Disturbing on many levels

March 10, 2008 7:15 PM

"It's the first time since Japanese Internment that we've imprisoned children" -- from a post displaying a letter written by a 9 year old Canadian.
posted by mathowie (72 comments total)

i just threw up in my mouth a little.
posted by not_on_display at 7:18 PM on March 10

Fuck us. Seriously, I'm almost starting to avoid the news; every headline just makes me more and more disgusted with the country that we are becoming.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 7:22 PM on March 10

Also, this would be easily enough justification for Bush to invade us if we were some oil-rich nation rather than his own homeland.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 7:23 PM on March 10

pssst... he already did.
posted by not_on_display at 7:23 PM on March 10

Last time I checked, our troops were in Afghanistan, and I'm pretty sure we imprison children over there. I could be wrong.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:27 PM on March 10

shame!
posted by 5MeoCMP at 7:29 PM on March 10

You should link to the New Yorker article directly in your post.
posted by popechunk at 7:30 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]

Want more vomit?

Some good(ish) news:
Conditions at Hutto have gradually and significantly improved as a result of the groundbreaking litigation. Children are no longer required to wear prison uniforms and are allowed much more time outdoors. Educational programming has expanded and guards have been instructed not to discipline children by threatening to separate them from their parents.

What it was like a year ago:
TAYLOR, Tex. -- The day Mustafa Elmi turned 3 years old he had to report to his cell three times for headcount. To be able to get one hour of recreation inside a concrete compound sealed off by metal gates and razor wire he had to pin his picture ID to his uniform.

We have become a terrible, terrible place. We have become what we said we were fighting against. I am profoundly ashamed.
posted by rtha at 7:30 PM on March 10 [6 favorites]

A few years back Leonard Cohen said, in a song, "democracy is coming to the USA". This little story and so many other aspects of the current American scenario would appear to indicate that Cohen might have been wrong about that, and that democracy is in fact moving further away. Inching back, step by step.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:32 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]

Nice post. This is a serious issue that gets precious little real media coverage. Yeah, keep out the tehhohists, the illegals....... The downside is that everyone on the edges gets abused. Now we imprison nine year old kids. Don't show up here as a reporter without the proper visa, or you might get to meet this kid in person out in the exercise yard.
posted by caddis at 7:32 PM on March 10

I am a pessimist. A Deep Cynic. My outlook on life is unrelentingly bleak.

When people criticize me for that, I can just point to stories like this.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:32 PM on March 10

Saddam's rape rooms and torture chambers and children's prisons are closed forever. His mass graves will claim no victims. — George W. Bush, 2003

So what about ours, Mr Bush?
posted by Mikey-San at 7:33 PM on March 10 [4 favorites]

Gah.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for Harper to do anything in response to that.
posted by CKmtl at 7:34 PM on March 10

He's okay now. They were allowed to come back to Canada, although sad to say the kid got mighty sick before our jackasses in Parliament got their act together.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:34 PM on March 10 [1 favorite]

From one of the source articles: Early investors in C.C.A. [which runs the Hutto facility] included Honey Alexander, the wife of Lamar Alexander, then the governor of Tennessee. Over the years, C.C.A. has continued to strengthen its political ties. The company’s PAC gave more than three hundred thousand dollars during the 2006 election cycle, overwhelmingly to Republican congressional candidates, and has given more than a hundred thousand so far for the 2008 elections. The company’s chairman, William Andrews, and its C.E.O., John Ferguson, have been generous donors to Republican senatorial and Presidential candidates. Philip Perry, who is the son-in-law of Dick Cheney, and who served as general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security between 2005 and 2007, lobbied for C.C.A. while he was at the law firm Latham & Watkins, to which he has returned. And C.C.A. spends a lot on lobbying. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2005, the year that Homeland Security awarded C.C.A. the Hutto contract, the company paid close to $3.4 million dollars to five different firms to lobby the federal government.

