The Bible is rife with stories of man’s cruelty to his fellowman. Rising above such behavior has been the great challenge of civilization. Since its founding the United States has progressed – though slowly at times – from a legal order that practiced subordination and harsh punishment to one that outlawed cruelty to women, children, prisoners, and other vulnerable groups. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1791, banned “cruel and unusual punishments” reflecting the nation's sincere commitment to justice and humane treatment.
Arrest practices include pre‑dawn raids with guns drawn, racialized sweeps, force used on families including separation of children contrary to court orders, and American deaths.
The investigations show a detention system where neglect is routine, oversight is weak, and detainees are treated with a level of brutality that exceeds criminal incarceration. Conditions reported include festering infections, ignored medical requests, vermin infestations, prolonged solitary confinement, preventable deaths, rotten food, contaminated water, and violent use of restraints.
AP reporting shows grossly expensive, too-rapid-for-due-process deportation of immigrants into confinement by cash-hungry, often abusive governments like South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, and El Salvador.
Data drawn from multiple government sources and court records show half or more detainees have no criminal record at all, just civil immigration charges such as illegal entry, reentry, overstays, etc. And many with criminal convictions were guilty of traffic violations and non-violent misdemeanors, not dangerous felonies.
Together, AP’s findings depict an enforcement system where cruelty is not incidental but structural. They reveal a pattern of cruelty at every stage: arrest, detention, and deportation and contradict claims that ICE primarily detains dangerous criminals.
If all this is true, you might ask, why haven’t Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment come into play?
The answer is ironic since Trump regularly portrays illegal immigrants as criminals. Immigration enforcement, however, is legally classified as civil, not criminal. The Eighth Amendment only applies to the punishment of criminals. While other laws can apply, judicial deference has allowed punitive conditions to persist though detainees are not supposed to be punished at all.
Consequently, convicted, hardened criminals must be treated humanely while ICE detainees suffer sanctioned cruelty.
“For the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts of cruelty” – Psalm 74:20.
Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from North Jackson.
51 comments:
I'm so sick of this asshole perverting law and scripture to suit a corporate/profit driven media addicted to sensationalism. "Cruel and unusual punishment" referred to a ban on its practice of lawful CITIZENS of a nation. Now, America is expected to the parent of the entire freaking world. Just unbelievable that people have no sens of self-preservation of their own fellow CITIZENS, and have a suicidal empathy to save the world.
Maybe they just shouldn’t commit the crime of illegal immigration?
If there was ever any doubt that Crawford is a soft hearted liberal mouthpiece, this gaslighting article proves it….
The very first thing that illegals do when they come into our country is against the law. They are a criminal by their very first step into our country. There is a legal process to come into our country.
What our country let happen under the Biden era is against the law. Docters working at our VA were sent to the border to care for those who came into this country illegally. That left our veterans with not enough doctors to do their job which was taking care of the people who protected our country.
Our own government gave many of those who came into this country illegally money to put a down payment on a house. My neighbor was given $25,000. He put %5000 down on three homes, pocketed the other $10,000 and our government carried the loans on the rest. There is nothing that says he has to pay back the loan. Some of the money citizens of this country paid in on SS is now being given to illegals. Medical care is another privilege our government is giving to illegals. Some states have been giving driver license to illegals who cannot speak or understand english. They have no idea what road sign say. They are driving big rigs all over our country,
If some people care so much for illegals they should try living close to them. They moved in next door to me. They can't understand why I do not enjoy the drunken parties that start every friday evening and continue until sunday night. They also do not understand why I do not care for the music they play at full volume which has only two beats and runs continually. They also do not know they are not allowed bonfires in their back yard during a burn ban and there is no one in Ms. who will tell them different.
Well said. Very well said. Crawford is worse than Sid and that is saying a lot.
Satan quotes the Bible too. Bill is all about the narrative. He never suffers the consequences of his ideology. Bill is a colossal hypocrite.
