It sits in the Village, the corner of Varick and Houston and, according to today's New York Times, few people are aware of its existence. No, people don't go there in pursuit of some fetishistic fantasy. They are taken there by the immigration authorities and held under conditions deemed illegal and inhuman.
This oubliette is part of "A disjointed mix of county jails and privately run prisons where mistreatment and medical neglect have been widely documented, the detention network churns roughly 400,000 detainees through 32,000 beds each year. Any attempt to get support or services for them is stymied because you don’t know where they’re going to end up,” said Lynn M. Kelly, the director of the Justice Center."
Suffering? Untold. Exploitation? Let the Times tell us, "Recurrent complaints include frigid temperatures, mildew and meals that leave detainees hungry and willing to clean for $1 a day to pay for commissary food. That wage is specified in the contract with the Alaskan company, which budgeted 23,000 days of such work the first year, and collects a daily rate of $227.68 for each detainee."
I for one am ashamed
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