GOP congressman claims ICE detention centers are ‘pretty friggin' nice' as concerns rise about conditions
Over the last few weeks, Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities are crammed with detainees, resulting in limited space to sleep, no privacy to use toilets, and scarce amounts of food.
'I'm not personally inspecting every facility, but I've been in a hell of a lot of them over the years. The facilities I've been in are pretty friggin' nice,' Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told NOTUS.
Detention facilities across the country are being forced to accommodate an increasing number of people being arrested and detained as part of President Donald Trump 's mass deportation agenda.
In Florida, state leaders have erected Alligator Alcatraz, a temporary holding facility to relieve some of the pressure on other jails.
But immigrants detained inside have claimed they are being fed little amounts of maggot-infested food, are unable to sleep due to blinding lights shone 24/7, have little access to bathing water, and have had their religious rights infringed on.
Officials have pushed back on Democrats' claims, too.
Stephanie Hartman, a spokesperson for the Florida Division of Emergency Management – which manages Alligator Alcatraz, told NBC News, 'The facility meets all required standards and is in good working order.'
Hartman said detainees get three meals per day, unlimited drinking water, showers, and other necessities.
Republican Rep. Carlos Giménez of Florida told NOTUS he had 'no concerns' about the conditions at the facility.
'It's not full of alligators. It's not full of snakes,' Giménez said, referring to reports that the facility, built in the Florida Everglades, is surrounded by alligators and venomous snakes.
Democrats who visited the facility said detainees were 'packed' into cages and that conditions were abusive.
Giménez told NOTUS it was difficult to prove or disprove claims about food, but that from what he saw, it was 'adequate.'
'They're not a hotel. This is not the Ritz. It is a detention center, but there's nothing inhumane about what I saw,' Giménez claimed.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told Meet the Press earlier this month that federal detention centers' standards 'are extremely high.'
But ICE detention facilities are not codified in law the way federal jails are; rather, they are set up based on individual contracts. This can make it more difficult to track and enforce rules.
Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona told NOTUS that he did not see 'anything alarming or controversial' at the detention facility he visited in Eloy, Arizona.
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Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
'Don't come here': Greece's immigration minister warns North Africans
The Greek immigration minister does not mince his words. He may be new to the job but his message to the millions of young men waiting in North Africa to come to his country for a life in Europe is clear: 'Don't come here. We will put you in jail or send you back home.' In an exclusive interview with the Mail, Thanos Plevris said: 'The Greeks, like the rest of Europe, want to help real refugees, but we will not be taken for fools. It is the end of the fairy tale that those coming to Greece and Europe in incredible numbers are all women and children. They are mainly men aged between 18 and 30 who are economic migrants. We are not a hotel any more.' 'Many are from safe countries, such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Now we are telling them that if you sail in illegally by boat to Greece, do not expect asylum but get ready for five years in jail or a ticket home instead.' Greece is on the frontline of Europe's out-of-control migration crisis that, as Britons know well, has reached northern France where trafficking gangs are using fleets of small boats to send tens of thousands of migrants to Dover. Greece, on the other side of the continent, has its own relentless wave of newcomers. This year, at least 10,000 migrants have reached its biggest island, Crete, from lawless Libya a few hundred miles away across the Mediterranean Sea. In the first week of this month alone, just after Mr Plevris was appointed immigration minister, a surge of 4,000 arrived illegally on the island, which is struggling to cope. The coastguard and police are holding the uninvited foreigners in emergency camps in empty warehouses where they get a chilly welcome, basic rations and sleep on concrete floors. As we witnessed, they are young men growing dangerously angry while incarcerated against their will in the stifling summer heat. 'Our big problem today is with Libya and who they are sending over,' the plain-speaking and unapologetic Mr Plevris told me as he promised to stifle the migration flow for ever. 