theintercept--2020-05-22--The U.S. Brags About Health Aid to Africa While Bombing Some of Its Most Vulnerable Nations

spreading across the African continent in late March , the U.S. State Department took to Twitter to boast about American health assistance there .
A March 25 tweet from the department highlighted more than $ 100 million in U.S. medical assistance to foreign countries , including in Africa , as evidence of America ’ s emphasis on mitigating “ endemic and emerging health threats ” and its “ long-term investment in the lives of Africans.
” When it comes to Africa , the messaging suggests , America ’ s focus is on saving lives , not ending them .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposite is true in the two African countries of greatest interest to the U.S. military : Libya and Somalia .
Since U.S. Africa Command became fully operational in 2008 , American troops have seen combat in more than a dozen African countries and conducted more than 1,500 air attacks , commando raids , and other ground missions in Libya and Somalia alone .
Yet these two countries , where U.S. forces have spent hundreds of millions on airstrikes , have fared especially poorly in terms of direct U.S. health assistance .
Libya and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries where the U.S. stands accused of killing civilians and failing to take responsibility for their deaths .
“ This sends an appalling message to the citizens of those countries — namely , that the U.S. cares more about propping up their governments than about helping people suffering on the ground there , ” said Daphne Eviatar , director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA .
“ The irony is that message will only encourage ill will toward the United States and U.S. forces , and ultimately fuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is fighting.
” has sought to portray AFRICOM as something more akin to the Peace Corps than a geographic combatant command like Central Command , which oversees U.S. military operations and war-making across the Greater Middle East .
A parade of top generals and boosters have promoted the idea that AFRICOM would wield soft power through a “ whole-of-government ” approach , partnering with civilian agencies to “ advance U.S. national interests ” on the African continent .
As a “ hybrid ” command , officials vowed , it would stand apart from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the world differently .
“ It is , at its heart , a different kind of command with a different orientation , ” said then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates at AFRICOM ’ s inauguration in 2008 , stressing that it would forge “ civilian-military partnerships.
” Earlier this year , in testimony before members of the House Appropriations Committee , AFRICOM ’ s chief , Gen. Stephen Townsend , was still touting the command ’ s “ whole-of-government ” mindset .
Problems like Covid-19 “ don ’ t really have military solutions ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development , Townsend said in March .
Two weeks later , the State Department ’ s Africa Media Hub tweeted about America ’ s focus on helping , rather than harming , Africans .
The tweet was accompanied by a color-coded map showing which African countries have received the most direct “ global health assistance ” from the United States since 2001 .
AFRICOM engages in six “ lines of effort ” — primary objectives to be accomplished over years of sustained military operations .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ networks , ” relate to general undertakings , but two target individual African nations : “ Develop security in Somalia ” and “ Contain instability in Libya.
” Of at least 13 African countries where U.S. forces have engaged in combat in the last decade , these nations have seen the U.S. military ’ s most intense ( Libya ) and sustained ( Somalia ) attacks .
The State Department maps also show that these two countries have received among the least U.S. health aid on the continent : less than $ 500,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 99 million for Somalia .
Since 9/11 , the U.S. has carried out more attacks in Libya , targeting militants associated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State , than anywhere but the war zones of the Greater Middle East .
The United States has conducted no fewer than 776 airstrikes — and likely far more — in the North African nation from 2011 to the present , according to figures provided to The Intercept by retired Air Force squadron commander Lt. Col. Gary Peppers and by Airwars , a U.K.-based airstrike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacks occurred during the Obama administration , which launched the first large spate of strikes in 2011 to support the rebels who ultimately ousted then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi .
That war shattered the Libyan state and turned the country into a haven for Islamist militants , leading to another surge in U.S. strikes in 2016 .
That summer , the fledgling post-Gaddafi regime — the Libyan Government of National Accord — asked for American help in dislodging ISIS fighters from Sirte .
The Obama administration designated the city an “ area of active @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent civilian casualties and allowing the U.S. military a freer hand in carrying out airstrikes .
Between August and December 2016 , according to a statement from AFRICOM , the U.S. carried out “ 495 precision airstrikes ” in the city .
In 2011 , President Barack Obama pledged that the United States would “ work with the international community to provide assistance to the people of Libya , who need food for the hungry and medical care for the wounded.
” Almost a decade later , medical care remains a challenge for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ a substantial proportion of health facilities [ are ] only partially operational or closed.
” The State Department ’ s recently tweeted maps highlight one of the reasons : almost nonexistent U.S. support .
Libya is one of only two countries to receive so little in direct American health assistance , according to government figures .
( The other is Tunisia , where U.S. troops have also been involved in combat in recent years , but whose relative stability sets it apart from its neighbor Libya . )
U.S. military has carried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the site of America ’ s longest-running air campaign outside the CENTCOM area of operations — and that war is escalating at an exponential rate under the Trump administration .
The United States has carried out more than 220 attacks in Somalia since 2007 , primarily aimed at the terrorist group al-Shabab .
There have already been more U.S. airstrikes in Somalia in 2020 than there were declared attacks by AFRICOM during the entire Obama presidency .
Add ground operations , and the number of total U.S. attacks in Somalia would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Gen. Donald Bolduc , who served as commander of Special Operations Command Africa from April 2015 to June 2017 , and Air Force files obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act .
There has been much speculation about U.S. troop drawdowns in Africa , and Covid-19 has paused or curtailed U.S. military deployments around the globe .
But the number of troops deployed in Somalia has hovered between 650 and 800 American personnel since last year , Manley said .
To house those forces and support hundreds of ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military has built an archipelago of outposts and bases across the country .
But experts say that what Somalia really needs are hospitals and clinics .
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , Somalia ’ s “ healthcare system is overburdened , fragmented , under-resourced and ill-equipped to provide lifesaving or preventive services.
” “ Somalia ’ s health indicators are among the worst in the world , ” the World Bank recently observed , “ and Covid-19 cases threaten to stretch a fragile healthcare system.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invest in the future of Somalia through the health of its people , ” Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari , the World Health Organization regional director for the eastern Mediterranean , said during a late 2019 visit to the country , where 3 million people are in need of health assistance .
Yet the United States has only invested $ 30 million in health assistance to Somalia over the last 19 years — less than it has given to 33 other countries on the continent , including Botswana ( $ 1.1 billion ) ; Eswatini @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( $ 365.5 million ) ; Namibia ( $ 970.5 million ) ; and Zambia ( $ 3.9 billion ) .
Those countries have received far less attention from the U.S. military — and no airstrikes .
U.S. attacks in Somalia have killed as many as 142 civilians since 2007 and up to 82 in Libya since late 2011 , according to Airwars .
Yet AFRICOM has admitted to killing only four civilians on the continent , two each in airstrikes in Somalia in 2018 and 2019 .
Despite its whole-of-government rhetoric , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the State Department and USAID was likely a key reason that Somali civilians have never received assistance , reparations , or compensation for deaths and injuries caused by U.S. airstrikes , Eviatar noted .
“ AFRICOM ’ s minimal presence on the ground in Somalia is also the reason they give for being unable to adequately investigate claims of civilian casualties , and they ’ ve made no effort to coordinate with State or USAID to do so , ” she told The Intercept .
to stand by our partners as we battle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the globe , ” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James Vechery , AFRICOM ’ s deputy chief , said recently as the command drew attention to training and equipment provided to four African nations to enable them to set up and operate mobile hospitals .
“ The effort highlights a whole-of-government approach , aimed at ensuring African partners are educated , resourced , and supported to contain the spread of the virus , ” reads a recent AFRICOM news release .
But neither Somalia nor Libya , nor any of the other 11 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in combat in recent years , received any of that assistance .
The second version of the State Department ’ s Global Health Assistance map was accompanied by the claims that that the United States is “ leading the world ’ s humanitarian & health assistance response to the COVID-19 pandemic ” and that U.S. investment in Africa “ increases local access to and delivery of health services.
” This map , too , spotlights the neglect for the “ delivery of health services ” in countries that have borne the brunt of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reference laboratories supported by PEPFAR , the President ’ s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief , not one is located in either Libya or Somalia .
In fact , only five of the 29 labs can be found in countries where the United States has been engaged in combat in recent years : two in Kenya and one each in Cameroon , the Democratic Republic of Congo , and South Sudan .
In March , USAID announced an initial commitment of $ 37 million from its Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious Diseases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seven of them were in Africa , and they did not include Libya or Somalia .
Only one — Kenya — was the site of recent U.S. combat .
Last month , the State Department and USAID announced nearly $ 508 million in emergency health , humanitarian , and economic assistance to “ support critical activities to control the spread ” of the coronavirus .
Together , Libya and Somalia are receiving 3.6 percent of the total Covid-19 response funds , or $ 18.6 million .
By comparison , Italy — which has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than either nation and hasn ’ t borne U.S. attacks since the 1940s — will receive $ 50 million .
Other contemporary U.S. battlegrounds include Afghanistan ( more than $ 18 million ) ; Iraq ( more than $ 25.6 million ) ; and Syria ( almost $ 18 million ) .
All of those countries outpaced Libya ( $ 6 million ) and Somalia ( nearly $ 12.5 million ) .
The U.S. has since announced an additional $ 4 million in Covid-19 assistance for Somalia , but seemingly none for Libya @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Somalia this year .
Even if each strike involved just one missile , that ’ s roughly $ 4.7 million spent on munitions alone .
Add in a second $ 120,000 Hellfire missile , a portion of the cost of a $ 16 million MQ-9 Reaper drone , fuel , salaries for the pilot , sensor operator , and ground crew , and the costs of additional intelligence and surveillance assets for each strike , and the tab jumps exponentially .
Add the 188 prior attacks since 2007 by U.S. drones , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as naval bombardments and cruise missile strikes , and the costs skyrocket .
Tally the price of supporting Ethiopian , Kenyan , Somali , and Ugandan troops in hundreds of ground missions — including construction and operating costs of bases , provisions , and other materiel , contractor-flown helicopters , and the like — and expenses mount ever higher .
Then add a minimum of 776 airstrikes in Libya at just $ 120,000 each , and you ’ ve increased the tally by another $ 93 million .
“ It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been willing to conduct bombing campaigns in both Libya and Somalia , they ’ re willing to leave local populations behind in their response to a deadly pandemic and leave them even more vulnerable to the reach of extremist groups who gain traction by offering services , ” said Priyanka Motaparthy of the Columbia Law School ’ s Human Rights Institute .
The State Department and USAID did not respond to questions about the allocation of U.S. resources .
When The Intercept asked Dr. Meredith McMorrow , a medical officer in the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s influenza division based in South Africa , if money poured into U.S. counterterrorism activity in Africa would have been better spent on public health assistance , she sidestepped the question and noted that the U.S. has provided African nations with “ significant support in the past.
” Eviatar sees it another way : “ This just highlights the perverse nature of the United States ’ s so-called security assistance to Somalia and to Libya , which has consisted of killing people there , including untold numbers of civilians , while providing only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-being of those countries ’ populations .
”

As Covid-19 began spreading across the African continent in late March, the U.S. State Department took to Twitter to boast about American health assistance there. A March 25 tweet from the department highlighted more than $100 million in U.S. medical assistance to foreign countries, including in Africa, as evidence of America’s emphasis on mitigating “endemic and emerging health threats” and its “long-term investment in the lives of Africans.”
When it comes to Africa, the messaging suggests, America’s focus is on saving lives, not ending them. But a wealth of evidence reveals that the opposite is true in the two African countries of greatest interest to the U.S. military: Libya and Somalia.
Since U.S. Africa Command became fully operational in 2008, American troops have seen combat in more than a dozen African countries and conducted more than 1,500 air attacks, commando raids, and other ground missions in Libya and Somalia alone. Yet these two countries, where U.S. forces have spent hundreds of millions on airstrikes, have fared especially poorly in terms of direct U.S. health assistance.
Libya and Somalia are also the only two African countries where the U.S. stands accused of killing civilians and failing to take responsibility for their deaths. “This sends an appalling message to the citizens of those countries — namely, that the U.S. cares more about propping up their governments than about helping people suffering on the ground there,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA. “The irony is that message will only encourage ill will toward the United States and U.S. forces, and ultimately fuel support for the armed groups the U.S. is fighting.”
The U.S. military has sought to portray AFRICOM as something more akin to the Peace Corps than a geographic combatant command like Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations and war-making across the Greater Middle East.
A parade of top generals and boosters have promoted the idea that AFRICOM would wield soft power through a “whole-of-government” approach, partnering with civilian agencies to “advance U.S. national interests” on the African continent. As a “hybrid” command, officials vowed, it would stand apart from its war-fighting brethren and approach its corner of the world differently.
“It is, at its heart, a different kind of command with a different orientation,” said then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates at AFRICOM’s inauguration in 2008, stressing that it would forge “civilian-military partnerships.” Earlier this year, in testimony before members of the House Appropriations Committee, AFRICOM’s chief, Gen. Stephen Townsend, was still touting the command’s “whole-of-government” mindset. Problems like Covid-19 “don’t really have military solutions” and necessitate working with partners like the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, Townsend said in March.
Two weeks later, the State Department’s Africa Media Hub tweeted about America’s focus on helping, rather than harming, Africans. The tweet was accompanied by a color-coded map showing which African countries have received the most direct “global health assistance” from the United States since 2001.
The U.S. has offered over $100 million in medical assistance to foreign countries, incl. #African nations, to combat #COVID19. @USAID has invested over $1.1 billion dollars since 2009 to prevent, detect, & respond to endemic & emerging health threats. https://t.co/jZNfi5kn6M pic.twitter.com/1YClIwtLkp — US Africa Media Hub (@AfricaMediaHub) March 25, 2020
In April, the Africa Media Hub tweeted out an enhanced version of the map that included U.S.-funded national reference laboratories, whose core functions include supporting disease diagnosis and surveillance, as well as investigating outbreaks. The maps demonstrate that when it comes to the most militarily important countries on the continent, America’s synergistic whole-of-government approach to wielding soft power to achieve national security goals is more fantasy than reality.
The U.S. Govt is leading the world’s humanitarian & health assistance response to the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. govt agencies are working together to prioritize foreign assistance based on coordination & the potential for impact. More info: https://t.co/oiX1Rk7aEw pic.twitter.com/7u0guKmney — US Africa Media Hub (@AfricaMediaHub) April 10, 2020
AFRICOM engages in six “lines of effort” — primary objectives to be accomplished over years of sustained military operations. Most, such as “strengthen partner networks,” relate to general undertakings, but two target individual African nations: “Develop security in Somalia” and “Contain instability in Libya.” Of at least 13 African countries where U.S. forces have engaged in combat in the last decade, these nations have seen the U.S. military’s most intense (Libya) and sustained (Somalia) attacks.
The State Department maps also show that these two countries have received among the least U.S. health aid on the continent: less than $500,000 for Libya and between $500,000 and $99 million for Somalia.