The illegals have their own fate in their own hands. They could have chosen to not enter illegally or they could have accepted the offer to self-deport. Like the rest of us, they must live with the consequences of their decisions. I have no sympathy.
They are citizens of other countries entering this country secretly and outside of the normal channels of either passport or immigration processes. Remember, these people already have citizenship - in THEIR country. Those on the left seem to think they just popped out of the ground somewhere.
Bill
Have you personally reached out and worked to assist any immigrants?
I’ll wait.
Here's an idea Bill. If you don't want to risk being separated from your children or forcibly detained, immigrate the right way. If it happens, it's on you, not law abiding citizens who respect the rule of law. Are you still playing a Republican or have you come out as a Democrat?
Hey Bill: In all due respect, you need to climb down from your cross.
They made their choices. We must harden our hearts to protect our country. Send them all back.
9:43 If it's a crime what is the punishment for "illegal immigration"? Jus askin'.
Scripture Quoting Hypocrite Bill Crawford provides us with another selective outrage piece while having remained silent when young innocent children like 8-year-old Secoriea Turner are murdered due to the Leftist Democrat Tactic of Purposeful Crime. Does anyone remember hearing any outrage at all from Hypocrite Crawford when 2 innocent children were killed by stray bullets in Democrat controlled Jackson, MS, in only a 10 day period?
Then Democrat Atlanta Mayor Kiesha Lance Bottoms should be arrested, tried and convicted of manslaughter in the death of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, but not a peep from the Scripture Quoting Hypocrite.
Malcom X warned us that the “white person that you see calling himself a liberal, is the most dangerous thing in the entire Western Hemisphere.”
If only Malcom X were alive today, he could have certainly added “except for Scripture Quoting RINO Hypocrites that care more for illegal immigrants than they do about the murders of young innocent African American Citizen Children.”
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
“The answer is ironic since Trump regularly portrays illegal immigrants as criminals.”
Illegal immigrants ARE criminals. What’s so difficult to understand about that?
This guy is a clown. And a dummy.
Pre-dawn raids, guns drawn, terrified families, solitary confinement? Not too dissimilar from the way the J6ers were treated, Mr. Crawford. However, they were actual U.S. citizens.
If you want to assign blame for the immigration mess, blame the Democrat party and those who influence them. They opened the border and encouraged these people to come in illegally. You know who else is to blame? The illegals themselves. First of all, they aren’t dumb. They know they aren’t here legally. The Trump admin very publicly declared that the illegals must go home or be deported en masse. He very compassionately told them what was going to happen and gave them the option to self deport. They chose not to. The Trump admin very generously went so far as to offer to pay for their safe travel home, plus some cash. They chose to stay. The illegals chose to put themselves in this situation. Democrats continue to encourage them to do so.
So spare me your misguided Bible lecture. The Bible also says to respect the law of the land and those in authority over you. Please, see Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17. If you don’t want to get arrested by ICE, be detained in a less than 5 star jail, eat crappy non-ethnocentric food and then be deported to Ghana, then choose to GO HOME!
I have no problem with legal immigration. I have friends who emigrated here and did it the right way. We celebrate those who follow the rules and earn their green card and ultimately citizenship. However, I have ZERO sympathy for any illegal who chooses to break our laws. None.
While acknowledging illegal entry, by definition, is illegal, consider the entire story.
For most of the last fifty years, presidents of both parties have been ignoring immigration laws, allowing illegal entrants to remain. Folks that arrived before Trump 2.0, and certainly before Trump 1.0, had every reason to believe they would be allowed to stay indefinitely, absent violence or drug issues.
However, during the Biden administration, things went crazy. Illegals arrived at record rates. Frustration with heinous crimes committed by illegals, rightly so, became a flashpoint. The handing of immigration and the apparent disregard by the Democrats was the biggest screwup of the Biden administration, as well as, very likely why we have Trump 2.0
While on the one hand, it is anti-American for Americans to suffer due to the millions of the illegals, it seems equally anti-American to send immigrants, especially those lacking violent tendencies, to torture prisons. That's what they are-and to deny that is to deny the facts.
