Thread by @equalityAlec

THREAD. It's important for all people of good will to understand the Laken Riley Act before the Senate votes on it tomorrow. It’s unconstitutional. It’s horrific in every word and clause. But there is a deeper, more imminent violence lurking beneath its hate-filled text.

First the background. The Laken Riley Act is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. It requires federal DHS bureaucracy to build billions in new infrastructure to cage any undocumented person *even accused* of petty theft, shoplifting, or several other property crimes.

A key aspect of the law is people are rounded up and put into mass caging facilities (built and usually run for profit) for a mere *accusation.* A person (even a child) need not be convicted, and they are taken from their families and jobs and churches and schools immediately.

Take a look at the monstrous response from “progressive” Democratic @RubenGallego, who is just beginning a six-year term, when asked by local journalists about the shocking requirement that people are detained without any process at all:

It passed the House, with dozens of Democrats voting for it. As usual, there is a lot of misinformation about the true costs. The Laken Riley Act goes too far even for the Biden Administration’’s ICE bureaucrats, some of the most zealous immigration enforcers in U.S. history.

ICE claims it will cost $3.2 billion. This estimate is fanciful, and it doesn’t even begin to think about the costs to local governments. Here’s what one anti-immigration zealot in the Democratic party estimates to be the cost:

But there is something much deeper to consider. Laws like this are not just about the hundreds of thousands of people who will be detained indefinitely, for months and years, solely because they are accused–but not found guilty–of a minor misdemeanor.

Laws like this will infuse everyday life for tens of millions of people with the threat of imminent violence. How?

Because they enable other people to exploit undocumented people and their kids and families. Domestic abusers, employers, bullies at school, cops, etc. Merely *accusing* someone of something now gets them detained indefinitely no matter what.

This threat can be wielded by predators large and small every single moment of every single day. This new power will change so many people's lives.

This is the kind of daily terror, vigilante empowerment, and straight-up chaos that forms the basis of fascist societies and on which the authoritarian project depends.

The threat of imminent destruction becomes an even more imminent fact of everyday life. And it affects anyone who knows, cares about, works with, or is related to someone who doesn’t have papers. And it affects and emboldens predators. And it changes all of us.

The bill is the culmination of three catastrophic trends in contemporary propaganda. First, the manufactured “retail theft” panic. The panic about shoplifting has survived, even after it was uncovered as a lie and the retail industry itself admitted it:

The Center for Just Journalism has debunked it with resources for reporters: justjournalism.org/page/retail-th…

Second, manufactured panic over bail reform. There is a climate-science-like consensus that even short periods of pretrial detention *increases crime* in future and have catastrophic economic/human costs to society. It makes us *less* safe according to overwhelming evidence.

Despite this, media engaged in a years-long panic about “bail reform” that looks a lot like the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry’s deception. U.S. and Philippines are the only two countries in the world with for-profit bail industry: equalityalec.substack.com/p/the-news-med…

All of this is true of immigration detention as well: vera.org/publications/i…

But after the lies were exposed and research showed releasing more people saved communities money and reduced crime, the fear and lies left their mark: the Act inexplicably focuses on pre-conviction detention for minor property crime, even at the expense of crimes like murder.

Third, this is culmination of Democratic Party and mainstream media’s capitulation to the most nativist, xenophobic, inhuman rhetoric of the far right about immigration. The core of it all is the notion that human beings are worth more or less depending on where they are born.

Finally, all of this is unconstitutional under many decades of precedent. Because bodily liberty is a “fundamental” constitutional right, government cannot deprive it without an individualized determination that it is necessary to serve a compelling government interest.

Numerous state and federal courts have overturned attempts at blanket forms of pre-adjudication detention, and even in the immigration context courts have rejected indefinite detention with no process and no ability for individualized findings.

And yet, a small group of private prison officials, surveillance companies, and lots of government bureaucrats are about to make billions of dollars and create permanent new jobs and bureaucracies that will be impossible later to dismantle. All in service of misinformed hate

This could be a moment for leaders to expose hate, misinformation, mean-spirited bullying, and division in service of a passionate and evidence-based articulation of shared prosperity and human flourishing.

The fact that prominent Democrats are joining in the depraved, uninformed, and ignorant chorus to pass this law should be a warning to people of good will. We are becoming an even meaner, more misguided society. There's time to shift course, and to stand up for fellow humans.

Several organizations have made it easy for you to reach out to your senators about this: act.nilc.org/page/77897/act…

Update: senators have rejected amendments to protect children and pregnant women and to restrict to convictions. Instead, almost 20 Dems voted to *expand* the law, including misdemeanor APO. This means any cop in the US could get someone indefinitely detained in the new camps.

APO is one of the most corrupt corners of the punishment bureaucracy. In many places like DC it has been interpreted to mean just resisting a cop, and it’s routinely charged by cops to cover up when they beat someone. Now any cop could decide indefinite immigration detention.

Here’s the text of the amendment adding APO and other crimes. You need only be arrested or charged, not convicted:

UPDATE: voting is happening now, and enough Democrats have already joined Republicans that the filibuster can be broken and this monstrosity will become law.