan expects a battle with the federal government over the issue.
“When you get a showing like there was here tonight, someone in Washington is going to take notice,” he said. “We are small. We have a city attorney and she is talking with other attorneys looking at what our options are. We have some legalities to go to court and try to bring the helicopter back.”
Newport Fishermen’s Wives representative Taunette Dixon said
“We don’t have a lot of answers, just like everybody else.” While the Coast Guard has indicated that a helicopter would be stationed in Newport a couple of days each week, community members argue that such an arrangement is inadequate for responding to emergencies that can strike at any time.
Over the past decade, the relationship between Newport and Coast Guard stations has been marked by vigilance and open communication. The community fought to keep the rescue helicopter 11 years ago, launching campaigns and even canceling lawsuits in exchange for assurances that the aircraft would remain in Newport. New changes in policy and statements from officials, however, have left community members uncertain about these guarantees.
“There’s supposed to be a process they have to go through before they can determine that it’s safe enough to remove the helicopter,” said Dixon. This process, they explained, should involve assessing the risk to human life and hosting public forums, but many remain unsure whether the required steps are being followed. For Newport, the Coast Guard helicopter is nothing short of a lifeline. “We are a cold water fleet,” explained Dixon, noting the dangers of winter crab season and the need for immediate rescue during emergencies.
Local fleets, tourists, and even loggers depend on the fast response provided by the Coast Guard crew. “They become a part of our community… It’s so important in so many different ways.”
*****
It all comes down, folks, to White Supremacy:
You can get iced by ICE, or just plain old “never getting another job as an adjunct professor ever again” terminated!
In late September, Jessica Adams, an instructor in Indiana University’s School of Social Work, showed a slide to her class that listed acts of “white supremacy” in the form of a pyramid. At the tip of the pyramid were “overt,” socially unacceptable acts, like “hate crimes” and “swastikas.” Below that were “covert,” socially acceptable acts, like the phrase “Make America Great Again” and the celebration of Columbus Day.
Soon after, Adams was removed from the class, “Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice,” while the university investigates whether she violated the state’s controversial intellectual-diversity law, known as SEA 202. The law, passed last year, called on the state’s public campuses to develop disciplinary procedures for faculty who fail to foster cultures of “free inquiry” and “intellectual diversity” within the classroom, among other things. It also forced colleges to develop systems through which students could submit complaints against instructors.
Sonia Lee, another professor associated with the AAUP who has been involved in Adams’s case, said she has no doubt that the graphic could have made someone in the classroom uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean its use should be banned. Lee said many faculty and community members thought SEA 202 might end up being benign, but cases like this make her think otherwise. The student who might have been uncomfortable could have just raised their hand, she said, but the introduction of this bill gives them a nuclear option.
“I think the student could have had a genuine conversation, an intellectual debate about the validity of this pyramid,” Lee said. “But instead of actually talking and thinking about this on an intellectual level, the student knew about SEA 202 and they probably also knew about Senator Jim Banks being somebody that would probably listen to a student who did not like discussions about white supremacy. And so then they filed this complaint.”
Kapos and Stephen GLosser Miller?
And so where do we go? First Latina congresswoman from Arizona starts tenure focused on education, tribal rights and environment — plus she clears the way for an Epstein files vote.
In a speech on the House floor after being sworn in, Grijalva said it was time for Congress “to restore a full and check and balance to this administration.”
“We can and must do better. What is most concerning is not what this administration has done, but what the majority of this body has failed to do,” she said.
The seating of Grijalva brings an end to a weekslong delay that she and other Democrats said was intended to prevent her signature on the Epstein petition .
Johnson had refused to seat Grijalva while the chamber was out of session, a decision that prompted condemnation from Grijalva, a lawsuit from Arizona’s attorney general and speculation that Johnson was delaying her induction into the House to stall a vote on whether to require the Justice Department release documents related to the late convicted sex trafficker.
Grijalva had said she would join the petition from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., after taking office, giving it the 218 signatures needed. Three Republicans have signed onto Massie’s petition — Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Julie Brown, in her book “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story,” writes that an anonymous woman, using the pseudonym “Kate Johnson,” filed a civil complaint in federal court in California in 2016, alleging she was raped by Trump and Epstein — when she was 13 — over a four-month period from June to September 1994.
“I loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop,” she said in the lawsuit. “Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he could do whatever he wanted.”
Johnson said she met Trump at one of Epstein’s “underage sex parties” at his New York mansion. She says she was forced to have sex with Trump several times, including once with another girl — 12 years old — whom she labeled “Marie Doe.”
Trump demanded oral sex and afterward “pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of their sexual performance,” according to the lawsuit, filed in April 26, 2016, in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
When Epstein learned Trump had taken Johnson’s virginity, he allegedly “attempted to strike her about the head with his closed fists,” furious that he had lost the opportunity.
Trump, she said, did not take part in Epstein’s orgies. He liked to watch while 13-year-old “Kate Johnson” gave him a hand job.
Johnson said Epstein and Trump threatened to harm her and her family if she spoke of their encounters.
The lawsuit was dropped, most probably by way of a lucrative settlement. She has since disappeared.
Dictators are not content with silencing their critics and opponents. They take sadistic delight in humiliating, ridiculing and destroying them.
*****
Yeah, Salem, Oregon, 80 miles away from Newport.
Federal immigration agents detained at least 24 people in the Salem area on Tuesday, according to a coalition of advocates for immigrant rights, marking the highest single-day total for detentions in years.
Oregon for All said that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement smashed the windows of a van full of people on their way to work early Tuesday morning. In a separate event, witnesses reported, ICE rammed a car on Ward Drive in Salem near a 76 gas station.
ICE oversaw more than 14,000 placements in solitary confinement between 2018 and 2023. Many people who are detained in solitary confinement have preexisting mental health conditions and other vulnerabilities. The average duration of solitary confinement is approximately one month, and some immigrants spend over two years in solitary confinement.
