Maddow Warns Trump Detention Centers Could Target Americans

Clear Facts

• Rachel Maddow claimed on The Daily Show that Trump administration immigration detention centers could eventually hold American citizens.
• The Department of Homeland Security canceled a planned 10,000-bed immigration facility in Social Circle, Georgia, following local opposition.
• White House spokesman Davis Ingle dismissed Maddow’s concerns as Trump Derangement Syndrome and called Jon Stewart a talentless hack.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow warned during an appearance on The Daily Show that immigration detention centers planned under President Donald Trump could eventually be used to hold American citizens.

She pointed to the canceled 10,000-bed facility in Social Circle, Georgia, as an example of the administration’s approach to holding thousands without trial.

“Social circle stood up for itself,” Maddow said. “You know, people all over the country where Trump wanted to put these mega prisons, these were huge warehouses to hold people by the thousands. Places that would hold five, six, seven, ten, 14,000 people, all without trial, held indefinitely.”

Host Jon Stewart echoed her concerns, arguing that many of those detained for immigration violations face only civil issues rather than serious criminal charges.

“These are people who overstayed a student visa or are here on a green card but got a parking ticket, like ticky-tack s— that normally would be treated civilly,” he said.

Maddow suggested that the detention centers could eventually hold more than just illegal immigrants.

“No, I’m sorry, with a president like this, if you give him seven to ten prisons around the country that hold 10,000 people each, where he can hold people without trial, without access to lawyers, indefinitely, you think he’s only going to leave immigrants in there?” she asked.

“I just don’t,” Maddow concluded. “I think that what they first do to immigrants, they want to do to the rest of us.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle strongly rejected the claims, calling Stewart a “talentless hack who clearly suffers from a severe and debilitating disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain and ruined his life to the point he has to compensate for his embarrassing inadequacies.”

Former RNC national spokesperson Elizabeth Pipko dismissed the narrative as an attempt to conflate legal immigrants with those in the country illegally.

“There is a difference. Immigrants came to this country legally, built lives here and became proud American citizens,” Pipko said. “They are not targets for deportation or arrest by immigration officers. Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart both know that.”

“This is an attempt to go viral and to push a political narrative against a president she doesn’t like, regardless of who suffers along the way. It’s selfish and evil, and, worst of all, she knows it but does it anyway,” she added.

Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.