Fall LC thread

That story is so terrible. Mods just delete this if I’m not allowed to crib it. I think it’s important and everyone should read it.

The Connors family didn’t plan to be on the unmarked road.

Originally from the United Kingdom, the two couples and their three young children were driving near the U.S.-Canada border on Oct. 3 during a visit to Vancouver when an animal ventured into the road, forcing them to make an unexpected detour. But before the family could get very far, flashing lights from a police car appeared in their rearview mirror. The officer that pulled them over was American — they had accidentally crossed the border.

The vacationing family says this was the moment their trip turned into “the scariest experience of our lives,” according to a complaint filed Friday to the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. Instead of being allowed to return to Canada or the U.K., Eileen Connors alleges that her entire family, including her 3-month-old son, ended up detained at the Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pa., where they have spent more than a week living in “frigid” and “filthy” conditions. As of late Monday, Bridget Cambria, the Connorses’ lawyer, told The Washington Post that the British family was still at the center waiting to be deported.

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“We will never forget, we will be traumatized for the rest of our lives by what the United States government has done to us,” Connors wrote in a sworn statement, later adding, “We have been treated like criminals here, stripped of our rights, and lied to. … It is undoubtedly the worst experience we have ever lived through.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection could not be reached for comment late Monday. Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed in a statement to The Post on Tuesday that the family is being held at the Leesport facility but disputed their claims of mistreatment. The center, the statement said, “provides a safe and humane environment for families as they go through the immigration process.”

“Reports of abuse or inhumane conditions at BFRC are unequivocally false,” officials said.

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Connors, however, alleges that the mistreatment began shortly after her family was stopped by the American officer.

Even before the tourists could explain why they were on the road, Connors, 24, wrote that her 30-year-old husband David and his cousin, who was driving at the time, were arrested.

“You crossed an international border,” said the officer, who allegedly did not read the men their rights and ignored the family’s pleas that they had unknowingly crossed into the United States and never intended to enter the country during their trip, despite having the proper visas. The complaint did not specify exactly where the incident took place.

The family asked if they could “simply turn around” and were denied, Connors wrote.

Connors and her baby were separated from her husband and placed in “a very cold cell” at an undisclosed Border Patrol station in Washington state, the statement said. Cambria, a lawyer with Aldea - The People’s Justice Center in Pennsylvania, told The Post that the frigid detention cells have a nickname: “Hieleras,” or “iceboxes.”

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The Connorses were issued “metal-like, thin emergency blankets” to keep warm, according to the complaint. David Connors was also given a foam cup with noodle soup to eat, but he described the meager meal as “not even apt for animals,” the statement said.

Then, all they could do was wait, Eileen Connors wrote.

“The officers left us in the cell the entire day, with no information, no call to our family back home, no idea when we would be free to leave,” Connors wrote.

When it came time to sleep, Connors said she refused to allow her son to “lie on the disgusting floor” next to her, at one point even trying to balance the infant on top of her body.

“We are so sickened by all of this,” she wrote. “The idea and memory of our little baby having to sleep on a dirty floor of a cell will haunt us forever.”

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In the morning, immigration officers told the Connorses that they could be released if they provided contact information for any family member living in the United States who could sponsor them, the statement said. Luckily, a relative with U.S. citizenship agreed to help.

“We were ready for all of this to end,” Connors wrote.

But hours later, the Connorses were informed that they wouldn’t be leaving. There was “a change in plans,” and soon after, they were loaded into a van in what “felt like an abduction or kidnapping,” according to the statement.

David Connors was dropped off at the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, while Eileen Connors and her baby were taken to a Red Roof Inn in Seattle to spend the night.

They were reunited the next morning at a promising location: the Seattle airport.

“I thought, finally we’re going home and felt relieved, even though the officers would not tell me where we were going or why,” Eileen Connors wrote.

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But her relief was short-lived.

When the Connorses got off their flight, they were in Pennsylvania. Their destination was the Berks Family Residential Center, a facility advocates have decried as “baby jail,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The arrival of the Connorses and their infant son on Oct. 5 marked “the first time in a long time that we’ve had a child under the age of 1 in this facility,” Cambria told The Post. The other couple, who had been traveling with the Connorses, and their 2-year-old twins were also transported to Berks, Cambria said.

“I don’t believe that it’s suitable for children that young because newborns probably shouldn’t be around a hundred other kids all of whom are coming from different parts of the world,” she said, adding, “There were a lot silly decisions made along the way. In this instance, when you’re talking about a 3-month-old, those silly decisions can be really dangerous.”

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From the moment she and her family were placed in the “iceboxes” in Washington state, Connors wrote, she worried that her son, who has not yet completed his immunizations, might fall ill. Those concerns were only heightened once they were at the Berks center.

Connors alleged that she had to bathe her son on a couch inside an office using a washcloth and soap because he was too small for the showers. The baby bathtub she had been provided was “filthy dirty and had broken bits,” she wrote. Her son was also left without clothing, blankets or bibs for several hours because the center’s staff took the items to be washed, the statement said.

“The blankets and sheets in our room have a disgusting smell, like a dead dog,” Connors wrote. “I cannot use them to wrap up my baby for fear they haven’t been washed properly and my baby will become sick.”

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On Friday, Connors wrote that her baby “woke up with his left eye swollen and teary” and his skin was “rough and blotchy.” Officials told the Connorses that their son was “a bit young” to be at the center, and if they wanted they could sign papers allowing him to be separated from them, the statement said.

