‘Collectivism…mutual aid…social solidarity’ Profile picture
Oct 4, 2023 23 tweets 4 min read
Still sort of reeling from the grotesque contortion of transparency on display inside Atlanta’s City Council chamber on Monday. Once you grasp what lawyers, bureaucrats, and elected officials are doing, you’ll probably think it’s pretty gross, too. So here’s a quick explainer 🧵 To see the contradictions on display we need to understand two pieces of factual context, and view that context w/ an understanding of the purpose and text of Georgia’s Open Records law. The facts will likely be familiar if you’re seeing this tweet, so I’ll quickly rehash them.
Mar 16, 2022 15 tweets 9 min read
#SunshineWeek 🧵on e-carceration, profiteering, and how long ICE has known about allegations and criminal convictions of its largest (and often, only) gps ankle shackle contractor, courtesy of DHS-OIG #FOIA
1/ Since Congress started funding “Alternatives to Detention” for migrants in the US, in the mid-2000s, ICE has received allegations of serious criminal misconduct by this contractor’s personnel. documentcloud.org/documents/2141… / 2
Mar 16, 2022 15 tweets 10 min read
In honor of #SunshineWeek, the #DetentionKills Transparency Initiative
is releasing these recently obtained DHS-OIG offered these records of alleged misconduct and abuse by DHS contractors. You probably don’t have time to read all 547 pages. So we did. 🧵 documentcloud.org/documents/2141… On page 3, OIG documents receiving a complaint in 2006 regarding the allegations in the litigation LeTisha Tapia’s family brought against $GEO.

Those allegations are shocking, but unsurprising.
@POGOwatchdog’s contractor database has more: contractormisconduct.org/misconduct/256…
2/x
Jan 26, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
On January 25, 2020, Ben Owen died in the Baker County Jail while being imprisoned by ICE. In its mandatory report to Congress, ICE said that agents arrested Ben because he was in the U.S. without authorization. 1/4 This was a lie. Tammy filed a marriage-based green card petition on Ben's behalf before his visa expired. ICE never shared that detail with Congress. Yesterday, Ben's widow Tammy filed notice that she intends to bring suit against the United States for wrongful death. 2/4
Nov 7, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
Someday someone’s going to write a well-received book that compiles the public statements top lawyers in this regime made and weighs them against the statements made when subject to Rule 11 in court pleadings and tell the story of the constant delta between those statements. Im talking about political appointees who are also lawyers, defending the policies and saying things out of court, on the one hand, versus DOJ lawyers signing pleadings and lawyer who sign declarations, on the other.
Nov 7, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
“Wanted by ICE*”

(Just not badly enough to go to a neutral magistrate and get a warrant because that’s how much we care about the public safety mission we say we serve: We are literally not willing to just go get a warrant for a guy we put on a billboard.) ICE pretends the Fourth Amendment has nothing to do with public safety. They want the people reading this billboard to be okay in a world where their agents can arrest anyone, anytime, anywhere. Don’t worry, though, just “bad” guys. (And some kids)
Nov 6, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read
So many people in movement worked so hard for candidates who weren’t even their third or fourth choice. And they won. Which means you have to listen to them. Sorry. That’s how this works. (They also *knew* y’all were gonna do this. People who sat it out *told* them this is what the corporate party folks would do. Once they’re expendable again they’re disposable and it’s time to be quiet and let adults make deals. They knew you’d do this but worked anyway.)
Nov 4, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read
Just remember, as you watch how the police are going to treat white people showing up to the counting spaces in the next couple days, what you saw all summer. Watch how the media describe white people’s behavior.

“A tense scene.”
“tensions running high”

Watch for emotional characterizations of their behavior that treat white people as complex humans with needs & desires.

You won’t here “vandals” “trespassers” “looters” “rioters”
Oct 27, 2020 8 tweets 7 min read
Six weeks ago @ProjectSouth and @GovAcctProj filed a #Whistleblower complaint alleging horrific medical abuses at #ShutDownIrwin

We’ve asked nearly every day:
How many surgeries did ICE pay doctor Amin to perform?

They won’t tell you. Why?

17 Amin patients remain at Irwin Since the @ProjectSouth report came out, movement orgs like @SoGA_Support @GLAHR_ @GaDetWatch, immigration lawyers coordinated by @AILANational members @ leaders, systemic change & mass rep experts at @ThinkLawLab, & health professionals at @Doc4CampClosure PHR, CVR assembled.
Oct 24, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
According to Dr. Amin's lawyer, women in ICE custody at Irwin can't expect to get their medical records of the treatment he gave at his office and the surgery he does at the hospital from the federal agency that's paying for it because it's legally responsible for their med care. Instead, each of these women should file three separate request forms for these records, Dr. Amin suggests.

Okay.

That's not at all how this works.

But okay.