Since 9/11, the U.S. has carried out more attacks in Libya, targeting militants associated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, than anywhere but the war zones of the Greater Middle East. The United States has conducted no fewer than 776 airstrikes — and likely far more — in the North African nation from 2011 to the present, according to figures provided to The Intercept by retired Air Force squadron commander Lt. Col. Gary Peppers and by Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group.
The bulk of those attacks occurred during the Obama administration, which launched the first large spate of strikes in 2011 to support the rebels who ultimately ousted then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. That war shattered the Libyan state and turned the country into a haven for Islamist militants, leading to another surge in U.S. strikes in 2016.
That summer, the fledgling post-Gaddafi regime — the Libyan Government of National Accord — asked for American help in dislodging ISIS fighters from Sirte. The Obama administration designated the city an “area of active hostilities,” loosening guidelines designed to prevent civilian casualties and allowing the U.S. military a freer hand in carrying out airstrikes. Between August and December 2016, according to a statement from AFRICOM, the U.S. carried out “495 precision airstrikes” in the city.
In 2011, President Barack Obama pledged that the United States would “work with the international community to provide assistance to the people of Libya, who need food for the hungry and medical care for the wounded.” Almost a decade later, medical care remains a challenge for Libyans because, according to USAID, “a substantial proportion of health facilities [are] only partially operational or closed.”
The State Department’s recently tweeted maps highlight one of the reasons: almost nonexistent U.S. support. Libya is one of only two countries to receive so little in direct American health assistance, according to government figures. (The other is Tunisia, where U.S. troops have also been involved in combat in recent years, but whose relative stability sets it apart from its neighbor Libya.)
While the U.S. military has carried out more airstrikes in Libya, Somalia is the site of America’s longest-running air campaign outside the CENTCOM area of operations — and that war is escalating at an exponential rate under the Trump administration. The United States has carried out more than 220 attacks in Somalia since 2007, primarily aimed at the terrorist group al-Shabab. There have already been more U.S. airstrikes in Somalia in 2020 than there were declared attacks by AFRICOM during the entire Obama presidency. Add ground operations, and the number of total U.S. attacks in Somalia would be even higher, according to retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who served as commander of Special Operations Command Africa from April 2015 to June 2017, and Air Force files obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act.
There has been much speculation about U.S. troop drawdowns in Africa, and Covid-19 has paused or curtailed U.S. military deployments around the globe. But the number of troops deployed in Somalia has hovered between 650 and 800 American personnel since last year, Manley said.
Photo: Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
To house those forces and support hundreds of ground missions over the years, the U.S. military has built an archipelago of outposts and bases across the country. But experts say that what Somalia really needs are hospitals and clinics. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Somalia’s “healthcare system is overburdened, fragmented, under-resourced and ill-equipped to provide lifesaving or preventive services.”
“Somalia’s health indicators are among the worst in the world,” the World Bank recently observed, “and Covid-19 cases threaten to stretch a fragile healthcare system.”
“I urge our donors … to invest in the future of Somalia through the health of its people,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, the World Health Organization regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, said during a late 2019 visit to the country, where 3 million people are in need of health assistance.
Yet the United States has only invested $30 million in health assistance to Somalia over the last 19 years — less than it has given to 33 other countries on the continent, including Botswana ($1.1 billion); Eswatini ($490 million); Guinea ($365.5 million); Namibia ($970.5 million); and Zambia ($3.9 billion). Those countries have received far less attention from the U.S. military — and no airstrikes.
U.S. attacks in Somalia have killed as many as 142 civilians since 2007 and up to 82 in Libya since late 2011, according to Airwars. Yet AFRICOM has admitted to killing only four civilians on the continent, two each in airstrikes in Somalia in 2018 and 2019.
Despite its whole-of-government rhetoric, AFRICOM’s failure to coordinate with the State Department and USAID was likely a key reason that Somali civilians have never received assistance, reparations, or compensation for deaths and injuries caused by U.S. airstrikes, Eviatar noted. “AFRICOM’s minimal presence on the ground in Somalia is also the reason they give for being unable to adequately investigate claims of civilian casualties, and they’ve made no effort to coordinate with State or USAID to do so,” she told The Intercept.
“We are proud to stand by our partners as we battle this deadly virus in Africa and around the globe,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James Vechery, AFRICOM’s deputy chief, said recently as the command drew attention to training and equipment provided to four African nations to enable them to set up and operate mobile hospitals. “The effort highlights a whole-of-government approach, aimed at ensuring African partners are educated, resourced, and supported to contain the spread of the virus,” reads a recent AFRICOM news release.
But neither Somalia nor Libya, nor any of the other 11 nations where the U.S. has been engaged in combat in recent years, received any of that assistance.
Photo: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP
The second version of the State Department’s Global Health Assistance map was accompanied by the claims that that the United States is “leading the world’s humanitarian & health assistance response to the COVID-19 pandemic” and that U.S. investment in Africa “increases local access to and delivery of health services.”
This map, too, spotlights the neglect for the “delivery of health services” in countries that have borne the brunt of American attacks. Of the 29 national reference laboratories supported by PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, not one is located in either Libya or Somalia. In fact, only five of the 29 labs can be found in countries where the United States has been engaged in combat in recent years: two in Kenya and one each in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.
In March, USAID announced an initial commitment of $37 million from its Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious Diseases for 25 “high-priority countries.” Only seven of them were in Africa, and they did not include Libya or Somalia. Only one — Kenya — was the site of recent U.S. combat.
Last month, the State Department and USAID announced nearly $508 million in emergency health, humanitarian, and economic assistance to “support critical activities to control the spread” of the coronavirus. Together, Libya and Somalia are receiving 3.6 percent of the total Covid-19 response funds, or $18.6 million. By comparison, Italy — which has a far more robust health care system than either nation and hasn’t borne U.S. attacks since the 1940s — will receive $50 million. Other contemporary U.S. battlegrounds include Afghanistan (more than $18 million); Iraq (more than $25.6 million); and Syria (almost $18 million). All of those countries outpaced Libya ($6 million) and Somalia (nearly $12.5 million). The U.S. has since announced an additional $4 million in Covid-19 assistance for Somalia, but seemingly none for Libya.
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AFRICOM has acknowledged conducting 39 airstrikes in Somalia this year. Even if each strike involved just one missile, that’s roughly $4.7 million spent on munitions alone. Add in a second $120,000 Hellfire missile, a portion of the cost of a $16 million MQ-9 Reaper drone, fuel, salaries for the pilot, sensor operator, and ground crew, and the costs of additional intelligence and surveillance assets for each strike, and the tab jumps exponentially.
Add the 188 prior attacks since 2007 by U.S. drones, AC-130 gunships, and attack helicopters, as well as naval bombardments and cruise missile strikes, and the costs skyrocket. Tally the price of supporting Ethiopian, Kenyan, Somali, and Ugandan troops in hundreds of ground missions — including construction and operating costs of bases, provisions, and other materiel, contractor-flown helicopters, and the like — and expenses mount ever higher. Then add a minimum of 776 airstrikes in Libya at just $120,000 each, and you’ve increased the tally by another $93 million.
“It’s astonishing that while the U.S. has been willing to conduct bombing campaigns in both Libya and Somalia, they’re willing to leave local populations behind in their response to a deadly pandemic and leave them even more vulnerable to the reach of extremist groups who gain traction by offering services,” said Priyanka Motaparthy of the Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute.
The State Department and USAID did not respond to questions about the allocation of U.S. resources. When The Intercept asked Dr. Meredith McMorrow, a medical officer in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influenza division based in South Africa, if money poured into U.S. counterterrorism activity in Africa would have been better spent on public health assistance, she sidestepped the question and noted that the U.S. has provided African nations with “significant support in the past.”