'Libya is using big vessels carrying 200, even 300, people. Of all those who have arrived, 85 per cent are male, and the majority of them are young. They are using Greece to enter Europe illegally for a new life. If we just continue to sit and watch, it will never end. Three million migrants are today massing in Libya. Now I plan to deter them from setting off for here.' Ten days ago, the Greek parliament passed a new law to help Mr Plevris get his wish. It suspended all asylum applications from those arriving illegally from North Africa for 'at least three months' due to the 'extraordinary' migration emergency. The European Union has sided with Athens, saying the Greek crisis is 'exceptional'. Under the legislation, due to be introduced within days, most of the illegal arrivals will have two choices: a five-year prison spell or deportation to their home country, at Greece's expense. 'We will no longer tolerate an invasion from North Africa,' Mr Plevris said. Migrant camps with prison-like accommodation are being prepared on the mainland to house future arrivals. 'Our immigration ministry is not a hotel service,' Mr Plevris added in a headline-grabbing television soundbite after the law won overwhelming support in parliament. He is also reviewing the 'current situation' where migrants are placed, sometimes for years, in welcoming reception centres with 'menu-style' meals and state benefits, while it is decided if they are genuine refugees or not. Greece's revolutionary agenda is backed by the country's prime minister. A key aide said: 'This is an urgent situation. We are taking extraordinary steps that are difficult and strict. Our government can no longer accept the migration flows from North Africa. People there need to think twice before they pay a large sum of money [to traffickers] to come to this country.' It is anybody's guess if the thousands of young men who have reached Crete in the new surge realise what a bleak future lies ahead. But in the few days since the law was voted in, no boats have arrived from Libya. When the Mail visited two of Crete's emergency holding camps, we were allowed to walk inside among the migrants but not permitted to speak to them. 'Be careful,' I was warned by an armed police officer guarding 400 migrants at a camp on the outskirts of Chania, two hours from the Crete capital of Heraklion. 'These are dangerous people. They all want something from you, even just a cigarette, and they get angry if you don't hand it over.' Inside the warehouse camp, the smell of unwashed men and urine made my eyes smart. As we walked in, the migrants shouted for help, putting up their hands to show ten fingers, the number of days they have been incarcerated here. There was a tinderbox atmosphere and the conditions were unpalatable, to say the least. Some migrants were lying on mattresses, resorting to sharing because there are so few. For the unlucky ones, it was a concrete floor with a T-shirt for a pillow. 'They all sit with their own nationalities, the Egyptians together, the Palestinians together, and so on,' said one female guard at the door of the warehouse. 'They are very difficult to control. There are so few of us, just five, and so many of them. We are tired, they are tired. It is not a safe situation.' One pitiful boy, who whispers to me that he is an Egyptian and 14, is barefoot and wearing just underpants and a shredded T-shirt. In one corner, standing alone, is a tall figure with dark hair and his neck covered in the red and white scarf of Palestine. 'He will say he is Egyptian, if he is asked,' a guard told me. 'But he has come from Gaza. He won't have an identity document because he will have destroyed it before reaching Greece. It makes our job of finding out who these people are, if they are bad or good, more difficult.' The police guards, just three men and two women, were under stress. If they open by a crack the giant metal doors to the warehouse to get in and out, throngs of men run to the entrance to try to reach the fresh air and escape the stench for a minute or two. 'No, no, no,' shout the inmates in one crescendo of furious male voices as the doors are snapped shut. Nearer Heraklion, in the mid-Crete town of Rethymno, is a second warehouse camp. If anything, the atmosphere was more tense still. It is on rough land overlooking the sea and a beach, and had nearly 180 men inside when we visited. Inside, we saw a gruff-looking police officer using a metal baton to control the migrants. One Egyptian who argued with him, after dilly-dallying for a few minutes on a visit to the latrine block in the yard, was chased and hit on the arm by the officer. 