LETTER: Concentration camps

Published 1:30 am Saturday, May 16, 2026

It should come as no surprise that the current administration’s anti-immigrant policies and the rush to build more ICE detention centers joins a long history of America’s concentration camps.

During the 19th century, European Americans concluded their physical and cultural genocide of Native Americans by forcing them into reservations.

A study of history reveals that Hitler was influenced by the genocide of the American Indian.

During WWII, the American government, fearful of so-called hidden allegiances, forced Japanese American citizens into internment camps, quickly constructed of cheap materials and often in remote places.

After reading an April 20 article in New Yorker magazine about an ICE detention center known as Dilley, and open press articles about places with names like Alligator Alcatraz, it is apparent that American concentration camps 3.0 is underway.

These facilities, sometimes run by private contractors, have known poor sanitation, inadequate toilet facilities, substandard food and a severe lack of medical staff.

The people held in these concentration camps were scooped up by ICE patrols of masked agents acting like Gestapo.

Their mission: to find brown people and arrest them without due process.

As reported in open press, less than 5 percent were ever convicted of a violent crime, the “worst of the worst,” as the administration claims.

Children are separated from parents, and special medical needs are often ignored.

Most were well-ensconced in the American fabric.

There is one common denominator of America’s history of concentration camps: It is pure unadulterated racism.

Bart Kavruck

Port Townsend