Eviatar sees it another way: “This just highlights the perverse nature of the United States’s so-called security assistance to Somalia and to Libya, which has consisted of killing people there, including untold numbers of civilians, while providing only minimal assistance to improve the health and well-being of those countries’ populations.”


theintercept--2020-05-22--Trump Hails "Good Bloodlines" of Henry Ford, Whose Anti-Semitism Inspired Hitler

In an apparent ad-lib , Trump looked up from his prepared remarks — which praised the firm for teaming up with General Electric to produce ventilators and face shields for medical workers — to observe that Henry Ford ’ s descendants , like the current chairman , Bill Ford , who had introduced the president , have “ good blood.
” Donald Trump ’ s campaign to change the subject from the coronavirus pandemic took a bizarre turn on Thursday , as the president paused during a speech at a Ford Motor Company plant in Michigan to praise the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the firm ’ s founder , Henry Ford , a notorious anti-Semite and favorite of Adolf Hitler .
“ The company founded by a man named Henry Ford , ” Trump ’ s prepared text appeared to say , “ teamed up with the company founded by Thomas Edison — that ’ s General Electric.
” But when Trump came to Ford ’ s name , he looked up from the text and observed : “ good bloodlines , good bloodlines — if you believe in that stuff , you got good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his own belief that he inherited everything from intelligence to an ability to withstand pressure through the “ great genes ” passed on to him by his parents and grandparents .
He has also frequently compared the importance of “ good bloodlines ” in humans to the breeding of champion racehorses , a view that overlaps in uncomfortable ways with those of eugenicists and racists like Ford .
“ I ’ m proud to have that German blood , ” Trump once told an interviewer .
“ You ’ ve all got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told British business leaders at a dinner in 2018 .
“ You ’ ve all got such amazing DNA.
” Trump has also frequently suggested that because his uncle , John Trump , taught for decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , he is similarly smart .
“ My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer , Dr. John Trump at MIT , ” Trump said at a South Carolina rally in 2015 .
Pointing at his right temple , he then added : “ Good genes , very good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Then in March , after he spoke to scientists working on the coronavirus response at the CDC in Atlanta , Trump told reporters : “ I like this stuff .
You know , my uncle was a great person .
He was at MIT , he taught at MIT for , I think , like a record number of years .
He was a great super genius .
Dr. John Trump .
I like this stuff .
I really get it .
People are surprised that I understand it… .
Every one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do you know so much about this ?
’ Maybe I have a natural ability.
” Trump also suggested on Thursday that Ford and Edison were both in heaven , “ looking down right now.
” The president ’ s belief that Ford , the only American singled out for praise in Hitler ’ s “ Mein Kampf , ” should be in heaven was a stark contrast to his sarcastic comment during a visit to Michigan in December that the late Democratic congressman , John Dingell , might be “ looking up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasons to believe that Henry Ford does not deserve a place in heaven is the fact that , as the writer Matthew Wills noted , starting in 1920 , “ Ford ’ s newspaper , the weekly Dearborn Independent , which was distributed through Ford dealers and sent free to schools and libraries around the country , published 90 anti-Semitic articles , later collected and distributed as a book called ‘ The International Jew . '
”

Donald Trump’s campaign to change the subject from the coronavirus pandemic took a bizarre turn on Thursday, as the president paused during a speech at a Ford Motor Company plant in Michigan to praise the “good bloodlines” of the family descended from the firm’s founder, Henry Ford, a notorious anti-Semite and favorite of Adolf Hitler.
In an apparent ad-lib, Trump looked up from his prepared remarks — which praised the firm for teaming up with General Electric to produce ventilators and face shields for medical workers — to observe that Henry Ford’s descendants, like the current chairman, Bill Ford, who had introduced the president, have “good blood.”
President Trump: "The company founded by a man named Henry Ford — good bloodlines, good bloodlines." pic.twitter.com/faCEBwDpwN — The Hill (@thehill) May 21, 2020
“The company founded by a man named Henry Ford,” Trump’s prepared text appeared to say, “teamed up with the company founded by Thomas Edison — that’s General Electric.” But when Trump came to Ford’s name, he looked up from the text and observed: “good bloodlines, good bloodlines — if you believe in that stuff, you got good blood.”
Trump has made no secret of his own belief that he inherited everything from intelligence to an ability to withstand pressure through the “great genes” passed on to him by his parents and grandparents. He has also frequently compared the importance of “good bloodlines” in humans to the breeding of champion racehorses, a view that overlaps in uncomfortable ways with those of eugenicists and racists like Ford.
“I’m proud to have that German blood,” Trump once told an interviewer. “You’ve all got such good bloodlines,” Trump reportedly told British business leaders at a dinner in 2018. “You’ve all got such amazing DNA.”
Trump has also frequently suggested that because his uncle, John Trump, taught for decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is similarly smart. “My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT,” Trump said at a South Carolina rally in 2015. Pointing at his right temple, he then added: “Good genes, very good genes — okay? — very smart.”
Then in March, after he spoke to scientists working on the coronavirus response at the CDC in Atlanta, Trump told reporters: “I like this stuff. You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT, he taught at MIT for, I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it…. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.”
Trump also suggested on Thursday that Ford and Edison were both in heaven, “looking down right now.” The president’s belief that Ford, the only American singled out for praise in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” should be in heaven was a stark contrast to his sarcastic comment during a visit to Michigan in December that the late Democratic congressman, John Dingell, might be “looking up” from hell.
Among the many reasons to believe that Henry Ford does not deserve a place in heaven is the fact that, as the writer Matthew Wills noted, starting in 1920, “Ford’s newspaper, the weekly Dearborn Independent, which was distributed through Ford dealers and sent free to schools and libraries around the country, published 90 anti-Semitic articles, later collected and distributed as a book called ‘The International Jew.'”
Victoria Saker Woeste, the author of “Henry Ford’s War on Jews and the Legal Battle Against Hate Speech,” explained that “the first article staked out the familiar anti-Semitic trope of ‘The Jew’ as ‘the world’s enigma. Poor in his masses, he yet controls the world’s finances,’ and was, ‘the power behind many a throne.'” The articles recapitulated and excerpted the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” for nearly 700,000 readers.
The collected articles were sold as a pamphlet, which was subsequently translated into German, and inspired Hitler’s praise for Ford in “Mein Kampf.” “It is Jews who govern the stock exchange forces of the American Union,” Hitler claimed, “only a single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full independence.”
The New York Times reported in 1922 that Ford’s importance to Hitler was very obvious. “The wall beside his desk in Hitler’s private office is decorated with a large picture of Henry Ford,” the newspaper’s Berlin correspondent observed. “In the ante-chamber there is a large table covered with books, nearly all of which are a translation of a book written and published by Henry Ford.”
Although Ford was eventually forced to sign a public apology for the articles in 1927, after being sued for libel in federal court by Aaron Sapiro, a Jewish-American activist smeared by his newspaper, he remained an anti-Semite and a favorite of the Nazis. In 1938, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest honor for foreigners, on the occasion of his 75th birthday. The two Nazi diplomats who pinned the medal on his chest also brought a personal message of congratulations from Hitler.
In 1940, Steven Watts recounted in “The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century,” Ford told the automobile editor of The Associated Press that he blamed the Jews, not Hitler, for the war in Europe. “I still think this is a phony war made by the international Jewish bankers,” Ford said, in remarks later reported by the automaker’s former personal secretary.
Trump’s praise of Ford on Thursday prompted Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, to demand an apology from the president for hailing a man who was “an antisemite and one of America’s staunchest proponents of eugenics.” “If he doesn’t know why,” Greenblatt added, the president should read his organization’s history of Ford’s role as an anti-Jewish propagandist.


theintercept--2020-05-23--Inside the Influential Evangelical Group Mobilizing to Reelect Trump

has been a gift from God , ” began Ken Eldred .
“ The kingdom of God advances through a series of glorious victories , cleverly disguised as disasters.
” In response to the coronavirus pandemic , Eldred noted , millions of Americans are turning to Christ , Walmart is selling out of Bibles , and online church broadcasts have hit record numbers .
But while religiosity was growing , there have been setbacks from the disease outbreak .
“ Satan has been busy too , ” Eldred , a major donor to evangelical and Republican causes , explained .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our plans involving our in-person meetings with voters.
” And the rise of mail-in ballots , Eldred added , would undercut voter identification laws , which have been a pillar of GOP election strategy .
“ The children of the darkness put early voting into this CARES package , ” he grumbled , a reference to the $ 400 million for election assistance programs to states included in the $ 2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill .
Following a brief prayer led by Eldred , in which he declared that “ we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and asked God for an end to coronavirus deaths , the business of the call got started : How Christian voters can be a force to reelect Donald Trump .
The call , held in mid-April , one in a series of meetings sponsored by United in Purpose , a low-key group that has quietly become a preeminent venue for leaders on the religious right to convene .
UIP was crucial in connecting Trump to evangelical leaders in 2016 , and it promises to be one of the most vital weapons in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At first , the effort may seem like a throwback .
Participants in the group include televangelist preachers and anti-gay activists .
David Barton , a historian that serves on the board of UIP , sells box sets of DVDs arguing that America was founded as a fundamentalist Christian nation with no separation of church and state .
But the group , whose supporters include major donors to conservative causes , pastors , and political operatives with decades of winning elections , is serious about serving as the tip of the spear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
UIP ’ s 2020 election plan — which it calls “ Ziklag , ” a town referenced in the Bible — is a multipronged effort to connect Trump with evangelical leaders and increase support among minority voters through appeals to faith-based messages and church outreach .
UIP did not respond to a request for comment .
And , perhaps most importantly , it plans to use data mining to identify millions of new voters and target them with cheap ads on Facebook .
The pandemic , speakers noted on the call , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compensate for the effects of mail-in voting .
The unprecedented campaign would mobilize what they call “ dormant evangelical and conservative Catholic voters , ” with a focus on appealing to religious affiliation as a way to compensate for Trump ’ s relative lack of support among nonwhite voters .
They expect to focus on reducing Democratic support among African Americans and older , religiously active Latino voters in particular , as they tend to hold far more culturally conservative , devout religious views than white liberals .
though not a well known @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the essential conduit connecting the religious right to the Trump administration .
“ While few Americans know about United in Purpose , ” noted Katherine Stewart , the author of “ The Power Worshippers , ” a new book on the Christian nationalist movement and its takeover of the Republican Party , “ the organization has claimed to know at least something about all or most American voters.
” The group works closely with the Family Research Council , the arch-conservative family values think tank led by Tony Perkins .
The board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an active member of the religious right through his role in convening the Council for National Policy , another Christian conservative group .
Tax disclosures show that UIP received $ 75,000 from the Wellspring Committee , the same mysterious nonprofit that financed the television advertising campaign to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court .
Another major donor to UIP is Maj. Gen. Vernon B. Lewis Jr. , who retired from the military to found MPRI , a defense contractor sold to L-3 Communications , and another defense consulting firm called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Trump effectively secured the nomination , UIP hosted a high-profile meeting between then-candidate Trump and about a thousand evangelical leaders .
Trump reportedly used the event to promise an array of social conservative agenda items , including lifting political restrictions on churches and a promise to appoint judges in line with religious right priorities .
Since Trump ’ s election , UIP has hosted regular meetings across the country to convene prominent religious leaders and donors .
In 2017 , UIP hosted an awards gala at the Trump International Hotel hosted by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clarence Thomas .
The following year , Vice President Mike Pence attended a UIP dinner .
Last September , members flocked to the Luxe Sunset Boulevard , a trendy Los Angeles hotel , to discuss strategy and hear from singer Pat Boone , who discussed how faith issues are influencing Hollywood .
George Seay , a major GOP donor and chief executive of Annandale Capital , a global investment firm , has hosted Ziklag events for members of UIP .
UIP plans to replicate the 2016 campaign event , which was high-profile enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
But this year , the focus will be on minority outreach .
During the call , UIP ’ s Brian Burch said that the group hopes to host an event for Trump to meet and pledge support to African American and Latino church leaders .
Burch added that UIP has already “ made a series of grants to partners focused in key states ” to begin efforts to reach minority faith-based voters .
Ralph Reed , a major figure in evangelical outreach for President George W. Bush , addressed the April @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ macro political picture ” of the election ahead .
In rapid succession Reed explained previous election results , comparing Trump to Mitt Romney to argue that lower turnout among African Americans in battleground Rust Belt states had been key to GOP success .
“ There were 47,000 fewer black votes cast in 2016 compared to 2012 in just Milwaukee County alone , ” said Reed .
“ In Michigan , similar outcome , Trump wins by 10,704 votes out of about 2 million cast in Michigan .
And there were 36,000 fewer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Wayne County.
” “ They are convinced that Hillary [ Clinton ] lost because she failed to replicate [ Barack ] Obama ’ s turnout of minority voters , ” Reed added .
“ And they are focused on that like a laser beam as Trump is on evangelicals and pro-life Catholics.
” Marjorie Dannenfelser , who leads the Susan B. Anthony List , an anti-abortion advocacy group active in GOP elections , recently joined UIP as an ally for outreach .
The group , though less well known as its pro-reproductive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major player in congressional elections .
SBA List , which includes a super PAC , announced its intention to spend $ 52 million on the 2020 cycle in January .
During the April call , Dannenfelser emphasized the need to adapt tactics to meet the unique circumstances of the pandemic .
Voters will need powerful messages to urge them to vote by mail .
And across independent and Democratic voters , the abortion issue cuts across partisan lines , especially in Rust Belt states , she claimed .
“ The battle for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those battleground states is going to be key , ” Dannenfelser said .
SBA List , she added , has been conducting survey research on exactly how to message abortion issues .
“ And what we ’ re finding , not surprisingly , but it ’ s good to know , is that the born alive issue that the president has raised the profile of , has had a tremendous affect in moving persuadable voters in all of those areas in Republicans , Democrats , and Independents.
” This plan appears to dovetail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy .
In January , Trump launched “ Evangelicals for Trump ” at the King Jesus International Ministry , a largely Latino megachurch in Miami led by Pastor Guillermo Maldonado , a prominent evangelical leader .
“ My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith , ” Trump declared at the event .
“ We will restore the faith as the true foundation of American life.
” of UIP ’ s 2020 efforts , Reed explained on the call , is grounded in the identification of new religious voters .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using an array of data-mining tools .
Reed claimed his “ data partners ” had identified 26 million key voters in battleground states , about three-fourths of whom are Facebook users .
“ We can reach them , ” said Reed , “ and it ’ s pennies on the dollar in terms of targeting a message compared to what the other side is going to spend on television.
” While the call didn ’ t specify exactly what these tools are , several members of UIP have been involved in creating technological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founded by Bill Dallas , a former model , San Francisco real estate investor , and technology entrepreneur , who became a born-again Christian while serving a prison sentence for embezzlement .
One of the first businesses Dallas founded after leaving San Quentin State Prison was the Church Communication Network , a satellite and online network to broadcast church programming .
Dallas now runs Pioneer Solutions , a data-mining operation used to find and activate religious voters .