Back before the GOP went crazy, the Gang of Eight passed bipartisan immigration reform in the Senate. Leader Boehner refused to bring it to a vote in the house.
Yes, illegal is illegal. And inhumane treatment is inhumane treatment. The issue extremely complicated. No one wants to discuss solutions, as soundbites and buzzwords keep the bases energized in both parties.
4:25 - I have an answer for ya. DEPORTATION
Crawford would be somewhat amusing if he had not cemented his reputation as a 5th rate televangelist one stumbles across at 4:AM on a obscure satellite TV channel.
What does he have on you Kingfish? Is he paying you to post this? No one sees the world through his 1987 colored glasses. No.One. The world has moved on.
You make some solid points 6:37 but you did leave one major one out. The people that came here in the last 4 years have been encouraged and even offered travel money to go back where they came from. Because of that, I don't have much pity for their situation they are subjecting themselves to.
There isn't one.....only the moral punishment of their own self-destruction.
No - it's not that complicated. U.S. "leaders" are either cowards, incompetent - or both.
When a stranger sojourns in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34 (ESV)
If you are in this country without going the proper way, you are breaking federal law. How hard is it for these people to understand? I can ensure you that if all these people that came in under Biden were conservative, Democrats would be screaming about illegal immigration. There is only one reason they want them here and it’s not to make the country better.
Spoken like the true putz he is.
A question, with any respect that could be due, is whether Bill Crawford is just intellectually incapable of understanding the humanitarian crisis experienced during Biden’s border policies that were a boon to Mexican cartels, who made $30 million a day smuggling drugs and people across our southern border.
Crawford’s outrage is always against Republicans. Democrats can do no wrong and never get the scripture lesson.
@4:25
They want 3 hots and a cot plus medical care?
Then the punishment should be 10 years of hard labor in a lithium or uranium mine for every man, woman, and child who shows up at the border without a pre-approved visa.
Then deportation to whatever prison we currently have contracted overseas. They think they are clever for not showing up with any ID to prove where they came from. That’s why we have contracted prisons overseas to dump them into.
Bill and his kind are perfectly fine with the taxpayers having smaller families while housing and feeding the illegal immigrants and unproductive breeders who only contribute to crime stats. His type are also fine with a very specific demographic (white males) being excluded from society so they basically “drop out” and are incapable of supporting families. It’s all for equality, right Bill? No compassion for your own. Only suicidal compassion for “others”
Deport the illegals, post haste so they don’t have to suffer with a roof over over there heads and three meals a day.
Then get started on the legal ones.
Just a basic point of American law and democracy: the Constitution applies to everyone. The eighth amendment particularly? Applies to everyone who comes in contact with the U.S. government. Weird to think liberty only applies to folks with a 9-digit code from our government.
Do you think it was a different time when that was written? Should we allow satan in our lives and house because he walks on our lands? How many strangers live on your house so you can be the example we should live by?
6:22 AM, how many strangers do you allow to freely come and go into your home? Please tell us there are no locks on your home’s doors, right? Hopefully you do put your money where your mouth is, right?
Try to enter the Vatican at one of the eight entrances and see what happens. No one enters without special permission and without the proper paperwork. You will not find immigrants lined up at the entrances or climbing the walls.
So the question is, are you and Crawford really ill-informed enough to twist scripture into “treat criminal strangers as the native among you?”
Just seeing Crawford's name in the headline is clickbait.
Sojourn (noun: ˈsoʊ.dʒɜːrn; verb: soʊˈdʒɜːrn) refers to a temporary stay in a place that is not your permanent home. It often implies a short trip or a temporary stopover while traveling
@9:05am Not true. Completely false.....just because "one comes in contact with the U.S. Government" does NOT make you subject to their jurisdiction. An illegal immigrant is subject to the jurisdiction of the country they orginated from. Please stop with your propaganda.
Birthright Citizenship: - The 14th Amendment: Ratified in 1868, dictates that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States".