“We were shocked and disgusted at the thought of our baby being taken from us, and ever since I cannot sleep thinking that someone might come in and take him from me,” Connors wrote.

Beyond the alleged living conditions, the Connorses also claim that they were not given an opportunity to call their embassy, instead relying on family members to reach out on their behalf. In the statement, Eileen Connors wrote that she only learned that the embassy had tried to contact her and her family while they were detained on Oct. 7, accusing the center’s staff of not passing along the message until it was too late in the day to call back.

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After getting in touch with the embassy, Connors wrote that her family’s situation started to improve. She observed staff members cleaning the facility and she was given a playpen and little tub for her son, according to the statement. ICE officials also suggested that the family would get to go home in the near future but did not provide details, Connors wrote.

On Monday, Cambria told The Post that the Connorses were “hopeful they’re leaving as soon as” Tuesday.

While there have been other cases as recently as last year of people getting detained after accidentally crossing the U.S.-Canada border, Cambria said she was most bothered by “the extreme level of enforcement exhibited” toward the vacationing family and their young children.

A jogger accidentally crossed into the U.S. from Canada and was detained for two weeks

“Emotionally and psychologically, they’re destroyed,” Cambria said. “They’re very upset about what’s happened to them because it doesn’t make sense. Anyone that reads their statement or hears their story will not understand how this could’ve possibly happened.”

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Wow. That is 100x worse that I was expecting. Ugh

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I agree with you. I don’t think we are otherwise discussing the same thing, though. Imposter syndrome, like DK, is a kind of pathological insecurity. It’s not the same thing as healthy humility about your perspective and the limits of knowledge, just as DK is not a healthy confidence in what you know with reasonable certainty.

I would agree except that the arrogance of the elites wrt their own blind spots is pretty staggering. That and the fact that Warren is running an absolutely fantastic campaign with very little input from conventional campaign experts. I think that there was a time when they were right but they are all relying on outdated models to fight the last war.

But yeah obviously most of us don’t have much in the way of first hand political experience. I was very active when I was younger with the Obama campaign, have a degree in econ (ok I’m a class short, I quit to get the job I have now), and have been following politics like most red blooded American males follow sports since I was a small child… so I don’t feel comfortable giving the ‘experts’ blanket confidence.

In particular this is because calls to authority used to be one of my own big blind spots. Blind spots that got exposed bigly in the financial crisis and more recently in 2016 politically. I now religiously do my own work when talking about things like investments, politics, or business ventures. I didn’t used to understand why Warren Buffett hated stock tips until just a few years ago. Now I 100% understand it. I’m almost totally uninterested in business ideas I didn’t generate myself now… and if it’s too complicated for me to understand for some reason I just opt out. Trusting other people to do my thinking for me has a very poor track record for me at least.

Is it OK if I state upfront that I hate CBP, ICE, and DHS, absolutely believe it is possible for that story to be a very accurate and complete accounting of events, while also suspecting that it actually omits some key details that might make us a bit less sympathetic to the UK couple?

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Surely there are areas you consider undeserving of such a standard, though. Or such that it simply would not be your preferred use of your personal resources. I assume you trust the expertise of microwave and car engineers, for example (assuming that’s not your area of expertise).

I can only go all in on a couple of things in my lifetime. I just accept there are lots of things I will never be an expert on and will turn to experts to explain, such as with climate science. Not because I don’t necessarily have the ability to become an expert. I just have no interest given that life itself seems to be a limited resource.

For sure. Some of the complaints come from a place of privilege and just point out some realities.

However there are some really broken parts to all this in how they process all of it. From the initial encounter to flying them across country for indeterminate detention.

I don’t think anyone should be experiencing those issues. I am not one who thinks the conditions themselves are that big of a deal, relatively speaking.

I would say that it seems the entire system has no process or procedures for dealing with newborns and that is pretty messed up.

Agree, and I would even go so far to say that if there were additional details painting the UK folks in a less flattering light it was probably correct to omit them since the focus is and should be on their treatment once they were in custody.

But I still can’t help reading that story and thinking, “Um, yeah. I bet there’s a a couple missing plot points here.”

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https://mobile.twitter.com/sbanjo/status/1184070619693907968

Gladwell isn’t as bad as y’all say and Lewis isn’t as good.

I would love it if everyone who enforced the law against the Conners and against the thousands of Hispanics who are treated the same way just moved to another planet.

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I’ll have to check it out. I met Michael Lewis once at some charity event I was able to attend through my work and he signed a copy of Liar’s Poker and one other book of his I had with me.

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Please go on. I’d like to hear your perspective on them.

My take is not that controversial or interesting Imo. Gladwell addresses some interesting topics and turns what should be a magazine article into a book. See Blink!

Lewis overdoes it making interesting and smart people into God geniuses who have thoughts that couldn’t possibly occur to mere mortals: see The Undoing Project.

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It’s interesting to me as a component of getting to know you. Your perspective doesn’t need to be all that different from anyone else’s for me to be interested.

You almost can’t overstate the importance of Kahneman and Tversky’s work.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNN/status/1184240311943475200

https://mobile.twitter.com/CNN/status/1184240311943475200
Hope this means Jordan Peterson won’t be flying to the US anymore

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What is potential additional information that could come out where we would have to reevaluate their treatment?

That’s it the end of civilization as we know it. Think of all the babies that will now be raped in bathrooms!

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