In 2015 , an information technology researcher stumbled upon a trove of demographic information on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information on gun ownership and whether or not an individual had a “ Bible lifestyle.
” The inadvertent data leak featured information covering 191 million U.S. citizens .
“ We have about 200 million files , so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database , ” boasted Dallas in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network the following year .
Brian Burch , the official with UIP who helped lead the April call , serves as president of the group CatholicVote , a group that collects potential voter information by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The controversial strategy allowed CatholicVote to use what is known as a “ geofence ” to target voters with frequent Catholic church attendance .
The data , paired with other datasets such as voter registration , was designed to identify and motivate Mass-attending Catholics to support Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections .
The UIP donor who opened the April conference call , Eldred , built his wealth founding a series of technology companies through the early ’ 90s .
Eldred cofounded Inmac , which marketed computers and electronics over catalogs , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now serves on the board of another firm he co-founded , Epicenter , which specializes in outsourcing debt collection and information technology services to India .
Kelly Kullberg , another UIP official and the founder of a group called the American Association of Evangelicals , previously ran a network of 24 Facebook accounts with a combined 1.4 million followers designed to spread partisan misinformation .
The groups , using names such as “ Blacks for Trump , ” “ Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration , ” “ Veterans for Trump , ” and “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were routinely filled with misinformation and hate .
A post shared across the Kullberg network of Facebook groups warned that refugee programs represented “ cultural destruction and subjugation.
” Another claimed Muslims are incapable of assimilation because a “ normal Muslim ’ s loyalty is to Sharia law and supremacy.
” In a separate UIP conference call in May 2019 , Kullberg discussed the need to find messages to inspire conservative voters after conferring with Reid Rutherford , a solar energy executive who has donated to the group .
The pair reviewed survey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2020 election .
“ Those issues include the sanctity of life versus infanticide , ” Kullberg said .
“ What are the images that most move people ?
The content that drives those talking points , ” she added , noting that she could push these election messages to her social media network .
Kullberg suggested driving a wedge between lesbians and the transgender community by bringing attention to the fact that trans students would gain access to women ’ s bathrooms and women ’ s scholarships .
“ We ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ When we were involved with exposing the anti-Semitism of Linda Sarsour , that divided the Women ’ s March .
There are some very smart moves to weaken or soften the opposition by telling the truth.
” “ Sometimes our side doesn ’ t really do that very well .
We ’ re too worried about being nice , ” Kullberg said .
“ But then we end up with infanticide .
So we just realized we need to play to win this time .
This is a hill worth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 80 million people with her Facebook network during the call .
But her network was later shut down after it was exposed in a report by the fact-checking website Snopes .
the novel coronavirus threatens to undermine their efforts and draw attention away from these conservative wedge issues .
George Barna , a pollster , has worked closely with UIP to shape its approach .
In a recent memo to the group , he warned that the coronavirus pandemic has sharply reshaped American priorities going into the election , with a new focus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ growth , and stability .
On abortion , Barna warned , “ one might have expected the issue to have decreased in importance in the eyes of moderates and liberals , ” while in fact , “ it was conservatives who were relatively more likely to indicate a decline in importance for that issue.
” Still , UIP could serve as a potent force in the election .
“ All major political operations—of all parties—now rely on big data and activist networks to sharpen their effectiveness in election campaigns , ” observed Katherine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operations in “ The Power Worshippers.
” “ A key difference , however , is that United in Purpose ’ s voter turnout machine is at the top of a long pyramid that largely operates in the religious sphere , almost all of which is exempt from taxes and shielded from public scrutiny .
”

“The Covid virus has been a gift from God,” began Ken Eldred. “The kingdom of God advances through a series of glorious victories, cleverly disguised as disasters.”
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Eldred noted, millions of Americans are turning to Christ, Walmart is selling out of Bibles, and online church broadcasts have hit record numbers.
But while religiosity was growing, there have been setbacks from the disease outbreak. “Satan has been busy too,” Eldred, a major donor to evangelical and Republican causes, explained. “The virus has messed up many of our plans involving our in-person meetings with voters.”
And the rise of mail-in ballots, Eldred added, would undercut voter identification laws, which have been a pillar of GOP election strategy. “The children of the darkness put early voting into this CARES package,” he grumbled, a reference to the $400 million for election assistance programs to states included in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill.
Key Takeaways United in Purpose is a group on the religious right that worked to grow evangelical support for Donald Trump in 2016.
UIP’s 2020 strategy, as discussed on an April call, is to target religious Latino and African American voters.
Ralph Reed boasted of “data partners” who had identified 26 million key voters in battleground states, about three-fourths of whom they could target via Facebook.
Speakers expressed concern over the rise in mail-in voting because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Following a brief prayer led by Eldred, in which he declared that “we have now turned the corner on the virus” and asked God for an end to coronavirus deaths, the business of the call got started: How Christian voters can be a force to reelect Donald Trump.
The call, held in mid-April, one in a series of meetings sponsored by United in Purpose, a low-key group that has quietly become a preeminent venue for leaders on the religious right to convene. UIP was crucial in connecting Trump to evangelical leaders in 2016, and it promises to be one of the most vital weapons in Trump’s reelection arsenal this year.
At first, the effort may seem like a throwback. Participants in the group include televangelist preachers and anti-gay activists. David Barton, a historian that serves on the board of UIP, sells box sets of DVDs arguing that America was founded as a fundamentalist Christian nation with no separation of church and state.
But the group, whose supporters include major donors to conservative causes, pastors, and political operatives with decades of winning elections, is serious about serving as the tip of the spear to maintain control of the White House. UIP’s 2020 election plan — which it calls “Ziklag,” a town referenced in the Bible — is a multipronged effort to connect Trump with evangelical leaders and increase support among minority voters through appeals to faith-based messages and church outreach.
UIP did not respond to a request for comment.
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And, perhaps most importantly, it plans to use data mining to identify millions of new voters and target them with cheap ads on Facebook. The pandemic, speakers noted on the call, means that they must work overtime to compensate for the effects of mail-in voting.
The unprecedented campaign would mobilize what they call “dormant evangelical and conservative Catholic voters,” with a focus on appealing to religious affiliation as a way to compensate for Trump’s relative lack of support among nonwhite voters. They expect to focus on reducing Democratic support among African Americans and older, religiously active Latino voters in particular, as they tend to hold far more culturally conservative, devout religious views than white liberals.
UIP, though not a well known group, has emerged in recent years as the essential conduit connecting the religious right to the Trump administration.
“While few Americans know about United in Purpose,” noted Katherine Stewart, the author of “The Power Worshippers,” a new book on the Christian nationalist movement and its takeover of the Republican Party, “the organization has claimed to know at least something about all or most American voters.”
The group works closely with the Family Research Council, the arch-conservative family values think tank led by Tony Perkins. The board includes former Rep. Bob McEwen, R-Ohio, an active member of the religious right through his role in convening the Council for National Policy, another Christian conservative group.
Tax disclosures show that UIP received $75,000 from the Wellspring Committee, the same mysterious nonprofit that financed the television advertising campaign to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Another major donor to UIP is Maj. Gen. Vernon B. Lewis Jr., who retired from the military to found MPRI, a defense contractor sold to L-3 Communications, and another defense consulting firm called Cypress International.
In June 2016, after Trump effectively secured the nomination, UIP hosted a high-profile meeting between then-candidate Trump and about a thousand evangelical leaders. Trump reportedly used the event to promise an array of social conservative agenda items, including lifting political restrictions on churches and a promise to appoint judges in line with religious right priorities.
