Will You Stand Against Trump’s Concentration Camps?

Right now, Republicans are making concrete plans to end the rule of law in the USA and create a gigantic concentration camp in Texas.

The time has come for you to decide: Are you with the fascists, or against them?

Which side are you on?

The Texas Tribune reports that the Texas General Land Office is offering President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre ranch in Starr County, near the border with Mexico, as a site to build concentration camps for his promised mass deportations of residents of the USA. The concentration camps will imprison many undocumented immigrants, but will also contain documented immigrants working under legal arrangements that have been canceled by the Trump Administration, as well as American citizens who are the children of immigrants.

Donald Trump has confirmed that he will use the US military to round up massive numbers of people living in the United States and take them to concentration camps. 

Imagine a concentration camp 1,400 acres in size. Imagine the number of people such a concentration camp could hold. Imagine the kind of things that could happen in such a place.

Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in a letter to Donald Trump that Texas is "fully prepared" to "allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination" to imprison millions of people currently living in the United States.

In February of this year, the Arizona Republic reported that Stephen Miller, who Donald Trump has now selected to become the White House Deputy Chief of Policy, announced a plan to use National Guard troops from states controlled by Republican governors to invade states controlled by Democratic governors in order to seize millions of residents and take them to concentration camps. 

There are signs that groups are organizing in Democrat-majority states to assist in the execution of Donald Trump's plans to place massive numbers of US residents into concentration camps. In some cases, these signs are literally signs.

In the week before Election Day, for example, signs appeared across New York State, a Democratic Party stronghold. The signs carried a message reading: "No legal rights for illegal immigrants" and a small notification declaring that the signs had been produced by the New York Republican State Committee.

In the United States of America, all people have legal rights. American citizens have legal rights, but so do noncitizens. All people within the borders of the USA are protected by the Constitution, whether they have been accused of criminal activity or not. 

What the New York Republican State Committee announced with its signs is that the Republicans in New York State seek to overturn the Constitution of the United States in order to create new classes of people who have no legal rights at all. What this suggests is that Donald Trump and the Republican Party intend to imprison large numbers of people in concentration camps like the one proposed by the state of Texas General Land Office, and keep people there without recognizing their habeas corpus rights, their right to due process of law, the right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a fair trial, and their rights under current US immigration law and international treaties.

In order to create concentration camps in the United States, Republicans following Donald Trump are planning to end the rule of law. These lawless concentration camps are just one example of what we mean when we use the word "fascist" to describe the government now being prepared by Donald Trump and his followers. The fascists are developing specific plans to execute on these threats.

Let's also use the term "Christian Nationalist" to describe these plans. Christian Nationalism is the ideological foundation being used to justify the destruction of the Constitution and the rule of law in the United States. Donald Trump and his followers claim that their loyalty to the Christian god and the rules described in the Christian Bible can be used to overrule any law in the United States. 

Christianity does not forbid concentration camps. The Christian Bible does not provide for habeas corpus rights, or protection from punishment without due process of law.

Christian Nationalists like to say that Christianity is the basis of law in the United States, but until now, that hasn't been true. The Constitution of the United States of America, not Christianity, established the right to a fair trial, protections from cruel and unusual punishments, and a legislative and judicial system designed to protect the rights of all people, whether they are citizens or not.

Christianity allows for authoritarianism. The Constitution does not.

That's why Donald Trump has promised to terminate the Constitution, and give power to Christian leaders instead. Donald Trump knows that he can use Christian Nationalism as an excuse to impose totalitarian fascism in the USA.

Already, Republicans are taking concrete action to prepare Christian Nationalist concentration camps. We don't have long to prepare.

In less than two months, Donald Trump will have the power he needs to build a 1,400 acre concentration camp in Starr County, Texas and begin to imprison massive numbers of people there.

I know you may feel exhausted with politics, but this isn't about politics. This is about the basic survival of the rule of law in the United States of America. This is about the creation of massive concentration camps that exist outside the law, right here in our own country. This is about fascism.

What are you going to do about it?

Now is the time for you to decide whether you're going to be one of the people who stand up to fascism, or if instead you will be one of the people who did nothing, who pretended not to know what was going on.

This is the time for you to choose whether you’re going to take action to resist fascism, or whether you’re going to turn away, and engage in self-care.

This is not a drill.

It is time get organized.

If you can find even just one other person who doesn't agree with the new fascist regime, you can begin to get ready. As a next step, you can find other people who are willing to take a stand.

Now is the time to decide: Which side are you on? 

Are you with the fascists, or are you against them?