On deck with the SCOTUS is whether anchor babies will be considered citizens or not. IF the SCOTUS grants this present privilege to remain, America will be lost forever.
I think I just broke my jaw yawning.
IF the SCOTUS grants this present privilege to remain, America will be lost forever.
+1,000,000
The next time a Democrat gets elected POTUS they'll flood the southern border in numbers far exceeding the Biden debacle years.
11:32 The 14th amendment is a harsh lesson in legal writing and it's precise interpretation. It was only intended to extend citizenship to the slaves but the writers took for granted that there would never be millions of undesirables coming through that southern border from Latin America or from Asia or Africa. If anything there would be immigrants from Europe who would always be welcome. If they had kids, that was fine. They were not interested in limiting white European immigration. In that respect and in others, the founding fathers were simply shortsighted like all humans tend to be. The 14th says what it says, and the SCOTUS is a joke if it spins it to fit political pressure. They'll probably do the spin.
It should be left to Congress and the states.
Sojourners are by definition only temporary and non-permanent.
The scarcity mindset is as old as mankind, which is why scripture warns against it in the old and new testaments repeatedly....
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
Zechariah 7:9-10
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Matthew 25:35
Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.
Matthew 25:40
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Romans 12:13
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Hebrews 13:1-3
Again, it's a basic tenant of American law and democracy that anyone that comes in contact with the U.S. government has an inalienable right to due process of law. "No person shall . . . be deprived of . . . liberty . . . without due process of law." U.S. Const., amend. V.
Actually, that exact process of law is what ALLOWS the United States to prosecute and punishment those "illegal immigrants who immigrated from another country" in the United States and/or pursuant to United States law.
Deuteronomy 17:16
New International Version
16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.”
By the time Solomon rolled around he was building military bases to protect their surpluses and he married the Pharoah's daughter from Egypt for strategic reasons. God told them what would happen, but they didn't listen. And then they wondered why they fell to Rome.
And now the most affluent country in the history of the world is terrorizing people who want to roof our houses and clean our toilets.
History has always been about cycles. None of this is new, including the appointment of King Trump.
3:35 PM was doing a decent job making his/her point….then the ignorance came out with “the appointment of King Trump.”
Poor Democrats. They lost the house. They lost the senate. They lost the white house. They lost the SCOTUS. And they lost them all via elections. But their retard base takes the bait and falls for the “No Kings” horse shit propaganda provided by the REAL oligarch’s.
Please, stop it. The Bible is not talking about alien invaders coming to freeload, rape, pillage and plunder. It’s not talking about people who broke the law to come into Israel. The Bible clearly states to respect authority and law. There are laws pertaining to immigration to the US. The Word speaks harshly against thieves and sluggards, and “men of lawlessness”. Of course, we should be civil towards others. But I do not have to tolerate people who broke into our country and mooch off of our tax dollars.
Rape and plunder? Seriously? What about the ones who come here to roof houses or clean your house? Can we be nice to them?
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
I have no problem being nice to people who roof and clean toilets, so long as they came here legally. I have immigrant friends who came here the right way. In fact, they are professionals and don’t clean toilets. Believe it or not, not all Latinos are roofers and toilet scrubbers. If you swam the Rio Grande or crawled through a tunnel to get here, your butt needs to be sent packing. If you love illegals so much, invite them to live in your house and YOU pay for their healthcare and benefits with YOUR money, not mine.
Exactly. Next thing you know - Bill will be charging God with "sanctioning" cruelty to mankind - all for clickbait.
And love you're fellow citizen countryman/woman even more.
PLEASE! Do not be fooled by those using scripture to appear compassionate towards illegal immigrants, as they only care about their potential votes.
Study Robert Leon Woodson, Sr. (one of the original AA civil rights activist’s) to learn about the devastation white Democrats, with their grifter partners, have done to the African American family unit since LBL’s famous “I’ll have those (racial slur) voting Democrat for the next 200 years.”
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