This goddamned disgusting. We're turning into a kleptocratic third-world country.
posted by tinkertown at 7:35 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]

I am forwarding this article to a friend of mine who is about to leave for Orlando, FL ...to bring his kind to DisneyWorld.

Who in his right mind would even consider setting foot in US these days unless he really really have to ?
posted by elpapacito at 7:37 PM on March 10

Hutto: America's Family Prison is a documentary about (obviously) Hutto.
posted by hecho de la basura at 7:41 PM on March 10

tinkertown, I was about to link to that same blog post - that is one of the most disturbing parts of all this - it's a privatized prison company getting contracts from Dept. of Homeland Security and turning them around into profits for investors. Sickening.
posted by p3t3 at 7:42 PM on March 10

The trouble is, some illegal immigrants will lie, and are prepared to use their children as bargaining "awww, geee" chips.

It's a very complex situation. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

But I'd give this kid's family a visa because of the number of colours he used. Needed more fonts.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:42 PM on March 10

He's okay now. They were allowed to come back to Canada

Ah, last year. Consider my breath held, or unheld... whatever the appropriate retraction is.
posted by CKmtl at 7:43 PM on March 10

I didn't think I could be any more sickened by the depravity of my government.
posted by EarBucket at 7:45 PM on March 10

More from the kid:
Kevin Yourdkhani, 9, a Canadian citizen detained with his Iranian parents: “My bed here is small and cold; it makes my back hurt. I hit the wall and am right next to the toilet; it smells very bad. My mom has to use the bathroom right in front of me.” “I was in my bed and my dad came to fix my bed. When the police came and (saw) my dad in my room, he said if he comes and sees my dad again in my room he’s going to put my mom in a separate jail and my dad in a separate jail and me a foster kid. I cried and cried so much that I lost my energy and I went to sleep.” Detained since February 9.
posted by rtha at 7:47 PM on March 10

While it is a pretty terrible story, it is also somewhat odd that the blogger was under the impression that the kid was still in prison, despite the fact that he returned to Canada about a year ago and that this story was very well covered in (at least the Canadian) media.
posted by ssg at 7:49 PM on March 10

While on the subject, Canada still hasn't done anything at all to help Omar Khadr a Canadian who captured by the Americans in Afghanistan as an enemy combatant at age 15, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the past six years.
posted by ssg at 7:58 PM on March 10

when i wrote letters as a kid i definitely switched pens and ink every sentence.
posted by Addiction at 8:04 PM on March 10

Every now and then I used to contemplate getting a tattoo on my wrist - just "E.O. 9066" in plain text, to remind me that the "American Citizen" might only exist at the pleasure of the government. And if you're not a citizen in America: there but for the grace of God, abandon all hope, etc. So if I ever got that tattoo, I would look at it every day and remember that when political and economic stakes are high, with xenophobia rampant, someone high up the chain could go and do something as terrible as order the imprisonment of an entire demographic under the guise of national security.

I never got the tattoo because more times than not, I would think it could not happen again. There's no way the public would let the Executive Office issue something like that. But when I see things like this, and watch as small civil liberties get quietly stripped away, I start thinking the police/prison state is just around the corner. It just didn't come about the way it had before; it obviously doesn't have to be done by "executive order," it needn't be publicized and it wouldn't be tracked back up to the president's office. Instead, it could be accomplished with simple innuendo and conveniently vague policy definitions. And then all you have to do is wait for some nutjob down the chain of command to make some draconian, fascist interpretation of said policy, and if it hits the fan then you can sit back and let the bureaucracy take the blame. It was just a "few bad apples" who didn't get the memo. But if protests don't spring up and the story doesn't get any traction, then, well... that's pretty much a tacit endorsement, right?

My outrage gland is as over-worked as most MeFi-ers, and I hope that's not part of the Master Plan.
posted by krippledkonscious at 8:08 PM on March 10

Welcome to Australia
posted by mattoxic at 8:10 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]

This isn't the end. This isn't even close to the end.

