Trump Just Closed the Only Office Investigating ICE Abuse. Their Response: “Detention Is a Choice”

I provide this Substack to everyone without paywalls because information is power. But if you like what you see, consider becoming a paid subscriber. The Trump administration shut down the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman this week, the only office legally required by Congress to investigate abuse and handle complaints in ICE detention facilities. The office had over 100 employees when Trump took office. By December it had five. This week it has zero. 30 people died in ICE custody last year, the deadliest year in two decades. 18 have already died this year. Use of force against detainees is up 54%. ICE is currently holding about 60,000 people on any given day and has a mandate to arrest and remove 1 million people a year. They’re building toward 100,000 detention beds - not for border security, but to have somewhere to put everyone they haven’t gotten to yet. Lawsuits allege unsanitary cells, measles outbreaks, children being medically mistreated, people held for months without lawyers. Every oversight body is gone - the civil rights office gutted, the detainee complaint office eliminated, the ombudsman closed. And DHS’s official response to conditions in their facilities is: “detention is a choice.” This from the same administration that tells women they can’t make decisions about their own bodies. My dude, detention is not a choice. But apparently accountability is. Because they just closed the office that was legally required to provide it. Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe