DOES THIS MAKE AMERICA BETTER?

No, it’s not The Onion. But it could be. On its website the Department of Homeland Security has this item in its list of so-called principles: “DHS will continue to implement safeguards for privacy, transparency, civil rights, and civil liberties when developing and adopting policies and throughout the performance of its mission to ensure that homeland security programs uphold privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.” Right words. But actions speak louder. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) released a report. Since January 20, 2025, his investigation has received or identified 510 credible reports of human rights abuse against individuals held in Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and Health and Human Services (HHS) facilities, county jails, and federal buildings across 25 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, at U.S. military bases (including Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti), and on chartered deportation flights. Among these reports are 41 credible reports of physical and sexual abuse of individuals in U.S. immigration detention, 14 credible reports of mistreatment of pregnant women, and 18 credible reports of mistreatment of children. Every day we read of more dehumanizing actions by ICE. More lawlessness. More brutality. More cruelty. The LA Times recently reported about a Texas Lyme-disease researcher who came to the US from South Korea at age 5 and is a longtime legal permanent resident who was detained at San Francisco International Airport for a week. Tae Heung “Will” Kim, 40, was returning from his brother’s wedding in South Korea on July 21 when he was pulled out of secondary screening for unknown reasons, said an attorney who says he’s been unable to talk with his client. He’s just one of multitudes who have had the same thing happen to them. Law-abiding, contributing members of American society who are here legally and properly. Snatched and swept away. Like they never existed. Treated worse than animals. Shipped who knows where under cloak of supreme governmental authority. We read about disgusting conditions detainees face when inside detention centers. From the Florida everglades to the infamous Angola prison in Mississippi, Trump is creating a gulag system on American soil. And private prisons and their stockholders are getting rich off of the wretchedness caused by our government. Reports of deaths, serious gaps in medical treatment conditions, rotted and insufficient food, and overcrowding put us in the company of dictatorial regimes that consistently abuse human rights. This is the GOP vision for America. All of this and much more will eventually come to light. It always does. And when it does, we will all see, and all remember under whose watch it was allowed to happen. And remember that you did nothing.