There are certain voices in the right-wing blogosphere -- I can think of at least some comments on LGF off the top of my head -- who have already darkly hinted that in the future it may "become necessary" to use the children of suspected terrorists as, shall we say, incentives to get their parents to cooperate. .i.e, tell us who your contacts are or little Habib gets another 'boarding -- and YOU get to watch.

I've also seen rightist bloggers post links to "Hezbollah kidz videos" (you know the kind: Palestinian pre-teen wearing a green bandanna promises to become a suicide bomber, etc.), followed by some vaguely genocidal murmuring about how "Arabs can't be reasoned with" and that "its time for America to take the gloves off", and so on.

So, if you think that the possibility, if not the probability, that within a few decades we won't have dedicated "Pediatric Interrogation Centers", is simply beyond our ken, you're wrong. Dead wrong. The ideas are already floating around. The prisons are already built. It's just a matter of time.
posted by Avenger at 8:16 PM on March 10

We imprison children all the time sadly. I don't remember the statistic, but some non-trivial number of children are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14.

Fuck us. Seriously, I'm almost starting to avoid the news; every headline just makes me more and more disgusted with the country that we are becoming.
posted by KingoftheWhales at 10:22 PM on March 10

What do you propose we do with children of parents who are imprisoned? Foster care? Is that really better?
posted by Pastabagel at 8:23 PM on March 10

What do you propose we do with children of parents who are imprisoned? Foster care? Is that really better?

When you say parents, one of the ideas mooted in Australia is that mum and the kids go free while dad stays in detention.

Then, if it comes time to deport the family, mum and all the dippy hangers-on get to go "but the children have made so many friends over here it would be cruel and unusual to deport them now you must let the whole family stay."

Slightly related, since a lot of illegals (as Right Wing Scumbags and the MSM are wont to call them) are Muslim. At least the highly publicised ones.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/white-flight-leaves-system-segregated-by-race/2008/03/09/1204998283744.html
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:39 PM on March 10

As disturbing as this story is, I find the idea of keeping a kid in prison with his parents a whole lot more humane than the much more frequently-used alternative: separating the kid and tossing him or her into the whirling gears of the foster "care" system.

This is really only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the mostly-invisible hells we subject children to.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:43 PM on March 10

The. Existence. of. For-profit. Prisons. Makes. Me. Ill.

I am happy that this wendelled.
posted by loiseau at 8:44 PM on March 10

Pastabagel: What do you propose we do with children of parents who are imprisoned? Foster care? Is that really better?

Better than keeping them in a prison?! Wholeheartedly: yes.
posted by loiseau at 9:01 PM on March 10

Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue.

But seriously folks... I would love some more info on this. I mean, I find it possible that some faceless beaureaucrat might have made a horrible, horrible mistake like this, signing some document which locks up a 9yo kid, but what about people on the ground? How does a prison guard see a kid going to jail and not question how this is possible? How does a guard not even put this kid in a safe room somewhere while they sort out this mess?

And most importantly, how does a nation continue to function when this kind of shit is allowed to start happening? When it's tolerated, even for an instant?
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:03 PM on March 10

"As disturbing as this story is, I find the idea of keeping a kid in prison with his parents a whole lot more humane than the much more frequently-used alternative: separating the kid and tossing him or her into the whirling gears of the foster "care" system."

Come on. The ICE is supposedly paying CCA $2.8 million per month to detain 150 people in a medium security prison. These people haven't committed any crime and are of no danger to anyone. Is there any reason that any member of their family needs to be in a prison? For the money they're paying they could put them up in a friggin 5-star hotel. I'm not advocating that but maybe something a little less harsh than a prison would be appropriate, given the nature of their detainment.
posted by saraswati at 9:06 PM on March 10

"It's the first time since Japanese Internment that we've imprisoned children"

Maybe I'm a cynic, but if the 'we' is the USA, I really doubt this.
posted by pompomtom at 9:20 PM on March 10

A single-link to a one-paragraph blog? Another outrage-filter newsfilter FPP? Grind grind grind. How is this the Best of the Web?

