No Soap For you

The accusation that detention centers holding migrant children are concentration camps doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being compared to Nazi death camps. But, there are definitely some soap Nazis among Customs and Border Protection.

In fact, this week, the Trump administration went to court to argue that migrant children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be held in “safe and sanitary” conditions. Hell, they even argued that forcing minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells, CELLS, with low temperatures also fulfilled the “safe and sanitary” requirement.

News broke this week that there are not enough diapers for the babies currently held by the Trump administration (which would make sense if the big orange baby requires them all). Also, children are being forced to care for toddlers. There are toddlers sitting around in urine-soaked onesies. There is a lack of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap. Showers and baths are extremely rare for the children detained by Donald Trump.

In addition to all that, the government is doing all it can to prevent the public from discovering what it’s like inside these detention centers. The press and even elected representatives have been barred from entering many of the facilities.

But, we’re not supposed to call them “concentration camps.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the GOP’s current favorite punching bag because she’s liberal, young, smarter than them, female, brown and from New York City, is catching a lot of heat for describing the detention centers as “concentration camps.” She’s not backing down. She shouldn’t.

Not all concentration camps were death camps. During World War II, the term “Internment” was used for the camps holding American citizens of Japanese descent, but they were concentration camps.

Many of Trump’s defenders argue that these detention centers don’t meet the requirement for the tag of “concentration.” They argue that most concentration camps are under dictatorships, meanwhile, Trump threatened to jail a reporter yesterday for taking a picture.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “concentration camp” as “a camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.”

If that description doesn’t fit these centers, then I don’t know what does.

The fact is, they are concentration camps. The problem is, most Americans don’t want to live in a country that allows them, so they will never admit they exist. Problem. The United States of America under Donald Trump has concentration camps and they’re full of babies.

For what it’s worth, the Nazis never told their citizens about their concentration camps either. They just handed them the soap.

Update: The rough. This was the original idea, which I came up with a few days ago. It was included with all the other roughs for this week’s CNN cartoon. After the story came out about the conditions at the centers, I gave up on it and went with the above idea. I like the new one much better.

Be Complicit

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Watch Me Draw.