Week ending March 28, 2025
It ain't easy being optimistic, but I'm trying. I promise.
Finite Disappointment
Those who know me are aware that I'm not an optimist by nature. But with massive fires burning 25,000 acres just to our south, Florida retaking its title as the fraud capital of the United States (Miami Metro being the epicenter of said fraud), an ICE detention center here making international news for its inhumane treatment of detainees, a man probably emboldened by Florida's former law that seems to encourage driving cars into protestors driving his car into protestors (a judge blocked the very real law), the Florida Governor advocating for child labor, and people fleeing the Miami Metro by the thousands each year, it isn't easy finding positive things to write about.
I wrote the above sentence on Tuesday. By Friday the Miami Herald was still on the Krome Detention Center, where people slated for deportation are being crammed. Needless to say, staying on one story longer than one news cycle is almost newsworthy by itself.
One woman, who spoke with the Miami Herald on the phone from Honduras, said she and fellow detainees were left in shackles and chains on buses overnight, so long that some urinated on themselves. She said she was put in a cell with about 30 women before she was deported. “It was cold like you can’t imagine,” said the woman, who asked to be identified only by her middle name, Isabel, to protect family members in the U.S. “Sometimes we spent hours screaming, ‘We’re thirsty, we’re thirsty!”
From a Miami New Times article on what the Krome facility is, exactly:
Krome is privately run by Akima Infrastructure Protection, a massive federal government contractor, under a $685 million contract. Its facilities, including Krome, have long faced allegations of human rights abuses...Krome has been the subject of troubling allegations of detainee abuse since its opening in the early 1980s.
Most recently, in 2020, Muslim detainees at the facility said they were being forced to choose between eating pork or rotten halal meat. In 2021, nine Black immigrants, among them five Haitians, alleged a disturbing pattern of anti-Black racism and abuse at Krome, which included claims of discrimination and disparity in decisions on who gets released. That same year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) office of civil rights and civil liberties launched an investigation into complaints of inadequate medical and mental healthcare, sexual abuse and assault prevention, and environmental health and safety issues.
Despite this, in 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Akima, the people who operate the Krome facility, a new contract to run Guantanamo Migration Operations Center.
One of the people most responsible for the surge of deportations through Krome is a local man, a professor at FIU and, until relatively recently, a city council member for the City of South Miami. The people in South Florida getting swept up and imprisoned under conditions so inhumane if it were any other country in the world we'd expect the Secretary of State to say chastise that other country. Yet, Marco Rubio, that former South Miami City Council member, is bragging about the number of visas he's revoked.
Of course, Rubio was a US House member and then Senator from Florida and as such it's worth noting that he and another former member of the House of Representatives for Florida, Mark Walz, are headliners for Signalgate. All of this is quite depressing and disappointing.
Anyway, I took my youngest out to Biscayne National Park this week and snapped the above photo of the nuclear power plant just authorized to become the oldest nuclear power plant in the world--decades past its operational life expectancy.
At least I can say I've been published in the Miami Herald. So I've got that thing going for me, which is nice.
Historic Interlude
On March 27, 1513, the original ponce, Ponce de Leon, sighted what he thought was an island in the distance. He had sailed from the easternmost island of the Antilles, which had fresh water, Puerto Rico, looking for the island of Bimini. What Ponce had actually "discovered" for Europeans, was a peninsula. He called the place "La Florida," probably because the end of March was called pascua florida, that is, festival of flowers, and the land he looked at was filled with flowers. As is often the case, my main source for the above, which I'm paraphrasing this week, is This Day in Florida History.
Infinite Hope
Spring in South Florida marks the end of the growing season, not the beginning. Soon, instead of dry weather with the potential for wildfires, we'll have daily afternoon downpours that bring with them intense heat and humidity. As the walls of this trash compactor close in I try to do what I can to make life better for other people around me.
This is why I wrote a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald that was published this week. It is also why it was intended for my US House Representative, Maria Elvira Salizar.
I appreciate U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar trying to defend Temporary Protective Status (TPS) recipients. I respect the needle she needs to thread to advocate for her constituents while avoiding the ire of President Trump and a Musk-funded primary challenge. Still, she and the Miami Herald must bring up the consequences of the last time the United States invoked the Alien Enemies Act. Executive Order 9066 led to the internment of people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States in 1942. It also led to President Ronald Reagan signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which authorized more than $3 billion in taxpayer dollars for reparations to the 82,219 targets of that order. For an administration supposedly trying to save the United States money, when combining the monumental costs of deporting many more people than the U.S. imprisoned in internment camps during World War II, and with the potential $15 billion in reparations this may trigger, one doesn’t need a heart to see that a likely outcome is another costly waste of taxpayer money. --from my letter to the editor on March 24, 2025
Salizar, though showering Elon Musk with praise (apparently, you should be grateful if Musk eliminated your job!) and trying to dismiss Signalgate as unimportant (it is important and she of all people knows it is), is one of the few Republicans to stand up to Trump when it comes to immigration. Her standing up for her constituents gives me hope.
On Friday, while volunteering with People Acting for Community Together, I spoke with Nathan Kogan, the Interim Director of Housing and Community Development, and two other county officials. Their knowledge and passion for creating a Miami-Dade County that is for everyone gives me (cautious) hope. Hopefully, Mr. Kogan will become the permanent Director of Housing and Community Development. I was one of nine PACT members in the meeting. It was great seeing the community in action. I encourage anyone reading this to get involved locally with a grassroots organization.
Bird
