From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/21/2026 8:43 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   > NY Times,   
   > February 21, 2026   
   >   
   > By Jamelle Bouie   
   >   
   > For the past month or so, I’ve been writing about the abysmal   
   > conditions in ICE detention centers. Last week, I argued that you   
   > could use the term “concentration camp” to describe the system the   
   > Trump administration is using to seize and detain immigrants, legal or   
   > otherwise.   
   >   
   Give us a break!   
      
   Undocumented immigrants and children were held in detention facilities   
   with chain-link enclosures, sometimes referred to as "cages," during the   
   Obama administration.   
      
   A federal judge in 2015 ruled that the Obama administration's prolonged   
   detention of mothers and children in these secure, prison-like facilities.   
      
   During Barack Obama's presidency (fiscal years 2009–2016), his   
   administration deported more than 2.7 million people.   
      
   Some analyses and reports, including those from immigrant rights groups   
   and news organizations covering the full two terms, have cited this   
   number as being as high as 3 million or more, depending on whether the   
   figures include only formal removals or also voluntary returns.   
    > > Both to expand on that point and to bring in a broader perspective, I   
   > spoke to Andrea Pitzer, author of “One Long Night: A Global History of   
   > Concentration Camps.” Pitzer also tackled this question of   
   > identification in a recent piece for her newsletter, “Degenerate Art.”   
   > As we spoke about her argument, we tried to place the White House’s   
   > relentless drive to expand immigration detention in a larger context.   
   > Our conversation covers quite a bit of ground. If, in particular, you   
   > want to learn more about the United States’ 19th and 20th century   
   > imperial expansion, let me recommend two books, both by journalists.   
   > The first, by Spencer Ackerman, is “Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era   
   > Destabilized America and Produced Trump.” And the second, by Jonathan   
   > Katz, is “Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and   
   > the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire.”   
   >   
   > Hi, Andrea. First, could you introduce yourself?   
   > My name is Andrea Pitzer, and I am a journalist as well as the author   
   > of a few books. I think probably the most important one in this moment   
   > is “One Long Night, A Global History of Concentration Camps.”   
   >   
   > You recently wrote an essay for your newsletter called “What Counts as   
   > a ‘Concentration Camp’?,” in relation to the use of the term to   
   > describe the ICE detention facilities. What prompted you to write this   
   > particular piece?   
   >   
   > I think there is a lot of concern that I see from different   
   > communities, certainly from the Jewish community in the U.S. and   
   > abroad, that when people start trying to compare the Holocaust to   
   > anything, they’re doing so out of antisemitism. It is a natural   
   > response to say, “Wait, wait, wait” — are you diminishing this   
   > historical event in some way? And my point is always: absolutely not.   
   > If there is a plain of concentration camps over 130 years in the world   
   > on six continents, Auschwitz is this tower that kind of looms above   
   > all of them. So, it is critical that we keep that in mind because that   
   > shows us where it’s possible for humanity to go. My work has been   
   > about, “How did we get to that point and how do we keep from returning   
   > to it?”   
   >   
   > Now, we are really directly replicating a bunch of that history. And I   
   > think it’s become more and more important that we use that term to   
   > just to really bring information and educate people about how closely   
   > we are following history.   
   >   
   > So let’s talk about that history for a moment. When does the   
   > concentration camp emerge as a technique for how governments manage   
   > populations?   
   >   
   > One thing that’s important to get out of the way up front is that   
   > without centuries of colonialism and imperial rule, particularly the   
   > British and the Spanish, a lot of it in the Americas, but also in   
   > Africa and Asia, you don’t get to modern concentration camps. Native   
   > American genocide also relates to similar kinds of displacement and   
   > detention. But the modern concentration camp, for the purposes of my   
   > book, starts in the 1890s. And it only becomes possible due to the   
   > invention, mass production and patenting of barbed wire and automatic   
   > weapons. So suddenly you can hold a lot of people with a very small   
   > guard force.   
   >   
   > That starts with Spanish rule in Cuba in the 1890s, putting down   
   > insurrection and very quickly appears again in South Africa with the   
   > British during the Second Boer War, where they’re rounding up   
   > civilians. And that’s a critical thing to say about who is getting   
   > held in these kinds of camps. These are not prisoner of war camps.   
   > It’s the mass detention of civilians without due process on the basis   
   > of identities — political, religious, racial, ethnic. And almost   
   > always it is done to expand or entrench political power.   
   >   
   > When do Americans enter this story?   
   >   
   > Unfortunately, the United States does it very early in the history of   
   > these modern camps. We see it in the Philippines at the turn of the   
   > 20th century. Ironically, and this is something that’s been lost to   
   > history, but I go into in my book quite a bit, the reason that America   
   > backed that war against Spain in 1898 was because of the images of   
   > these earliest concentration camps that they had been presented with.   
   > Americans were horrified with what Spain was doing in Cuba and that   
   > provided a lot of impetus for the war.   
   >   
   > We won that war very quickly. We took over the Philippines. I’m   
   > condensing a lot of history here, obviously. This is a very simple   
   > version of it. But after some question of whether we had promised the   
   > Philippines their independence, we did not give them their   
   > independence. And we wound up with an insurrection on our hands as an   
   > imperial power. And we immediately, after denouncing concentration   
   > camps as something that, for example, President William McKinley said   
   > would lead to nothing but “the wilderness and the grave,” the U.S., in   
   > fact, installed those camps in the Philippines to put down that   
   > rebellion. So it was a very quick turn.   
   >   
   > This is a bit of a sidebar, but the Philippine war and the Philippine   
   > occupation, the Spanish-American War, are this kind of blank spot in   
   > popular memory, right? I bring this up because with the occupation of   
   > Iraq, the American experience in the Philippines was brought in to   
   > contextualize kind of some of what the United States is doing in the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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