'You can show my stick on your photographs,' the officer said to me, 'but not my face.' He added: 'These men are disappointed, angry, and increasingly volatile. They will remember me. They expected to get a free pass into Europe because the Libyan boat traffickers told them that. Now we are keeping them here. They are not getting what they wanted or hoped for. It is difficult to make them stay calm. You must be wary.' It is at the Rethymno camp that we saw migrants being deported, first to Heraklion port and then to mainland Greece, in an operation resembling the movement of prisoners. During the afternoon, they were brought out of the warehouse in six nationality groups and made to sit on the ground in the blazing sun for half an hour to wait for buses to take them to the ferry for Athens where migrant camps have already been toughened up. Some held cardboard from torn-up boxes over their heads to protect themselves from the sun as they sat in the dust. Nearly all were barefoot, some bare-chested, and each carried a blue plastic bag of possessions plus a bottle of water. We were told that the migrants and the buses would remain in a closed deck area of the ferry away from fee-paying passengers for the night crossing. It was an operation with little compassion for the migrants, but the country has clearly run out of patience. Mr Plevris, who belongs to the Right-wing faction of Greece's ruling and increasingly conservative New Democracy party, said: 'Our prime minister has warned for years of the problems with immigration. 'We want to support refugees, but we believe it is important for our society that we only take those who want to be part of Europe.' He pointed out how many of the illegal migrants want to 'transfer' their own cultures and religious beliefs to Europe. 'They want to go on living by their own rules and they want us to accept that. But we will no longer do so,' he added. Mr Plevris said the European asylum system was skewed. It encourages migrants who cheat by throwing away their passports (to avoid showing they come from safe countries) or lying about their age to boost their chances of being allowed to stay. Egyptians wanting to escape military service destroy identity papers to disguise the fact they come from a country listed as safe by the United Nations and European Union. If the words of Mr Plevris, 48, sound like common sense today, his critics have dredged up the fact that he was a political firebrand when first elected to parliament in 2007 as a member of a now defunct hard-Right anti-immigration party. In 2011, he made a much criticised speech in parliament, which is still on YouTube. He said: 'In my opinion, the immigration issue can be solved in two ways. The first way is border security, which cannot exist if there are no deaths [to the migrants]. 'The second is that we must understand the logic of disincentives. We must tell the migrants when you come here you will have no social benefits, you will not be able to drink, you will not be able to go to hospital. [The migrant] must tell others in Pakistan that he is having a worse time in Greece than back home. Unless he sees a life of hell and not a paradise, he will come.' Controversial though his speech was, his appointment is popular with ordinary Greeks today. As I travelled in Athens to interview Mr Plevris, the taxi driver recognised the address. 'Ah. Are you going to see the new minister,' he asked. 'I would like to send him a message from people like me. Tell him on migrants that enough is enough. No more must come in. We all feel the same. We wish him good luck with his new law.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Minneapolis Democrats endorse Somali-American socialist Omar Fateh for mayor just weeks after NYC branch chose '100% communist'
A Somali-American democratic socialist has clinched the Minneapolis mayoral endorsement just weeks after a '100% communist' was elected in New York City. Omar Fateh, a 35-year-old Minnesota state senator, won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's endorsement for Minneapolis mayor on Saturday - an upset victory over two-term incumbent Jacob Frey that few saw coming, as reported by Axios. The win comes less than a month after 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani defeated New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary - a victory that prompted Donald Trump to brand him a '100 percent Communist lunatic.' 'I am incredibly honored to be the DFL endorsed candidate for Minneapolis Mayor,' Fateh wrote to X following the endorsement. 'This endorsement is a message that Minneapolis residents are done with broken promises, vetoes, and politics as usual. It's a mandate to build a city that works for all of us.' More than 1,000 party activists packed the Target Center on Saturday afternoon, where around 5pm, delegates cast their first mayoral endorsement votes via smartphone - launching a nearly two-hour vote tallying process by party officials. The suspense was palpable as attendees wondered if Frey - who led the city through the turbulent 2020 Black Lives Matter protests - would succeed in blocking the first Somali-American Muslim to serve in the state's senate. Mamdani's endorsement energized left-wing challengers, who celebrated the possibility of unseating Frey at the upcoming DFL convention - while others looked on with doubt and concern over the 'progressive uprising' in America's