I know very few of the people reading this will be genuinely surprised that MSNBC published a ridiculous, historically insulting piece, but this one is bad enough that I couldn’t not respond to it. We’ve all read a lot of bad takes in political commentary, but this op-ed comparing the Everglades detention facility to Nazi concentration camps and Japanese American internment camps crosses a line that should concern anyone who values serious policy discussion.
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The piece, titled “Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp,” makes a comparison so historically inappropriate that it undermines the very real immigration policy debates we need to have in this country.
The Fundamental Difference That Matters
Here’s what the author either doesn’t understand or chooses to ignore: there’s a fundamental legal and moral distinction between detaining people who entered the country illegally and systematically imprisoning legal citizens