Who posted this, anyway, and how many more comments will be allowed before a mod deletes this post?

(And yes, it's shameful to see what American has become. Good post.)
posted by orthogonality at 9:25 PM on March 10

While on the subject, Canada still hasn't done anything at all to help Omar Khadr a Canadian who captured by the Americans in Afghanistan as an enemy combatant at age 15, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for the past six years.

Our current (Conservative) government is also eliminating our long-held tradition of bringing home prisoners who are on death row, so they can serve life imprisonment instead.

Our asswipe "leader" Harper has decided to give up on repatriating a death-row murderer, on the principle that we "shouldn't interfere with the judicial process of democratic countries"; thus, the Sauds are going to get to kill a kid who seems to have been shafted by an unfair trial, and the Mexicans will continue to imprison a woman never convicted of a crime.

Our current Prime Minister is a grade-A fuck-up.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:26 PM on March 10 [1 favorite]

It's tolerated because people fear.

As long as the boogyman violent rapist with the big hard black cock is kept in prison, these other people who might happen to be mistreated (they must have deserved it anyway, amiright n. o. ) is a small price to pay.

It's disgusting, but the continuing to trumpet the US as the land of the brave is a little like protesting a little too much. Too many people are too comfortable in their economic niche that they carved themselves into, and maybe see how easily they could fall from their perch if the status quo, that the media keeps makes it out to be wobbling at the knees, wasn't kept.

---

Would people's opinions of having a child innocent of crimes be also imprisoned with their parents if both parents' crimes are separate? Say, mom goes away on an armed burglary charge, and dad goes away for embezzlement (or vice versa)? Which parent should the kid spend do time with?
posted by porpoise at 9:33 PM on March 10

There are certain voices in the right-wing blogosphere ... who have already darkly hinted that in the future it may "become necessary" to use the children of suspected terrorists as ... incentives to get their parents to cooperate.

Your country has been there, done that: your soldiers have raped children in front of their parents to get them to talk. Hell, we had discussion about this just a few weeks ago, when the latest round of horrifying videos from Abu Ghraib were disclosed, and Seymour Hersh's eye-witness accounts of even worse materials were discussed.

American soldiers rape children. Be brave and think about that. They did it as representatives of you and your country. And through your collective inaction, you have condoned it.

They hate you for your freedoms, yah, that's what it is.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:37 PM on March 10

Cite?
posted by smackfu at 9:46 PM on March 10

Eh, nevermind. Not worth it.
posted by smackfu at 9:48 PM on March 10

The US not only imprisons juveniles, it executes them also. From deathpenaltyinfo.org:

"The death penalty for juvenile offenders appears to have been abandoned by nations everywhere in large part due to the express provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and of several other international treaties and agreements. Since 1990, juvenile offenders are known to have been executed in only seven countries: China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States."
posted by binturong at 9:49 PM on March 10

We're a nation of scared little children ourselves, so imprisoning "those" kids makes a lot of sense.

Let's put it this way: One 9/11 every month over here vs. Coke, Levis, Hollywood, McDonalds and every other weapon in the "culture war". We win that one every time, all it takes is time. Us doing despicable things to others and trying to fight a ground war overseas against an enemy you can't find a lot of the time? We lose that one every time.

We're not too bright.
posted by maxwelton at 10:09 PM on March 10

Shit like this is why I think we should replace the White House with a hidden base inside a volcano, protected by sharks with fricken' lasers on their heads. More fitting.
posted by mullingitover at 11:27 PM on March 10

I also sleep beside a wall. Not sure what the kid's point is there!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 11:36 PM on March 10

Here's a cite. Do go on to read the Tagube link, which further details how American soldiers were fucking children's asses.

Eh, nevermind. Not worth it. Stay classy, smackfu.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:36 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]

"It's going to come out."

