To The Editor:

I am writing to express my complete outrage and horror at the actions of DHS leadership, ICE agents, and the corrupt for-profit prison system. Their tactics are totally unacceptable and completely inhumane.

By now most people have seen the disturbing images of masked ice agents stalking and violently capturing people who agents believed may lack proper documentation to reside in the US. Masked ICE agents, ignoring requests for warrants, refusing to identify themselves, smashing windows, breaking and entering, assaulting bystanders and abducting people into unmarked vans: this is behavior of thugs and has no place in a civil society. When this is allowed, none of us are safe.

Equally appalling is the lack of due process and the conditions in the prison camps, many of which are despicable for-profit-prisons a la CoreCivic and GEO Group. The horrors of such places have been clearly documented and include overcrowded, filthy conditions, inadequate and rotting food, lack of clean water, and extreme temperatures. Abuse, forced labor and denial of medical care are common. These prisons are associated with PACs that donated heavily and almost exclusively to Republicans.

I urge readers to do the math, follow the money and expose government officials profiting from these operations. For the 2025 fiscal year, ICE has a massive budget of 28.7 billion. With such a robust budget it is possible to have humane and professional systems in place that address due process, training and basic standards of humanity while confronting the challenges of immigration. Unfortunately, under the current regime, most of these dollars will be used for enforcement and detainment. For-profit prisons will make billions of additional revenue this year alone.

Trump’s incarceration machine is a cash boon for ICE thugs and the corporate for-profit prison system, but it is costing America its soul.

We should all be standing up against this outrageous inhumanity.

Maddy Allen

Newtown