1. United States
2. Wisc.
3. Letter

I’m immensely disturbed by reports of Erik Prince’s proposal to start building private prisons for the U.S. in El Salvador. Not only is this clearly a way to privatize off of human suffering, it also seems to be a way for this administration to work around the law and continue removing people without concern for due process or human rights. I can’t stress enough how significantly I oppose this. The constant dehumanization of immigrants needs to end, and their suffering should not be a source of profit. The United States can and should be better than this. How can we claim to uphold human rights if we are so easily convinced to disregard them for those we deem “unworthy?” Because that’s what this is. It’s an appeal to nationalism to focus people’s hatred on a minority group, casting them as a danger that needs to be controlled by a forceful, authoritarian leader. Meanwhile, the elite get to profit off of this suffering while continuing to make things worse, having convinced the masses that this vulnerable minority group is actually the problem. This is the classic autocratic playbook. We can be better than that. At the very least, start by rejecting our use of El Salvador as a site for gulags.