Since Trump’s election, UIP has hosted regular meetings across the country to convene prominent religious leaders and donors. In 2017, UIP hosted an awards gala at the Trump International Hotel hosted by Ginni Thomas, the spouse of Justice Clarence Thomas. The following year, Vice President Mike Pence attended a UIP dinner.
Last September, members flocked to the Luxe Sunset Boulevard, a trendy Los Angeles hotel, to discuss strategy and hear from singer Pat Boone, who discussed how faith issues are influencing Hollywood. George Seay, a major GOP donor and chief executive of Annandale Capital, a global investment firm, has hosted Ziklag events for members of UIP.
UIP plans to replicate the 2016 campaign event, which was high-profile enough to generate headlines around evangelical support for Trump. But this year, the focus will be on minority outreach. During the call, UIP’s Brian Burch said that the group hopes to host an event for Trump to meet and pledge support to African American and Latino church leaders.
Burch added that UIP has already “made a series of grants to partners focused in key states” to begin efforts to reach minority faith-based voters.
Ralph Reed, a major figure in evangelical outreach for President George W. Bush, addressed the April call to provide what he called a “macro political picture” of the election ahead. In rapid succession Reed explained previous election results, comparing Trump to Mitt Romney to argue that lower turnout among African Americans in battleground Rust Belt states had been key to GOP success.
“There were 47,000 fewer black votes cast in 2016 compared to 2012 in just Milwaukee County alone,” said Reed. “In Michigan, similar outcome, Trump wins by 10,704 votes out of about 2 million cast in Michigan. And there were 36,000 fewer votes cast by African Americans in Detroit, Wayne County.”
“They are convinced that Hillary [Clinton] lost because she failed to replicate [Barack] Obama’s turnout of minority voters,” Reed added. “And they are focused on that like a laser beam as Trump is on evangelicals and pro-life Catholics.”
Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Marjorie Dannenfelser, who leads the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group active in GOP elections, recently joined UIP as an ally for outreach. The group, though less well known as its pro-reproductive rights counterpart Planned Parenthood, is a major player in congressional elections. SBA List, which includes a super PAC, announced its intention to spend $52 million on the 2020 cycle in January.
During the April call, Dannenfelser emphasized the need to adapt tactics to meet the unique circumstances of the pandemic. Voters will need powerful messages to urge them to vote by mail. And across independent and Democratic voters, the abortion issue cuts across partisan lines, especially in Rust Belt states, she claimed.
“The battle for the, for the working-class pro-life voter in those battleground states is going to be key,” Dannenfelser said. SBA List, she added, has been conducting survey research on exactly how to message abortion issues. “And what we’re finding, not surprisingly, but it’s good to know, is that the born alive issue that the president has raised the profile of, has had a tremendous affect in moving persuadable voters in all of those areas in Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.”
This plan appears to dovetail with the Trump campaign’s own strategy. In January, Trump launched “Evangelicals for Trump” at King Jesus International Ministry, a largely Latino megachurch in Miami led by Pastor Guillermo Maldonado, a prominent evangelical leader.
“My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith,” Trump declared at the event. “We will restore the faith as the true foundation of American life.”
But the bulk of UIP’s 2020 efforts, Reed explained on the call, is grounded in the identification of new religious voters. To reach nontraditional faith-based voters, UIP is using an array of data-mining tools.
Reed claimed his “data partners” had identified 26 million key voters in battleground states, about three-fourths of whom are Facebook users. “We can reach them,” said Reed, “and it’s pennies on the dollar in terms of targeting a message compared to what the other side is going to spend on television.”
While the call didn’t specify exactly what these tools are, several members of UIP have been involved in creating technological tools for voter ID.
UIP was founded by Bill Dallas, a former model, San Francisco real estate investor, and technology entrepreneur, who became a born-again Christian while serving a prison sentence for embezzlement. One of the first businesses Dallas founded after leaving San Quentin State Prison was the Church Communication Network, a satellite and online network to broadcast church programming.
Dallas now runs Pioneer Solutions, a data-mining operation used to find and activate religious voters. In 2015, an information technology researcher stumbled upon a trove of demographic information on voters affiliated with Pioneer Solutions, including information on gun ownership and whether or not an individual had a “Bible lifestyle.” The inadvertent data leak featured information covering 191 million U.S. citizens. “We have about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database,” boasted Dallas in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network the following year.
Brian Burch, the official with UIP who helped lead the April call, serves as president of CatholicVote, a group that collects potential voter information by harvesting vast troves of cellphone location data.
The controversial strategy allowed CatholicVote to use what is known as a “geofence” to target voters with frequent Catholic church attendance. The data, paired with other datasets such as voter registration, was designed to identify and motivate Mass-attending Catholics to support Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections.
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In the 2020 elections, Burch has written that he intends to expand the geofencing strategy to identify millions of Catholic voters in battleground states. Burch claims that his approach has identified as many as 91,373 church-attending Catholics in Wisconsin alone who have not registered to vote.
Photo: Adam DelGiudice/ Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
The UIP donor who opened the April conference call, Eldred, built his wealth founding a series of technology companies through the early ’90s. Eldred cofounded Inmac, which marketed computers and electronics over catalogs, which he sold in 1996. He now serves on the board of another firm he co-founded, Epicenter, which specializes in outsourcing debt collection and information technology services to India.
Kelly Kullberg, another UIP official and the founder of a group called the American Association of Evangelicals, previously ran a network of 24 Facebook accounts with a combined 1.4 million followers designed to spread partisan misinformation. The groups, using names such as “Blacks for Trump,” “Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration,” “Veterans for Trump,” and “Nurses and Doctors for America,” were routinely filled with misinformation and hate.
A post shared across the Kullberg network of Facebook groups warned that refugee programs represented “cultural destruction and subjugation.” Another claimed Muslims are incapable of assimilation because a “normal Muslim’s loyalty is to Sharia law and supremacy.”
In a separate UIP conference call in May 2019, Kullberg discussed the need to find messages to inspire conservative voters after conferring with Reid Rutherford, a solar energy executive who has donated to the group. The pair reviewed survey research data to prepare a dossier for the 2020 election.
“Those issues include the sanctity of life versus infanticide,” Kullberg said. “What are the images that most move people? The content that drives those talking points,” she added, noting that she could push these election messages to her social media network.
Kullberg suggested driving a wedge between lesbians and the transgender community by bringing attention to the fact that trans students would gain access to women’s bathrooms and women’s scholarships. “We’ll be pointing this out,” Kullberg said. “When we were involved with exposing the anti-Semitism of Linda Sarsour, that divided the Women’s March. There are some very smart moves to weaken or soften the opposition by telling the truth.”
“Sometimes our side doesn’t really do that very well. We’re too worried about being nice,” Kullberg said. “But then we end up with infanticide. So we just realized we need to play to win this time. This is a hill worth charging.”
Kullberg claimed she could reach 80 million people with her Facebook network during the call. But her network was later shut down after it was exposed in a report by the fact-checking website Snopes.
Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus threatens to undermine their efforts and draw attention away from these conservative wedge issues.
George Barna, a pollster, has worked closely with UIP to shape its approach. In a recent memo to the group, he warned that the coronavirus pandemic has sharply reshaped American priorities going into the election, with a new focus on health care, unemployment, economic growth, and stability.
On abortion, Barna warned, “one might have expected the issue to have decreased in importance in the eyes of moderates and liberals,” while in fact, “it was conservatives who were relatively more likely to indicate a decline in importance for that issue.”
Still, UIP could serve as a potent force in the election.
“All major political operations—of all parties—now rely on big data and activist networks to sharpen their effectiveness in election campaigns,” observed Katherine Stewart, who wrote about evangelical political operations in “The Power Worshippers.”
