Easy to Be Hard
Wake up to what's being done near you...
I had an interaction last week that has been haunting me. I did something I normally wouldn’t: I held back. I kept my opinion to myself in order to preserve the peace.
“We fully support ICE and what they’re doing.”
How can people be so heartless / How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard / Easy to be cold1
Information regarding the ICE Concentration Camps now run by this regime — originally posted by historian Heather Cox Richardson on February 7, 2026 — is leading us down a very dark path. [Note: Bold emphasis is mine.]
Douglas MacMillan, Samuel Oakford, N. Kirkpatrick, and Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post reported that according to ICE’s own oversight unit, Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss, Texas, has violated at least 60 federal standards for immigrant detention. The contract for the $1.24 billion project was awarded to a small business that operates out of a residential address and has, as Lyndon German of VPM News reported, “little to no publicly available record of managing immigration facilities.”
Last April, at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, acting director of ICE Todd Lyons told attendees: “We need to get better at treating this like a business.” He called for a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”
[ If this sounds suspiciously rather identical to the actual discussion meeting Goebbels and Himmler held re The Final Solution/industrialization of organized displacement transportation and mass murder, ding ding ding! You win today’s Where Have I Heard That Before prize. ]
In the Republicans’ July 2025 budget reconciliation bill—which they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—they put $45 billion into additional funding for ICE detention.
In November and December, NBC News and Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was considering “mega centers” for detaining people. Fola Akinnibi, Sophie Alexander, Alicia A. Caldwell, and Rachel Adams-Heard of Bloomberg reported that in November, ICE issued a $29.9 million contract—just below the threshold of $30 million that would require open bidding—to KpbServices LLC for “due diligence services and concept design for processing centers and mega centers throughout the United States.”
In December, Douglas MacMillan and Jonathan O’Connell of the Washington Post reported that the administration was working to put in place a national detention system that would book newly arrested detainees into processing sites before sending them to one of seven warehouses that would hold 5,000 to 10,000 people each. MacMillan and O’Connell reported that “sixteen smaller warehouses would hold up to 1,500 people each.” From there, people would be deported.
“These will not be warehouses—they will be very well-structured detention facilities meeting our regular detention standards,” a DHS spokesperson wrote to Angela Kocherga and Dianne Solis of KERA News in Texas. “It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”
Strickler and Ainsley reported Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security has already secured at least three facilities. It paid $87.4 million for one outside Philadelphia and $37 million for another outside San Antonio, a warehouse of nearly 640,000 square feet. ICE bought a building the size of seven football fields in Surprise, Arizona, outside Phoenix, for $70 million.
But there is increasing criticism of the new warehouses as Americans mobilize against the violence and abuse of ICE and Border Patrol.
Officials from Surprise answered concerns about the federal facility with a statement saying: “The City was not aware that there were efforts underway to purchase the building, was not notified of the transaction by any of the parties involved and has not been contacted by DHS or any federal agency about the intended use of the building. It’s important to note, Federal projects are not subject to local regulations, such as zoning.”
On Tuesday, February 3, more than a thousand people turned out for the Surprise City Council meeting to oppose the establishment of the federal detention center. One of the speakers reminded the council of Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops, on April 4, 1945. He said:
“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S. Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering a word that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was ‘done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said: ‘This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.’
“The morning after the tour, the mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don’t know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. I ask you to consider what the mayor of Ohrdruf might have thought before he died. Maybe he felt like a victim. He might have thought, ‘How is this my fault? I had no jurisdiction over this.’ Maybe he would have said, ‘This site was not subject to local zoning, what could I do?’ But I think, when he reflected on the suffering that occurred at this camp, just outside of town, that those words would have sounded hollow even to him. Because in his heart he knew, as we do, that we are all responsible for what happens in our community.”2
How can people have no feelings / How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud / Easy to say no
Here’s something you probably don’t want to read or hear about: the children being detained in the concentration camp at Dilley, Texas— you know, like five year old Liam (with the Spiderman backpack and bunny hat) and his dad, kidnapped and transported there from Minneapolis. While they have since been released and returned home, the regime continues to harass and stalk them via the demented Felon’s social media posts. Yes, the damn president of the United States, stalking a FIVE YEAR OLD and his family…what a petty, rotted meatbag he is!
Despite Trump’s promise to go after violent criminals, the vast majority of adults detained at Dilley over the last year had no criminal record in the United States. Some of the parents I spoke to had overstayed visas. Many had filed applications for asylum, had married U.S. citizens or had been granted humanitarian parole and were detained when they voluntarily showed up for appointments at ICE offices. They said that it was unfair to arrest them, and that detaining their children was just plain cruel.
There were children in Dilley who were so distraught they cut themselves or talked about suicide, several mothers told me. Recently, two cases of measles were discovered in the center. Federal officials said they quarantined some immigrants, and attorneys said ICE cancelled in-person legal visits until Feb. 14 as a safety precaution.3
Some have been there for months, missing their friends, schools, and homes. No charges, arraignments, court dates…just waiting for someone to help them.
Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about being proud?
How about I need a friend, we all need a friend
DHS said in its statement that “children have access to teachers, classrooms, and curriculum booklets for math, reading, and spelling.”
Alexander Perez, a 15-year-old from the Dominican Republic, told… about going to school at Dilley. He said classes included kids from mixed age groups, and each class allowed only 12 students and lasted for just one hour. Slots were assigned on a first-come-first-served basis. Children would line up, hoping to get in. The staff leading the class would distribute handouts and worksheets to those who made it inside.4
So, what do we do?
Number one, STAY INFORMED. Get your news not from mainstream, now government controlled media but from independent journalists, newspapers, and foreign news sources. [If you really want the ugly truth, try reading Al Jazeera.] Stay informed about LOCAL issues, such as the DHS proposed detention center in Marana, outside of Tucson, and how citizens are opposing them.
DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE. Don’t give up on having elections in November, no matter how hard this regime works to scare you into thinking there won’t be any. Make sure you know when and where your local elections are; if you get mail-in ballots, FILL THEM OUT COMPLETELY AND MAIL THEM BACK ASAP. Don’t wait for the last minute, even in primary elections or single issue votes.
Keep hounding your congressfolk. CALL. Write Emails. Make your voice heard. Nothing changes with silence. If they’re spineless, work to vote them out.
VOTE WITH YOUR PURSE. Don’t buy from Amazon if you can help it. Boycott big corporate billionaires like CBS/Paramount, Disney, Target, Walmart, Home Depot. You know who they are. Don’t give them your money; they sure as hell don’t need any more of it, not like you probably do.
Protest physically if you can. Stay LOUD. NO KINGS is back on March 28. Find an event near you here: No Kings
Lastly, help where you can. Take “Eyes on ICE” training on how to record their actions legally and safely, if you feel you can do that. Help others by donating to the food bank, clothing to those displaced by the goon squads, diapers, toiletries, whatever you feel you can spare.
Look around your community. There are always ways to be a helper. Just don’t give in. It’s too easy to be hard and cold.
Songwriters: Galt Mac Dermot / Gerome Ragni / James Rado; Originally written for the Broadway musical “Hair”; © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Third Side Music Inc. Recorded by Three Dog Night, 1969
Ibid.