Almost 4 years and no smoking gun. WHEN is it going to come out? If I had a dollar for every time that Seymour Hersh snippet was quoted as fact...
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:48 AM on March 11

You realize that if we took the last 7 years, filed off the serial numbers, changed all the names and places and made a big fantasy movie out of it - one full of A-list stars, stunts and digital effects, top end production design, makeup and costumes, big marketing campaign - if we did that, Americans in mall multiplexes all over this country would hiss at themselves and cheer for Al Qaeda?

They'd buy the t-shirts. Office workers would have the action figures in their cubicles. And that halloween the most popular kid's costume would be whatever we called Osama bin Laden.

That's what scares me most about this. There's such a disconnect between our values and our actions. I can only describe it as some kind of insanity on a cultural scale.
posted by Naberius at 1:23 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]

The trouble is, some illegal immigrants will lie, and are prepared to use their children as bargaining "awww, geee" chips.

I've never seen any evidence supporting this theory. Whenever I hear it, it always reminds me of the children overboard affair, in which the government (falsely) claimed that immigrants threw children from a boat as some sort of ploy for sympathy. It was disproved, but that didn't stop everyone from believing that immigrants are the worst parents in the universe.

If I had a dollar for every time that Seymour Hersh snippet was quoted as fact...

Indeed. Although, like Germaine Greer, Hersh has been proven right often enough that it can be worthwhile to give him the benefit of the doubt even when his claims seem somewhat extreme.
posted by Ritchie at 2:55 AM on March 11

As others have pointed out, this is old news, and was well covered here in Canada. And this sort of thing is very common in Australia, if I recall correctly. They have these giant refugee camps in the desert. Crazy ass Australians.

Khadr was 15 when he was grabbed and sent off to Guantanamo, and he remains there today. That's 5 years. Of course, he's a scary-ass terrorist.
posted by chunking express at 6:49 AM on March 11

Yeah, if anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt, Hersh has. And if anything has lost any shred of presumptive credibility, it's the idea that American authorities and their minions (whether in the prison or army systems, for whatever that distinction is worth these days) would refrain from anything at all on moral grounds.

Thanks for the post.
posted by languagehat at 6:51 AM on March 11

The US not only imprisons juveniles, it executes them also.

This is incorrect, the execution of individuals for crimes committed before the age of 18 was held unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons in 2005.
posted by thewittyname at 7:25 AM on March 11

You realize that if we took the last 7 years, filed off the serial numbers, changed all the names and places and made a big fantasy movie out of it - one full of A-list stars, stunts and digital effects, top end production design, makeup and costumes, big marketing campaign - if we did that, Americans in mall multiplexes all over this country would hiss at themselves and cheer for Al Qaeda?

They'd buy the t-shirts. Office workers would have the action figures in their cubicles. And that halloween the most popular kid's costume would be whatever we called Osama bin Laden.

I think we did that years ago. Wasn't it called Star Wars?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:41 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

That's what scares me most about this. There's such a disconnect between our values and our actions. I can only describe it as some kind of insanity on a cultural scale.

It's worse than that. If this were only a case of a disconnect between our values and our actions, there might be some hope, because people can't eternally keep up an extreme state of cognitive dissonance. Instead, we've a disconnect between our stated values and our actual values -- and a culture which lies to itself in its every deed, and thus enshrines lying as a societal value in and of itself, is never going to wake up.
posted by vorfeed at 9:42 AM on March 11

Nobody seems to have considered the fact that his parents were traveling with fake passports.
posted by oaf at 10:56 AM on March 11

oaf: It's a complicated story, but the gist of it is this: the father claimed to be persecuted in Iran, brought the family to Canada where they claimed refugee status and lived for ten years until their refugee claims were rejected and they were returned to Iran, were the parents claim they were tortured. They bought some fake passports and then boarded a flight to Toronto that was not supposed to stop in the US, but landed in Puerto Rico for a medical emergency, where the family was detained by US officials and then ended up in prison. Canada has quite different policies on refugee claimants than the US and doesn't generally imprison people because they show up with fake passports (from what I understand, this is fairly common for refugee claimants).
posted by ssg at 11:33 AM on March 11

Rape and burning of 14 year old.