biggest cities. The potential shift in the nation's political landscape was on full display at this weekend's convention. Frey's supporters began abandoning the arena at about 9pm in protest, just as the results came in - Fateh had secured the endorsement. Not only did Fateh claim a seat at the mayoral table, but he also made history -becoming the Minneapolis DFL's first endorsement in a contested mayor's race since at least 1997, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune. Fateh captured 43.8 percent of the roughly 577 delegate votes, while Frey trailed with 31.5 percent, as reported by Axios. The socialist candidate ultimately secured over 60 percent of delegate votes at the convention, despite vocal complaints from the Frey campaign over the fairness of the process. Chaos erupted as Frey's campaign officials challenged the results, claiming the party's online delegate voting system had allegedly malfunctioned - pointing to a suspiciously low number of recorded votes. 'This election should be decided by the entire city rather than the small group of people who became delegates, particularly in light of the extremely flawed and irregular conduct of this convention,' Frey campaign manager Sam Schulenberg said in a statement, according to the outlet. 'Voters will now have a clear choice between the records and leadership of Sen. Fateh and Mayor Frey. We look forward to taking our vision to the voters in November, he added. Fateh has drawn increased attention following Mamdani's stunning - and surprising - victory over Cuomo in Manhattan's Democratic mayoral primary. Some have even dubbed him the 'Mamdani of Minneapolis,' according to the Star Tribune. The parallels are hard to miss: both Fateh and Mamdani are in their 30s, Muslim, democratic socialists and state lawmakers focused on making their cities more affordable and equitable. However, their rise in the political spotlight hasn't come without backlash - from both online critics and prominent, well-known faces. Former New York Giants player Carter Coughlin launched a savage attack on Fateh following his endorsement on Sunday, claiming that his policies of rent control and raising minimum wage would set Minneapolis back years. He also debated Fateh's credibility to become mayor with some of his followers. 'In a city that has endured unimaginable destruction and racial tension, these policies would set Minneapolis back another 10 steps,' Coughlin wrote. 'MPLS (Minneapolis) needs rebuilding, and this will do the opposite. Pray for wisdom.' Nevertheless, Fateh took to the arena floor just after 10pm to claim victory, declaring, 'Today, we witnessed a rejection of politics as usual,' as reported by Axios. We know the status quo are going to do anything and everything to maintain power, he added. 'They'll have all the money in the world - but they don't have you.' Though the final decision won't come until November, one thing is clear: Minneapolis is signaling a readiness for change - and big cities could be sparking the start of a broader movement.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Senator hits Trump over Epstein case, makes comparison to viral CEO
However, the Justice Department and FBI released a report detailing the opposite, finding no client list or proof Epstein was murdered. Still, the Trump administration is under pressure to release all information the government may have on Epstein. In response, Trump in a July 18 Truth Social post said, "If there was a 'smoking gun' on Epstein, why didn't the Dems, who controlled the 'files' for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!" Trump was referring to former Attorney General Merrick Garland, who served under President Joe Biden, and former FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired in 2017 following an investigation into his first presidential campaign. But Klobuchar told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" that Trump blaming Democrats is "like that CEO that got caught on camera blaming Coldplay. Okay, like this is his making." Astronomer CEO Andy Byron last week was seen embracing his company's chief people officer at a Boston-area performance by the band Coldplay. Byron resigned from his role after the video immediately went viral and prompted widespread jokes and speculation. The Minnesota Democrat added, "It is the Trump administration that has made this promise that they're going to release it. So I am - blaming Democrats for this, to me, I'm sorry. This is - the people that have been fomenting this are right-wing influencers, members of Congress." Adding fuel to the fire is a Wall Street Journal report that Trump sent a lewd letter to Epstein on his 50th birthday. Trump has denied the report and sued the Journal over it. He's also directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce more Epstein documents amid public clamor for the records. Contributing: Zac Anderson and Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY
