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Dehumanization and Protest: Miami's Krome Detention Center and Beyond
Demonstrators from Miami to Tacoma support immigrants detained by ICE.
Apr 09, 2025
"Please make this go viral. . . . Please help us."
Those are the words of Osiriss Azahael Vázquez Martínez in video messages he was able to record from the overcrowded Krome detention center two weeks ago. Vázquez Martínez, 45, a construction worker, lived in the United States for a decade and "was arrested [in February] for driving without a license on his way home from work," the Miami Herald reported.
Crouching under a table in what is apparently a waiting area, Vázquez Martínez knew his message was from a place we might not even know about. "This is happening right now in the Krome detention center in Miami, Florida," he says in Spanish. "We are practically kidnapped."
Thirty-five years ago, I taught English at Krome. The photo accompanying Vázquez Martínez's story—an exterior view of Building 8, the men's "dormitory"—reminded me of how remote the detention compound seemed when I would drive home after my classes, from the edge of the Everglades back to Miami Beach.
"You're brainwashed over there [to think] 'These are all scumbag inmates,'" he said.
Teachers worked at Krome back then through a Dade County Public Schools contract with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, predecessor to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The detainees, our students, came from around the world, though most were Haitian asylum-seekers. They were frustrated and bored. They were also quiet, calm, and appreciative of any small efforts the teachers made to help.
So it was surprising when Krome guards, also known as detention officers, warned us to be careful. Informally and at "briefings," they told us the detainees were dangerous, even though we were used to moving freely through the common areas, registering students, and sitting with them to study or talk. Guards also asked us teachers to act as their "spies." When I brought in copies of the Miami Herald to use for English lessons, guards told us not to let detainees see newspapers. Later I'd understand the reason.
Out of sight, Krome guards would beat men regularly and force women to trade sex for the promise of getting out. The Herald had started reporting on all of this, even as the immigration agency barred its reporters from the detention center. Miami, and much of the country, would learn about these practices—they weren't aberrations—from a teacher who had been working at Krome for years and finally decided she had to speak out about what the detained women had been telling her (Miami Herald, 4/11/1990).
As I started to research detention further, I was able to interview a former Krome guard who explained how the officers were conditioned to view all immigrants as criminals, and how this, in their minds, justified the brutality. "You're brainwashed over there [to think] 'These are all scumbag inmates,'" he said.
The ex-guard told me that his fellow guards, not the detainees, were the dangerous ones. He called his colleagues "cop wannabes" and said, "I tell you from experience. I was going, 'Wow, I got a badge and a gun now.'" The more experienced officers encouraged him to lock detainees in the bathroom for hours at a time, just to let them know who had the power, and he did it.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance didn't invent anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence. Brutality and racism have always been part of the immigration enforcement regime. But the longstanding principles of U.S.detention and deportation policy—dehumanization of the immigrants and unchecked power for their guards and deporters—have metastasized under the Trump-Vance plan.
Our government now glorifies and celebrates the humiliation and violence, as it has in the U.S.-El Salvador collaboration on what historian Timothy Snyder has called a propaganda film worthy of the 1930s.
In 1990, the "average daily population" of immigrant detainees in the United States was about 5,000. On March 23 of this year there were 47,892 people acknowledged to be in ICE custody.
Last year the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) randomly chose 5 out of 44 available videos of use-of-force incidents at Krome from a given six-month period. Four of the five videos depicted the use of pepper spray by guards against detainees who were already restrained or who were offering no resistance at all.
DHS's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (OCRCL) also investigated Krome, reporting on "concerns related to inappropriate use of force and the impact on the mental health of the noncitizens involved with the incidents." Congress formed OCRCL during the post-9/11 Bush administration in response to, among other things, "widespread illegal and abusive detention of Muslim and Asian immigrants." The Trump administration has eliminated this and other watchdog agencies and removed OCRCL documentation from the agency website. (At least some of the material has been preserved at the Wayback Machine.)
A DHS spokesperson said that government oversight has "obstructed immigration enforcement." In other words, the law itself is an obstruction, and "enforcement" is a synonym for lawlessness.
This plays out in large and small ways at Krome and elsewhere.
At Krome, a reporter from Reason was barred by an "ICE supervisor" from observing public court hearings. At the Batavia detention center in New York State, guards are illegally opening and copying detainees' legal mail.
ICE's "administrative detainees" are also being incarcerated in federal prisons, although the government refuses to say which prisons or how many prisoners. In this way the Bureau of Prisons can help keep the immigrants away from their lawyers.
Back in 1998, the officer-in-charge at Krome said "that the problem was that some officers did not want to accept the fact that detainees were human beings." Last month USA Today reported that women held briefly at Krome, which is an all-male facility now, were chained for hours on a bus without bathroom access. Guards told them to urinate and defecate on the floor, and some had no other choice.
Detainees at ICE's Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico told USA Today they staged a "sit-in" because they wanted to see deportation officers or a judge. Some had been held for seven or eight months. Even if they wanted to leave the U.S. voluntarily, they couldn't do so. One of the nonviolent protesters, Irrael Arzuaga-Milanes, said he was punished with four days of solitary confinement. (The ACLU has just obtained ICE documents, for which it had to sue, concerning ICE policies on solitary. ICE has used this punishment as a form of torture, according to the United Nations.)
There will be more protests by detainees against wrongful detentions, illegal deportations, overcrowding, and mistreatment. ICE detention guards, private-prison contractors, and county jails holding ICE detainees will respond with the excessive force that the administration actively encourages. And not only encourages: Our government now glorifies and celebrates the humiliation and violence, as it has in the U.S.-El Salvador collaboration on what historian Timothy Snyder has called a propaganda film worthy of the 1930s.
There's a small bit of good news here. A day after the Herald reported on conditions at Krome, 200 protesters rallied outside that immigration prison. Also in recent weeks:
- In Washington State, labor unions protested outside ICE's Northwest detention center to support people locked inside;
- In North Carolina, women protested the arrests of their husbands (stopped based on lies by law enforcement) who were then sent down to Krome;
- In New Jersey, protesters opposed the planned reopening of the Delaney Hall detention center to be operated by the GEO Group, while Newark city inspectors have reportedly been barred from entering the detention center construction site; and
- In Rhode Island, protesters outside the Wyatt Detention Facility demanded the release of their immigrant neighbors.
There are almost 200 of these "facilities"—that we know of—across the United States, as well in Guam and the North Mariana Islands, used by ICE to hold immigrant prisoners as of late 2024. The prisoners are in ICE's "processing centers," in county jails, and (the overwhelming majority) in private prisons. There are also 25 ICE field offices, as well as ICE "check-in locations" around the country.
There's room outside all of them for lawful protests and demonstrations against the lawlessness and inhumanity inside.
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'Microsoft Powers This Genocide': Firm Fires Pro-Palestine Disruptors of 50th Anniversary Celebration
"I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights," wrote one protester in an email to Microsoft executives.
Apr 08, 2025
The tech giant Microsoft has fired two software engineers who publicly protested the firm's ties to the Israeli military during an event celebrating the company's 50th anniversary celebration on Friday.
The protests come a few months after the publication of an investigation by The Associated Press which found that Israel's use of Microsoft and OpenAI technology "skyrocketed" following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which prompted Israel's deadly campaign on the Gaza Strip. Multiple human rights groups have said Israel is guilty of committing genocide or "acts of genocide."
Specifically, the investigation found that artificial intelligence "models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon."
According to the AP, on Friday, while Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was giving a livestreamed talk at Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington, a software engineer based in Canada, Ibtihal Aboussad, walked up toward the stage and shouted, "You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military."
"Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region," Aboussad said.
Suleyman was forced to pause the speech and responded by thanking Aboussad for her protest and saying, "I hear you."
Aboussad said that "all of Microsoft has blood on its hands," as she was being led out of the room. "How dare you celebrate when Microsoft is killing children," Aboussad yelled.
According to CNBC, Aboussad then sent an email to Suleyman and other Microsoft executives, including the company's CEO and president.
"I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice," she wrote in her email, according to the outlet. "This is especially true when I've witnessed how Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue."
"I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights," she also wrote.
According to a document reviewed by CNBC, Aboussad was fired Monday due to "just cause, willful misconduct, disobedience, or willful neglect of duty."
Another protester, Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later session that featured Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and former CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Agrawal made similar statements to Aboussad, including referencing the death toll in Gaza, while being hurried toward the exit.
Both Agrawal and Aboussad are associated with No Azure for Apartheid, a group of Microsoft employees who denounce the firm's Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government, according to The Verge. Azure is the company's cloud computing platform that offers AI services.
According to CNBC, Agrawal also sent an email to company executives afterward. "You may have seen me stand up earlier today to call out Satya during his speech at the Microsoft 50th anniversary," Agrawal wrote. "Over the past 1.5 years, I've grown more aware of Microsoft's growing role in the military-industrial complex."
Agrawal wrote that the tech company is "complicit" as a "digital weapons manufacturer that powers surveillance, apartheid, and genocide." She also said that "by working for this company, we are all complicit," according to CNBC.
Agrawal put in notice prior to her protest that April 11 would be her last day with Microsoft, but on Monday she learned that her termination would be effective immediately.
"We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard," Microsoft said in statement Friday, according to the AP. "Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards."
Organizers at the BDS National Committee recently toldDrop Site that it will make Microsoft a priority target to pressure the company to end its support for Israel's campaign, following reporting about the Israeli military's use of Microsoft's AI and cloud services.
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DHS Official Explicitly Equates Protest to Terrorism in 'Stunning' Interview
"This is one of the most chilling things I've heard a senior U.S. official say."
Mar 13, 2025
In an interview with one of the top officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, NPR's Michel Martin sought to gain clarity about the agency's reasoning for arresting former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil last week—but Troy Edgar provided no supporting evidence of specific offenses committed by Khalil, who has not been charged with a crime, and suggested his mere participation in "pro-Palestinian activity" was sufficient to order his deportation.
Edgar, the deputy homeland security secretary, repeatedly alleged that Khalil was in the U.S. on a visa, despite Martin correcting him and clarifying that the Algerian citizen is a legal permanent resident of the country with a green card—until it was reportedly revoked under the Trump administration's "catch and revoke" program targeting international students who protest the government's pro-Israel policy.
The Trump administration has accused Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, of leading "activities aligned to Hamas" and protests where pro-Hamas propaganda was distributed, but officials have provided no evidence that he's provided support to Hamas or other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
A White House official this week toldThe Free Press that Khalil is not being accused of breaking any laws, but is rather "a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States," and Edgar's comments to Martin offered further evidence evidence that DHS is working to deport Khalil without accusing him of a crime.
"He is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism," said Edgar. "So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization."
But Edgar was unable to point to specific "terrorist activity" that Khalil was supporting when he helped lead Palestinian solidarity protests at Columbia, where students occupied a building and displayed a banner labeling it Hind's Hall in honor of a six-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and negotiated with administrators to end the school's investment in companies that benefit from Israel's policies in Palestine.
"How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?" Martin pressed.
"Well, I think you can see it on TV, right?" Edgar replied. "This is somebody that we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity."
Martin then repeatedly asked whether criticism of the U.S. government, which is the largest international funder of the Israeli military and has backed its assault on Gaza, and protesting are deportable offenses.
"Let me put it this way, Michel, imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, 'I want a student visa.' They asked him, 'What are you going to do here?' And he says, 'I'm going to go and protest.' We would have never let him into the country," said Edgar. "I think if he would have declared he's a terrorist, we would have never let him in."
Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), called the interview "stunning" and said Edgar's "conflation of protest and terrorism stopped me cold."
The interview, said Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, serves as the latest confirmation from the Trump administration that "Mahmoud Khalil's arrest has no basis."
The interview was released the same day that more than 100 people were arrested at a sit-in led by Jewish Voice of Peace at Trump Tower in New York City, demanding Khalil's release. His arrest has sparked outcry from progressives in Congress, local lawmakers including New York mayoral candidate and state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani, legal experts, and the human rights group Amnesty International.
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