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‘We were treated less than human’​

Thomas said the conditions and treatment by BoP were worse than Ice detention: “They were not prepared for us whatsoever.”

He and other detainees were placed in an area with dirty mattresses, cockroaches and mice, where some bunkbeds lacked ladders, forcing people to climb to the top bed, he said.

BoP didn’t seem to have enough clothes, said Thomas, who got a jumpsuit but no shirt. The facility also gave him a pair of used, ripped underwear with brown stains. Some jumpsuits appeared to have bloodstains and holes, he added.

Each detainee was given one toilet paper roll a week. He shared a cell with another detainee, and he said they were only able to flush the toilet three times an hour. He was often freezing and was given only a thin blanket. The food was “disgusting slop”, including some kind of mysterious meat that at times appeared to have chunks of bones and other inedible items mixed in, he said. He was frequently hungry.

“The staff didn’t know why we were there and they were treating us exactly as they would treat BoP prisoners, and they told us that,” Thomas said. “We were treated less than human.”

He and others requested medical visits, but were never seen by physicians, he said: “I heard people crying for doctors, saying they couldn’t breathe, and staff would just say, ‘Well, I’m not a doctor,’ and walk away.” He did eventually receive the psychiatric medication he requested, but staff would throw his pill under his cell door, and he’d sometimes have to search the floor to find it.
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Detainees, he said, were given recreation time in an enclosure that was partially open to fresh air, but resembled an indoor cage: “You couldn’t see the outside whatsoever. I didn’t see the sky for weeks.” He had sciatica from an earlier hip injury and said he began experiencing “unbearable” nerve pain as a result of the lack of movement.

Thomas said it seemed Ice’s placements in the BoP facility were arbitrary and poorly planned. Of the nearly 50 people taken from Ice to BoP facility, about 30 of them were transferred back to Folkston a week later, and the following week, two from that group were once again returned to the BoP facility, he said.

In the BoP facility, he said, Ice representatives would show up once a week to talk to detainees. Detainees would crowd around Ice officials and beg for case updates or help. Ice officers spoke Spanish and English, but Middle Eastern and North African detainees who spoke neither were stuck in a state on confusion. “It was pandemonium,” Thomas said.
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Thomas said he saw a BoP guard tear up “watching the desperation of the people trying to talk to Ice and find out what was happening”, and that this officer tried to assist people as best as she could. Thomas and Malone tried to help asylum seekers and others he met at the BoP facility by connecting them to advocates.

Thomas was also unable to speak to his children, because there was no way to make international calls. “I don’t know how I made it through,” he said.

In mid-March, Thomas was briefly transferred again to a different Ice facility. The authorities did not explain what had changed, but two armed federal officers then escorted him on a flight back to Ireland.

The DHS and Ice did not respond to inquiries, and a spokesperson for the Geo Group declined to comment.

Donald Murphy, a BoP spokesperson, confirmed that Thomas had been in the bureau’s custody, but did not comment about his case or conditions at the Atlanta facility. The BoP is now housing Ice detainees in eight of its prisons and would “continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the administration’s policy objectives”, Murphy added.
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‘This will be a lifelong burden’​

It’s unclear why Thomas was jailed for so long for a minor immigration violation.

“It seems completely outlandish that they would detain someone for three months because he overstayed a visa for a medical reason,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, who is not involved in his case and was provided a summary by the Guardian. “It is such a waste of time and money at a time when we’re hearing constantly about how the government wants to cut expenses. It seems like a completely incomprehensible, punitive detention.”

Ice, she added, was “creating its own crisis of overcrowding”.

Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, also not involved in the case, said, in general, it was not uncommon for someone to remain in immigration custody even after they’ve accepted a removal order and that she has had European clients shocked to learn they can face serious consequences for briefly overstaying a visa.

Ice, however, had discretion to release Thomas with an agreement that he’d return home instead of keeping him indefinitely detained, she said. The Trump administration, she added, has defaulted to keeping people detained without weighing individual factors of their cases: “Now it’s just, do we have a bed?”

Republican lawmakers in Georgia last year also passed state legislation requiring police to alert immigration authorities when an undocumented person is arrested, which could have played a role in Thomas being flagged to Ice, said Samantha Hamilton, staff attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, a non-profit group that advocates for immigrants’ rights. She met Thomas on a legal visit at the BoP Atlanta facility.
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Hamilton said she was particularly concerned about immigrants of color who are racially profiled and pulled over by police, but Thomas’s ordeal was a reminder that so many people are vulnerable. “The mass detentions are terrifying and it makes me afraid for everyone,” she said.

