Dangerously Disingenuous

"Selection" of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Auschwitz-II-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, May/June 1944, during the final phase of the Holocaust. Jews were sent either to work or to the gas chamber.

Certain words or phrases affect the way people react. To wit:

If you say "detention center," people will say "What?" If you say "concentration camp," then, to paraphrase the fictional mayor of Amity, you've got a panic on your hands. It is unfortunate that most Americans are abysmally ignorant of history, particularly non-US history. (Though there are "scholars" these days who are destroying US history via outright lies.)

We have a problem along our southern border, anyone who does not realize that probably lives no where near that border. Or is woefully ignorant of certain facts. To wit:

8 U.S. Code § 1325. Improper entry by alien 

(a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts 

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.

(b) Improper time or place; civil penalties Any alien who is apprehended while entering (or attempting to enter) the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers shall be subject to a civil penalty of—

• (1) at least $50 and not more than $250 for each such entry (or attempted entry); or
• (2) twice the amount specified in paragraph (1) in the case of an alien who has been previously subject to a civil penalty under this subsection.
• Civil penalties under this subsection are in addition to, and not in lieu of, any criminal or other civil penalties that may be imposed.

(c) Marriage fraud 

Any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or both.

(d) Immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud 

Any individual who knowingly establishes a commercial enterprise for the purpose of evading any provision of the immigration laws shall be imprisoned for not more than 5 years, fined in accordance with title 18, or both. (Source)

Emphasis above is mine.

Clearly, entering the United States illegally as set forth above, does make the individual violating that law subject to imprisonment. As in other incidents of possible criminal behavior, the suspected individual may be subject to detention, that is, being held against their will until such time as discharged by the relevant authorities. For someone illegally in the United States, that discharge may be by transference to the country from which they illegally entered the United States, or it may be by transference to a Federal penitentiary. The latter, of course, is dependent on a jury trial by one's peers, it cannot be arbitrary or by the say of any one person.

Nowhere in the law cited above is an individual convicted under those circumstances noted above liable to punishment by death.

I was going to talk about the historical background of the concentration camp, but faithful reader Paweł provided an excellent synopsis in yesterday's comments., which I reproduce here for convenience -

Paweł Kasperek June 24, 2019 at 3:35 PM

"Puts on historian's hat"
Well, to put things into perspective:

1. Germans did not invent concentration camps. Brits did, during the Boer War (the final one). It worked brilliant as COIN strategy, depriving Boer commandos of the economic base of supply from the civilian population. Cost in humanitarian terms was high, but not even bordering upon genocide.

2. Germans did borrow the phrase, and initially the camps were similar in idea: a place to collect the undesirables - be it Communist, socialist, liberal, homosexual or Jehovah witnesses, of all people. And of course Jews, though those were initially quite rare inhabitants.

3. Jews in conquered Poland were initially instead cornered into Ghettos, walled and guarded city districts. At some point, probably around the start of Barbarossa, the goal turned from isolation to extermination. Mass murders followed German conquest in the East, in the form of the infamous Einsatzgruppen.

4. Eventually, Germans being Germans and industrial efficiency being their hallmark, they took this attitude to the mass murder and instituted extermination camps (which often kinda coexisted in same place as previous concentration camps). The Ghettos were systematically emptied into those, with notable event being Warsaw Ghetto uprising, where Jews did resist more as a point of honor and matter of principle than as hope of win. Polish underground gifted them some weapons of their meager stockpile, and evacuated as many as possible via sewers and gaps in the walls.

5. Meanwhile, Soviets ran their own vast concentration camps net known as GULAG. There, death toll was rather a byproduct of hard work, harsh climate and insufficient food and healthcare, rather than immediate goal. When Soviets wanted to exterminate some group they did it the old-fashioned and messy way: mass shootings (as at Katyn).

6. The Japanese did something similar with their civilian internment camps in Asia, but there it was more of a lack of resources and ineptitude in management coupled with the brutality of the soldiers that did the fatal work.

7. To complete the picture, the USA itself did something akin to the original Brit concentration camps, with relatively few fatalities, but still shameful in hindsight - to its own citizens of Japanese origin. Considering how the Nisei who managed to get into the US armed forces served with distinction, this was completely needless and counterproductive, yet perhaps understandable in an era of total war. Better safe than sorry...

 Dziękuję Paweł! (Please excuse my minor edits.)

Certain politicians, "journalists," and "scholars" are being disingenuous when they use the term "concentration camp" when referring to the detention of illegal aliens along our borders.

Dangerously so.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. Hosea 8:7 (KJV)