Solitary Confinement
Is A Form Of Torture, All Torturers Agree
The United States officially opposes the humanitarian parole of nine young people who grew up in this country, but came here as children without proper documentation, only to mature and commit civil disobedience against the laws that stigmatize them as un-people.
For these Americans-in-all-but-papers-please, the U.S. government Dept. of Homeland Security has decided, without due process apparently, that the Constitution's 8th amendment prohibition against excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishments may be disregarded with impunity.
While this is just another routine constitutional crisis obscured from most Americans, it's a vivid illustration of the moral brutality with which the American government acts almost reflexively in response to immigration issues -- issues the government has made little effort to fix for fear of depriving politically generous agribusiness and others of cheap, semi-slave labor.
As of July 29, the Dream 9 had been jailed for a week, with six of them in solitary confinement as punishment for the hunger strike they undertook in protest against Corrections Corporation of America's denial of telephone access to their lawyers and family. The Corrections Corp. is a publicly traded, for-profit company contracted by the U.S. government, which apparently sanctions torture by this contractor. Solitary confinement is internationally recognized as an element of torture.
Government Decides
How to Enforce the Law, Doesn't Explain
Homeland Security, Immigration, and other officials refuse to discuss these cases. Eloy prison officials did not respond to a request for information. Reportedly officials will meet with detainess early in the week.
The Homeland Security website as of July 29 offered a policy statement that says, in part, with regard to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA):
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