Steven Green came out, blood on his clothes, and bragged on to say, "I just killed them, all are dead." While all the family members present in the house remained dead in the other room, Steven Green went to fulfill his sexual dream. The screaming Abeer was held down to the floor by another soldier. Steven Green raped Abeer. Then two other soldiers took turns in raping her. When they were done, Green shot and killed her. They doused the body with kerosene and set alight.

Why haven't we seen the Abu Ghraib rape photos Hersh claims exist? Could it be that four years after the judge told the government to release them the government refuses to comply? Boy howdy, wouldn't that be atypical.

Yah, I'm sure the government is gonna get right on releasing the videos Donald Rumsfield described as acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane" and that a Republican Senator said contained scenes of "rape and murder."

"I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

Ah, fuck it. Deny the truth and reap the whirlwind like the good American you are. There's no helping the willfully, deliberately ignorant.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:36 AM on March 11

Double or update?

Please don't kill me, mr. mathowie, sir.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:51 AM on March 11

Our asswipe "leader" Harper has decided to give up on repatriating a death-row murderer, on the principle that we "shouldn't interfere with the judicial process of democratic countries"; thus, the Sauds are going to get to kill a kid who seems to have been shafted by an unfair trial, and the Mexicans will continue to imprison a woman never convicted of a crime.

Ottawa moves to halt beheading of young Canadian in Saudi Arabia.
Because, y'know, the Saudis aren't democratic.

Wouldn't hold out much hope for the lady in Mexico and the fellow in Montana, though.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:57 AM on March 11

Double or update?

It is probably a little late to delete this one, but it can't possibly be an update because the linked blog claims the kid is still imprisoned, despite the fact that he hasn't been for a year.
posted by ssg at 12:10 PM on March 11

No Child Left Outside
posted by matteo at 12:22 PM on March 11

ssg, I know the story. The fact remains that they entered the United States on fake passports in the course of an attempt to defraud the Government of Canada.
posted by oaf at 12:27 PM on March 11

The fact remains that they entered the United States on fake passports in the course of an attempt to defraud the Government of Canada

So you somehow know the truth about their allegations of torture? If they were legitimate refugee claimants, then I don't see any attempt to defraud the Government of Canada.
posted by ssg at 12:32 PM on March 11

If they were legitimate refugee claimants, then I don't see any attempt to defraud the Government of Canada.

Please reread my comment above. Especially the part where I mention the fake passports.
posted by oaf at 12:38 PM on March 11

oaf: The UN and Canada recognize the rights of refugee claimants to enter countries with false documents.
posted by ssg at 1:06 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

oaf, its common for refugees to travel on fake passports, or to destroy their passports upon entering the country they plan to claim amnesty in.
posted by chunking express at 1:19 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]

its common for refugees to travel on fake passports

Canada had already considered their application for refugee status.
posted by oaf at 4:11 PM on March 11

Our current Prime Minister is a grade-A fuck-up.

Of course, he was tutored by the best
posted by mattoxic at 6:56 PM on March 11

Canada had already considered their application for refugee status.

My understanding was that they were making a new claim based on what happened to them since they were returned to Iran.
posted by ssg at 9:40 AM on March 12

The new claim apparently had some validity, given that they've been allowed to immigrate back into Canada.

Given the resources this country has and the opportunities it gives anyone who wants to make a success of themselves, I have no problem whatsoever with letting refugees in.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:05 AM on March 12

The new claim apparently had some validity, given that they've been allowed to immigrate back into Canada.

That doesn't follow. The son is Canadian—they can't not let him into Canada.
posted by oaf at 12:46 PM on March 12