Thomas had previously traveled to the US frequently for work, but now questions if he’ll ever be allowed to return. “This will be a lifelong burden,” he said.

Malone, his girlfriend, said she plans to move to Ireland to live with him. “It’s not an option for him to come here and I don’t want to be in America anymore,” she said.

Since his return, Thomas said he has had a hard time sleeping and processing what happened: “I’ll never forget it, and it’ll be a long time before I’ll be able to even start to unpack everything I went through. It still doesn’t feel real. When I think about it, it’s like a movie I’m watching.” He said he has also struggled with long-term health problems that he attributes to malnutrition and inappropriate medications he was given while detained.

He was shaken by reports of people sent away without due process. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if I ended up at Guantánamo Bay or El Salvador, because it was so disorganized,” he said. “I was just at the mercy of the federal government.”
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BREAKING: Trump to Burn Lifesaving Food as Malnourished Children Starve
In an act that defies basic decency, the Trump administration has ordered the incineration of 500 metric tons of emergency food aid—enough to feed 1.5 million starving children for a week. The food, already purchased, already packaged, and already stored in Dubai, was destined for crisis zones like Gaza, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Instead, it will go up in flames tomorrow—at an additional cost of $130,000 to U.S. taxpayers—because Trump’s administration refuses to distribute aid approved under President Biden.These are high-energy biscuits, formulated for children under five—the most vulnerable among us. Every minute this food sits in a warehouse, children slip closer to death. Aid officials begged for months to get clearance to distribute the food before it expired. They were met with silence from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the grotesquely misnamed agency responsible for this slaughter by neglect.Over 60,000 tons of American food aid now rot in warehouses around the world while this administration slashes humanitarian programs out of spite and incompetence. Trump says it’s about efficiency. No—it’s about vengeance. And children are dying because of it. This isn’t just waste. It’s a monstrous betrayal of humanity.
 
President Donald Trump's United States of America - Pax Americana ending started under Biden, it will end under Trump's presidency. Welcome to the multipolar world and the emergence of the Global South under the leadership of China with BRICS
 
thettctransitfanatic said:
BREAKING: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to be fired, per Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

It's a banana republic now, but with an orange, so an orange republic...
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Its not clear to me he any legal authority to do so; in any event, he'd be able to replace him next year as his term is up. ( May 2026)
 
On a different, but related note, this could go here or in the Mark Carney thread in that its Canadian politics.

But New York Magazine did an extended piece on how Canada is dealing w/Trump and the trade war.


Its a long read.....be prepared for a few pages..........

I actually find it a bit over-the-top, as if all Canadians have abandoned shopping at Walmart or grabbing what passes for a burger from McD's.

Still, I appreciate the sentiment of the piece, which I think is technically correct throughout if omitting some context of import.
 
Cobra said:
President Donald Trump's United States of America - Pax Americana ending started under Biden, it will end under Trump's presidency. Welcome to the multipolar world and the emergence of the Global South under the leadership of China with BRICS
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The US maybe in turmoil. But Chinese leadership (both reality and desire) is very much debatable.

The BRICS fantasy is particularly laughable given recent events like the India-China border clashes, India-Pakistan war(s), the Israel-Iran war (and reaction by BRICS members).
 
kEiThZ said:
The BRICS fantasy
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What do you mean by fantasy? You feel it's a bad thing that global south nations have a viable alternative to the G7 where 1/3 of countries & population (60% of them being low income nations) are under western sanctions? BRICS is a "monster/fantasy* of the west own making.

kEiThZ said:
recent events like the India-China border clashes
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There was a time where a rapprochement between Russia and China was deemed impossible. I wouldn't underestimate the US ability to throw natural enemies into each other's arms

kEiThZ said:
India-Pakistan war(s)
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Pakistan is not a member of BRICS

kEiThZ said:
Israel-Iran war (and reaction by BRICS members)
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They issued a strong condemnation during the summit in Rio de Janeiro. The bloc described the attacks as a “violation of international law”
 
^India and China are though, and they're not happy with each other. And the rest of the world wants to deal less with Russia than they do the US currently. So relying on BRICS to get us out of this tariff mess is like relying on the US Congress to grow a spine, IMO. Probably not going to happen...
 
China sees Russia as a potentially useful, if volatile, pawn more than an ally.
 
afransen said:
China sees Russia as a potentially useful, if volatile, pawn more than an ally.
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China should just invade Russia. Siberia is just sitting right there, lightly populated and virtually undefended, with its vast resources that China needs...
 
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