JULY 21, 2026 – One insidious feature of living in a big country, despite our hyper-connectivity, is that much of daily life can appear so disarmingly normal, even in the most abnormal times. A few days ago, you’ll recall, I wrote about how none of what we’re experiencing in the political and governmental arenas is “normal.” Yet, ignoring our manifold newsfeeds, we can glide through a day with few reminders that the train in Washington, D.C., at least, is off the rails. The birds still sing, the neighbor’s dog still barks at nothing, airliners still fly overhead, the local grocery store remains well-stocked, and if you buy only a few items each trip, no single outing reminds you of inflation. The phone still rings when people call, the mail still arrives—eventually—and neighbors out walking their dogs still stop to chat with other neighbors who I know are cat people. Sure, at certain junctures, we get all squirrely in our ongoing political outrage, but all it takes is the start of a baseball game or a stop at the ice cream shop to restore our humor and composure.
Except . . . there’s something terribly wrong that persists. Something that ought to upset the sensibilities of any decent person who abhors cruelty by one set of human beings against another. I refer to the treatment of detainees in the detention centers operated by ICE or even more troubling—by third-party contractors ostensibly beholden to no one. An article here; a snippet there, but in the main, coverage of the shameful conditions that are allowed under the auspices of the United States Government is random and elbowed out by news of other outrages.
One investigative journalist who fights against the tide is Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer for The New Yorker. His latest article, “Locked Away,” exposes the horrific conditions and detainee treatment at the enormous detention facility called “Camp East Montana” inside Fort Bliss, a sprawling military base in El Paso, Texas. Unsanitary living quarters, leaking sewage, fetid bathroom water, sporadic tap water, bad food, withholding of medical treatment and medications, isolation from the outside world, restricted access to the outdoors—are just some of the cruel and unusual punishments exacted upon the detainee population.
But here’s the worst part of “Camp East Montana” and similar facilities across the country: detention of those awaiting due process to which they are entitled under the U.S. Constitution, has been surreptitiously converted into post-sentencing to indefinite incarceration. Quite simply, it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment pursuant to arbitrary and capricious fiat initiated by Stephen Miller and pushed downward through DHS Secretary Thomas Homan (the $50,000-in-a-paper-bag-man). Why must it be so cruel and unusual? Ah ha! Blitzer (the investigative journalist) is convinced it’s intentionally designed to short-circuit the Constitution. In short, the objective is to make existence in the camps so awful, so intolerable, that detainees (who don’t commit suicide) will eventually yield to the periodic question by the third-party contractors, “So, who today is willing to sign-up for voluntary deportation?”
Of course, deportation often isn’t to one’s country of origin. Deportees are simply march off to whatever plane they’re told to board and for whatever destination it’s bound. To hell with the deportee’s spouse, kids, extended family, friends, contacts, acquaintances. The unfortunate soul is at the mercy of the winds. Good luck putting one’s life back together. At least theoretically, the deportee can someone with the ability to procure necessary medicine and have it shipped to wherever the poor person-without-a-country has been dumped . . . before the person’s health deteriorates further and dies destitute in a strange land.
Both at the individual level and at scale, this policy in the name of the United States of America—that means of you and me, wherever we stand in the socio-economic pecking order—is barbaric and unconscionable, not to mention grossly illegal. Yet, what does the average American know about this? And once apprised of it, what can the average American do about it? If come November this issue alone doesn’t motivate voters to end Republican malfeasant control of House and Senate, our country will be wrapped in shame with our collective soul condemned under the law of decency. We cannot allow this inhumane policy to continue. Moreover, we must insist on Congressional access to and monitoring of all detention centers—as is required under existing law.
No principled person in this country can argue that “This is what happens when undocumented ‘illegals’ flaunt the law. At base, this gets down to enforcing the law.” No one with a soul, a conscience or an ounce of integrity can parrot that position as long as there sits in the Oval Office a man who abused his power by granting pardons to people who were convicted of felonies associated with the January 21 attack on the Capitol; or pardoning campaign contributors convicted of gross fraud; or committing war crimes by bombing bridges and power stations in Iran; or violating in broad daylight the Emolument Clauses of the Constitution; or violating laws prohibiting insider trading of securities; or walking off with classified documents after his first term; or committing election fraud and attempting to overthrow the 2020 election.
Okay, yes, of course, in America, a suspect—even a sociopathic, psychopathic narcissist of the most irredeemable sort—is presumed legally innocent until proven guilty. Exactly. In the process of “enforcing the laws of the United States,” how many of the thousands of detainees being rounded up monthly in America, have been afforded the same “legal until proven illegal” presumption about their immigration status?
What’s so troubling about this reprehensible state of affairs is the ease with which we can and do ignore it. Not only is it far out of sight and therefore out of mind for most Americans, but it is overshadowed by the daily outrages—rhetorical and active—that afflict nearly every sector of American life, from health care to economics to the “stupidest loser” war since Vietnam. And in case you have any excess capacity to consider it, for extra credit, you can contemplate why and how the Trump Administration and the DOJ have managed to distract, derail and detain any new light on the Epstein Files. (Now you know: when the barnyard is covered with horse manure, the easiest way to hide it is with cow manure called, Trump-licensed “Bovinity Perfume.”)
Between now and the election, we must hound our Representatives and Senators to pursue all possible legal and political levers to abolish “cruel and unusual punishment” of ICE detainees. And in November . . . you know what to do. At stake are many things. Among them is the soul of our nation.
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
