Another Shift in the President's Priorities

After campaigning in 2016 to "load up" Guantanamo Bay, the President now has explicitly said that he does not want to send anymore fighters there. David Welna, a reporter for NPR, reports that during a visit with the Australian Prime Minister, the President said that "the Unites States is not going to have thousands and thousands of people that we've captured stationed at Guantanamo Bay, held captive at Guantanamo Bay for the next 50 years spending us billions and billions of dollars." (Welna, npr.org) This change may have been sparked by recent reports that the annual costs per prisoner adds up to $13 million, and now there are 40 remaining.

Before these financial reports came out, an executive order was signed last year authorizing the renovation and expansion of prison facilities at GITMO. This order led many who follow this issue to believe that the administration was preparing to imprison Islamic State fighters from Iraq and Syria. However, because the President has a business perspective when making most of his decisions, these astronomical numbers caused him to reprioritize saving America's money over the imprisonment of those he refers to as "bad dudes". Now, he has suggested releasing them at borders, but it is unclear if he is referring to the borders of our European allies who have captured the fighters, or the fighters home country borders.

 

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English Channel Record

Sarah Thomas, a 37 year old woman from Colorado and an ultramarathon swimmer, became the first person to swim across the English Channel four times nonstop. She swam for a little over 54 hours on what was meant to be an 80 mile swim, but was actually 130 miles because of the tides.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would someone force themselves to swim for over 54 hours in frigid, rough waters? The answer: Thomas swam "for those of us who have prayed for our lives, who have wondered with despair about what comes next, and have battled through pain and fear to overcome." A year ago, Thomas was being treated for breast cancer. She added to her prior statement that her swim was dedicated to everyone afflicted with cancer. Thomas was so deeply motivated that she persevered through the salt water hurting her tongue, mouth, throat, and being stung in the face by a jellyfish. She is a strong, remarkable woman who deserves to be celebrated.

   
The picture is from Google.
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Unwarrented Use of Solitary Confinement

Both immigrant-rights advocates and a whistle blower are shining a light on the unwarranted, arbitrary use of solitary confinement in immigrant detention centers. The Atlantic obtained documents that span four years between 2014-2018 from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security that reveal the extensive use of solitary confinement. Some reasons cited in the documents for putting immigrants in isolation include, "contraband sugar packets, menstruating on a prison uniform, and requesting an ankle brace." (Urbina, The Atlantic)

Although both the Obama and Trump administrations are guilty of over utilizing this form of detention, the rate of solitary confinement has been steadily increasing under the Trump administration. More often than not, the Trump administration cites mental illness and hunger strikes as a reason for isolating a person. In fact, 40% of those place in solitary confinement were considered to have mental illnesses and in some cases spent 370 to 904 days in solitary confinement. When a person has a mental illness, solitary confinement worsens their condition, which ICE's own doctors and lawyers have confirmed.

Solitary confinement that lasts more than fifteen days for any person is considered to be a violation of human rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights, and yet this practice of isolation continues. The practice of solitary confinement is only supposed to be used as a last resort, according to a 2013 federal directive, and some human rights lawyers argue that because many of the immigrants are being held on civil, not criminal charges, that such punishment is not supposed to take place in the first place.
         
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Second Blog: Mental Institutions

As we have discussed in class, the issue of gun control is not clear cut (especially when politicians try to muddy the waters). Recently, the President has offered a new proposal to reduce gun violence in the United States, which is to build more mental institutions. When trying to flush out how effective the President's proposal would be at curbing gun violence it was hard to find analysis from both sides of the political spectrum, so I settled on this article by Jacqueline Alemany with The Washington Post.

In the week of Aug. 22, the President was quoted saying that in regards to the "whole gun situation... I do want people to remember the words 'mental illness.' These people are mentally ill... I think we have to start building institutions again." (Alemany, The Washington Post) In addition to building institutions, the President's administration has been briefed on the creation of a new agency inside the Health and Human Services Department known as the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA). HARPA, a $40- $60 million project if it receives Congressional approval, would use artificial intelligence to identify people with mental illness that could potentially become violent. Also, the research collected would eventually be made public. Although, mental illness may be a factor in violent acts, experts have found that it is rarely a predictor and studies have revealed that most mass shooters have not had diagnosed mental illnesses. Ultimately, both of these ideas that are being considered by the President and his administration demonstrate that they view the issue of gun violence as a health issue as opposed to an issue of an overabundance of guns in America.      

Link (2): https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/22/white-house-considers-new-project-seeking-links-between-mental-health-violent-behavior/?noredirect=on