# What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [June 19, 2019, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738 "2019-06-19T12:15:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 47

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/921 "2019-11-20T22:04:09Z")

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> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> What do you do with someone that you suspect of an illegal act before you give them their day in court? Do you detain them perhaps?

Depends on the act. I don’t think we should be locking up speeders until they pay their parking tickets, and illegal border crossings are much, much less serious than driving too fast.

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/922 "2019-11-20T22:33:22Z")

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> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> And why isn’t detention center a better word than the loaded term concentration camp?
> 
> What about detention center?

“Detention center” doesn’t fit the purposefully inhumane conditions of the facilities in question.

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**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/923 "2019-11-23T16:50:48Z")

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☹

**[In squalid Mexico tent city, asylum seekers are growing so desperate they’re sending their children over the border alone](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-squalid-mexico-tent-city-asylum-seekers-are-growing-so-desperate-theyre-sending-their-children-over-the-border-alone/2019/11/22/9e5044ec-0c92-11ea-8054-289aef6e38a3_story.html)**

> [@](#):
>
> MATAMOROS, Mexico — In the middle of the largest refugee camp on the U.S. border — close enough to Texas that migrants can see an American flag hovering across the Rio Grande — Marili’s children had fallen ill.
> 
> \*\*Josue was 5. Madeline was 3. \*\*The small family was huddled together in a nylon camping tent with two blankets last week when the temperature sank to 37 degrees. The children started coughing, Marili said. Then their fingers and toes turned bright red. The camp’s doctor had begun to see cases of frostbite.
> 
> …
> 
> In recent weeks, dozens of parents have watched as their children, sleeping outside in the cold, have become sick or despondent. Many decided to get them help the only way they knew how — sending them across the border alone. As Josue and Madeline grew sicker, it was Marili’s turn to make a decision.
> 
> These cases illustrate the human toll of the Trump administration’s policy and suggest the United States, Mexico and the United Nations were unprepared to handle many of the unforeseen consequences.
> 
> Marili, fleeing gang violence in Honduras, knew that unaccompanied children were admitted into the United States without enduring the MPP bureaucracy and the months-long wait. The 29-year-old mother — who, like others here, asked not to be identified by her last name, for fear it could affect her asylum case — believed that returning home would be suicide. So she bundled up her children in all of their donated winter clothes and scrawled a letter to U.S. immigration officials on a torn piece of paper.
> 
> “My children are very sick and exposed to many risks in Mexico,” she wrote. “I don’t have any other way to get them to safety.”
> 
> She pressed the letter into Josue’s hand, she said, and pointed the children to three U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in the middle of the Gateway International Bridge, the span across the Rio Grande that connects Matamoros to Brownsville, Tex.
> 
> “Josue told me, ‘Please don’t send us,’ ” Marili said, crying at the memory. “But as a mother, I knew it was the best decision for them.”  
> …

My emphasis.

A 5-year old and a 3-year old.

Jesus wept.

But no Republicans.

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**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/924 "2019-11-26T15:02:21Z")

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> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> I’m aware of some of the reports of conditions in the “camps”. I don’t generally find those sources terribly credible. I think they, like you, have an agenda they’re propagandizing for and pushing, and they’ll pick a couple of anecdotes and try to pretend / imply that those exceptions represent conditions generally.

Yeah, inspectors general are a bunch of partisan hacks. [Deep state!](https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-07/OIG-19-51-Jul19_.pdf)

Do you ever stop to consider that facts that are inconvenient for your political views, still remain facts?

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**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/925 "2019-11-26T15:16:05Z")

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> [@Ravenman](#):
>
> Yeah, inspectors general are a bunch of partisan hacks. [Deep state!](https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-07/OIG-19-51-Jul19_.pdf)
> 
> Do you ever stop to consider that facts that are inconvenient for your political views, still remain facts?

DHS? They are a bunch of liars. Except when they say that poor brown kids are going to destroy the American way of life. That’s when they are 100% telling the truth!