#ShutDownIrwin
Oct 13, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read
acquisition.gov/far/subpart-22… TVPA Contractor Notifications to OIG Pursuant to 48 CFR 52.222-50(d) muckrock.com/foi/united-sta… via @muckrock
Oct 12, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
It’s Indigenous People’s Day so I’ll share that the paternal side of my family from whom I draw my name moved to occupied land in the mountains of North Georgia following the Trail of Tears and then benefited from an economy that extracted the world’s purest gold from the land. Some of that gold lines the dome of the Georgia State Capitol today. The American President who murdered and forcibly relocated the Cherokee Nation—to whose people I’m told I relate by least one blood relative—had his portrait prominently displayed in the Oval Office in 2017.
Oct 10, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read
The @nytimes piece unpacking the authoritarian kleptocracy we live under offers new insight the world’s leading purveyor of for-profit human cages.

Some key takeaways, and two questions in this 🧵 1/4 Takeaway 1: GEO and its execs steer corporate money into private businesses of the regime’s leader while also paying its favorite lobbyist to seek contracts and policy changes that steer taxpayer $ into the company’s coffers. Quids meet quos via Ballard pros. We knew this.
Oct 5, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read
When you understand the sweeping illegality and wrongdoing throughout the agency's operations -- from arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the illegal deportation of American citizens, from medical abuse and neglect to cover-ups -- "Abolish ICE" is actually a tame ask The executive-level awareness, endorsement, and in some cases, active involvement in these wanton abuses makes the factual scenario one in which it's actually more appropriate to say "Prosecute ICE" than simply calling disband this broken, abusive agency.
Oct 4, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
Late last night at the Irwin County Detention Center a woman had an asthma attack and passed out. She’s still in really bad shape and needs urgent assistance. Meanwhile, LaSalle Corrections, which gets paid every day she’s there, and ICE are lying to Congress about her condition. Follow @SomosSouth @GaDetWatch @ProjectSouth and @GLAHR_ for the latest on this life-threatening example of rampant medical abuse and neglect.
Oct 3, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
Guess who else has #COVID19? People inside ICE prisons.

They've got limited access to masks, virtually no ability to socially distance, and inadequate access to meaningful medical care. Which is why so many have perished in these places.

Spare a thought for them this weekend? Imagine feeling the fear and uncertainty that comes with believing you might have contracted a deadly respiratory disease inside a prison that WON'T EVEN TREAT YOUR ASTHMA.
Oct 3, 2020 8 tweets 2 min read
If you can’t financially support your municipality without harvesting profits from BIPOC folks’ bodies — whether through private prison payoffs or through medical monetization of vulnerable populations — perhaps you should raise taxes on ppl w vacation homes and side hustles. Telling people you’ve refused to help support, educate, and empower that their best shot at economic opportunity is to be private prison guards (w none of the public pension benefits or rights) is an admission of failure.

Caging people for profit is not in line w Christianity.
Oct 1, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read
"The hospital administrator is a woman. She's a good lady. And the doctor is an immigrant."

Statement from Irwin County Hospital being read on the House Floor in debate on @RepJayapal's #Hres1153

They won't say how many surgeries Dr. Amin has performed.

Say it. We dare you. Dr. Mahendra Amin "has been in good standing" for the entirety of his time at Irwin County Hospital.

Even when he was settling with DOJ for $520k, apparently.
Sep 29, 2020 4 tweets 5 min read
It's not "He Said/She Said".

It's "He Said/16 Women and four Board-Certified Gynecologists, including the head of @acog, Said".

This piece by @itscaitlinhd @SethFW & @mirjordan on the claims in the @ProjectSouth @GovAcctProj
#Whistleblower complaint establishes the pattern ImageImageImageImage Virtually every major news outlet in the Western Hemisphere has reached out to lawyers and organizations who've been describing these allegations since the @ProjectSouth report broke.

Not a single person I know has heard from ICE, IHSC, DHS-OIG, or any other investigator. Image
Sep 29, 2020 6 tweets 6 min read
Leading up to the @HispanicCaucus @HouseJudiciary visit to #ShutDownIrwin, we asked the women inside for their most urgent demand to members like @RepJayapal @RepBarragan @JacksonLeeTX18 and @JoaquinCastrotx.

The answer? Masks & underwear. They're wearing used, stained panties. The day before the visit to #ShutDownIrwin by @RepJayapal @RepBarragan @RepJimmyGomez @RepRaulRuizMD @RepHankJohnson @RepLouCorrea @RepSylviaGarcia & others, LaSalle gave women new, used underwear. No masks. They've been constructing them out of socks to prevent #COVID19 spread
Sep 29, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
Yuridia was still bleeding from the surgical sites even as ICE deported her. She wasn’t able to get her post-surgical follow-up appointment. She’d served her purpose to the people involved.

She is just one of many who bear the scars from Dr Amin—las señoras de las tres puntos. Upon visiting a gynecologist in Mexico last week, she learned that her uterus was not enlarged, as Dr. Amin and ICE told her, but completely normal.

There are women all over the world who were told they had dangerous, potentially cancerous conditions needed surgery. They didn’t