Labor camps

Republican gubernatorial candidate has called for creation of a forced labor camp for illegal immigrants:

Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a Mexican news service, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."

The article described Goldwater's plan as a "concentration camp" for migrants.

Goldwater, a candidate for governor in Arizona, said in a statement Friday that his comments were taken out of context. He said he was calling for a work program for convicted nonviolent felons, similar to "tried and tested, effective and accepted practices" used by state and local jails

True, labor camps for immigrants may be no worse than using felons as slave labor. But as Miriam at No Capital comments, "A Final Solution... Perhaps not THE final solution".

This brings to mind the conspiracy hysteria over "FEMA detention camps", which flared up a few months back when USACE expanded a contract by Haliburton subsidiary KBR to build facilities for "foreign-born refugees". Rotten has a good historical perspective, ending with the following warning :

After a flurry of public protest, the "detention camp" discussion went sub rosa. But under existing presidential authorities and executive orders issued both before and after 9/11, there is no need for public discussion. The camps could (under the sketchy legal justifications drafted by current and previous administrations) be open for business without a word ever being spoken in public.

I'm not going to reach for my tinfoil hat just yet, but it is very worrying that the idea of labor camps is now acceptable enough that a candidate for governor can openly espouse it.

(Cross posted to Round Earth League)