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**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/926 "2019-11-26T16:11:48Z")

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> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#):
>
> Use of the term concentration camp will not make much of a difference.

Your continued effort to use the euphemism “detention center” shows us that it _does_ make a difference.

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/927 "2019-11-26T16:16:25Z")

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> [@Ravenman](#):
>
> Yeah, inspectors general are a bunch of partisan hacks. [Deep state!](https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-07/OIG-19-51-Jul19_.pdf)
> 
> Do you ever stop to consider that facts that are inconvenient for your political views, still remain facts?

Like, that post was never actually good, but boy has it aged poorly.

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**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\
**Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/928 "2019-11-26T18:18:50Z")

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> [@Ravenman](#):
>
> Yeah, inspectors general are a bunch of partisan hacks. [Deep state!](https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-07/OIG-19-51-Jul19_.pdf)
> 
> Do you ever stop to consider that facts that are inconvenient for your political views, still remain facts?

He grades his arguments on their comfort level, not their accuracy. He’s stated several times that he’s “comfortable” with his arguments as if that makes them true.

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**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/929 "2019-12-10T15:40:41Z")

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**[CBP denies access to doctors seeking flu vaccinations for migrant children](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2019-12-09/doctors-flu-shots#nt=liB0promoXSmallhttp://)**

> [@](#):
>
> SAN YSIDRO — A group of doctors, who last month pressured U.S. Customs and Border Protection to allow them to give flu vaccines to detained migrant children, have now taken their fight to the driveway of a detention facility in San Ysidro and said they are not leaving until they get approval.
> 
> About 40 people, including medical doctors licensed to practice medicine in California, marched Monday from Vista Terrace Neighborhood Park to the detention facility on Beyer Boulevard, calling for CBP to let them in or let the children out to participate in a free mobile clinic they set up outside. They were joined by at least another dozen medical students and supporters.
> 
> Three children died from the flu while in federal immigration custody during the past year.  
> …
> 
> Though the agency did not respond directly to the doctors’ demonstration, a CBP spokeswoman replied to a media inquiry, and the agency issued a response to a Nov. 5 letter the medical professionals sent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requesting access to administer flu vaccines.
> 
> **“It has never been a CBP practice to administer vaccines and this not a new policy,” the official statement read in part. “Individuals in CBP custody should generally not be held for longer than 72 hours in either CBP hold rooms or holding facilities. … As a law enforcement agency, and due to the short-term nature of CBP holding and other logistical challenges, operating a vaccine program is not feasible.”**
> 
> Dr. Mario Mendoza, a retired anesthesiologist, said it would take less than a half an hour to administer the vaccines to more than 100 children via the free mobile flu clinic they set up directly outside the CBP facility.  
> …
> 
> [Dr. Bonnie] Arzuaga [leader of the doctor group] said the group wasn’t certain how many children were being detained inside the facility, but they had confirmed that migrant children have been detained there and often for longer than the 72-hour policy outlined in the CBP’s statement.
> 
> The group said they plan on continuing their demonstrations through the week or until they get a meeting with CBP.
> 
> Three youths — ages 2, 6 and 16 — died of influenza in federal custody in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The deaths came as the number of migrant children and families in custody reached a record high, some held for weeks before they were released or transferred to long-term detention facilities run by federal agencies that do provide vaccinations.  
> …

My bold.

“We know the building is burning down, but it has never been our policy to do firefighting, because fires should not be happening.” _Never mind that there’s a contingent of professional firefighters in the driveway with hoses and their own water supply._ “Sorry, not our policy. If a few people die no biggie.”

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**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2019, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/930 "2019-12-11T11:40:52Z")

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> [@Miller](#):
>
> Depends on the act. I don’t think we should be locking up speeders until they pay their parking tickets, and illegal border crossings are much, much less serious than driving too fast.

This is a helpful analogy, pithily stated. I will use this in real-life conversations. (Seriously — no snark).

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