“A key difference, however, is that United in Purpose’s voter turnout machine is at the top of a long pyramid that largely operates in the religious sphere, almost all of which is exempt from taxes and shielded from public scrutiny.”


theintercept--2020-05-24--ICE Detainee Who Died of Covid-19 Suffered Horrifying Neglect

thing the men locked inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center want the world to know , it ’ s that Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia didn ’ t need to die .
The 57-year-old passed away in a southern California hospital on May 6 , becoming the first person in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to lose their life to Covid-19 .
The men who knew him fear that he won ’ t be the last .
“ This could have been avoided , ” said Oscar Navarez , a Mexican national detained at Otay Mesa .
The for-profit facility is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in immigration detention in the country by far , with 155 confirmed cases of infected detainees and 11 cases among detention personnel , according to ICE ’ s running tally .
Navarez is one of four men housed at the facility who , in audio interviews obtained by The Intercept , chose to speak out about the conditions that led to Escobar Mejia ’ s death .
“ I need people to know what happened here , ” Navarez said .
“ He was our friend.
” From the moment the coronavirus began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and experts warned that ICE ’ s network of detention centers posed a serious problem — medical experts at the Department of Homeland Security called the facilities a “ tinderbox ” for the spread of the disease — and said they expected detainees to die absent changes in ICE detention policies and priorities .
As one of the most visible arms of the Trump administration ’ s ultra-hardline immigration agenda , ICE has resisted those changes .
Because people in ICE custody are held for civil rather than criminal violations , the agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Though ICE has made limited releases in some areas , including the Otay Mesa Detention Center , it continues to hold more than 26,600 people , many in for-profit facilities with abysmal health and safety records .
The agency has tested only a fraction of those in its custody — 2,394 people in total , as of Saturday .
Among that population , more than half , 1,201 individuals , have tested positive for Covid-19 .
An additional 44 ICE employees at detention centers have also tested positive .
In place of wide-scale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of consolidating people suspected of having Covid-19 in designated areas and waiting to see if they get better or worse .
Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia was one of those people .
The men who were with Escobar Mejia in his final days say they did everything they could to alert ICE and CoreCivic , the private prison corporation that runs Otay Mesa , of his worsening condition , and that the officials responsible for his well-being failed to take those alerts seriously .
Escobar Mejia had lived in the U.S. for 40 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coronavirus hotbed where social distancing is impossible , he had a range of underlying health conditions that exacerbated his vulnerability to the virus , including diabetes , high blood pressure , and heart problems .
His right foot was partially amputated , and he used a wheelchair .
The men in his unit believe that if Escobar Mejia had been taken directly to a hospital when the seriousness of his illness first became obvious , rather than being quarantined in a unit for infected detainees he might still be alive today .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ said José Antonio Vidal Basa , a second detainee currently being held at Otay Mesa , adding that the other men in the unit would sometimes wheel Escobar Mejia to a nurse looking for help .
“ He ’ s feeling bad , ” Vidal Basa recalled telling medical staff .
“ He never comes out of his room and he ’ s always sick .
Can we please do something about it ?
” Vidal Basa , who also contracted Covid-19 and was only recently released from the pod where ICE keeps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ routinely instructed to fill out a sick card , which in theory would set in motion a formal medical response from the facility .
“ He would sign it and they would bring him back — the same thing over and over again , ” he said .
“ They would never do nothing about it.
” Escobar Mejia was given ibuprofen to treat his symptoms , the men in his unit recalled .
He was living on bologna sandwiches and crackers , the only meal detainees were given for breakfast , lunch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Castro Lopez .
According to Castro Lopez , who took on the role of caretaker for Escobar Mejia inside the facility , virtually all kitchen staff preparing the food were eventually hit with the virus .
to the U.S. from El Salvador as a teenager in 1980 .
At the time , a wave of refugees was beginning to flee the country , hoping to escape a catastrophic civil war that featured the torture , disappearance , and death of tens of thousands of Salvadoran civilians , often at the hands of U.S.-backed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a million others .
At the outset of the conflict , Escobar Mejia ’ s brother was murdered , with family members suspecting that government forces were behind the killing .
A few years later , when his sister narrowly avoided a massacre orchestrated by guerrilla fighters on the other side of the war , his mother decided to take her children — Escobar Mejia was the youngest of five — and flee north .
The family landed in Los Angeles .
While Escobar Mejia ’ s siblings eventually obtained citizenship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to carry the trauma of the civil war into his adult life , his former attorney , Joan Del Valle , told The Intercept .
He struggled with addiction and in the 1980s and early 1990s , received convictions for grand theft , possession of a controlled substance , receiving stolen property , and a DUI .
Though the last of those convictions was in 1993 , according to Del Valle , ICE nonetheless cited the decades-old cases in its statement announcing Escobar Mejia ’ s death .
Del Valle , a Los @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2012 when he landed in ICE custody following a low-level drug arrest .
The conviction was expunged , and Del Valle secured his release from immigration custody .
She continued to represent him pro bono for the next eight years .
During that time , Del Valle said , Escobar Mejia turned his life around .
“ I saw his change , ” she said .
He was the kind of client who not only showed up for all of his court hearings , she said , but arrived hours before they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Escobar Mejia lived in L.A. with his mother and one of his sisters , Rosa , with whom he shared a seemingly unbreakable bond .
As the years went on , Del Valle said , she grew close to the family .
Nothing in Escobar Mejia ’ s life was ever easy , she explained , but through it all he maintained a positivity that she found endearing .
In 2014 , Escobar Mejia ’ s mother died .
He worked construction and other odd jobs to provide for Rosa who , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his life .
Last year , a work accident followed by an infection and several rounds of unsuccessful surgeries culminated in the amputation of his foot .
Because he had to start using a wheelchair , Escobar Mejia relied on others to drive him around .
He was receiving one such ride when , this past January , he and a friend were pulled over by the Border Patrol outside San Diego .
The pair were taken to Otay Mesa , where Escobar Mejia began a final losing battle to regain his freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ placed in removal proceedings .
He and Del Valle had been fighting the case , with a trial scheduled for this October .
The timing and location of his January arrest would prove fatal .
With more than 140 miles between her office in Los Angeles and the border detention center — and with the world ’ s leading public health experts later urging strict social distancing — Del Valle made a decision to hand his case off to a local attorney .
“ I was devastated when I had to withdraw , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t have the manpower to have a case pro bono in San Diego when all my caseload is in Los Angeles — I ’ m a solo practitioner and single mom , I had no choice.
” Del Valle broke the news in person .
She remembers how frail Escobar Mejia looked at the time .
“ I cried my whole day coming back to L.A. , ” she said .
“ If I had the means , economically , I would have kept him.
” Inside Otay Mesa , Escobar Mejia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Simple things became a fight .
It took a week just to obtain access to a wheelchair , Del Valle said .
On April 15 , nearly four months after his arrest , Escobar Mejia had a bond hearing before Judge Lee O ’ Connor .
The judge fixated on his criminal record , specifically a domestic violence arrest in the 1990s .
Del Valle was well-aware of the incident — Escobar Mejia was taken into custody in a case of mistaken identity and released without charge — but the longtime attorney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
O ’ Connor determined that the 57-year-old amputee , who had shown up to all of his previous hearings for the past eight years , who had four decades in the U.S. and could not drive himself around , was a “ flight risk.
” His bond was denied .
In the days that followed , Escobar Mejia ’ s health took a dramatic turn .
Less than three weeks later , he was dead .
The weekend after the hearing , Escobar Mejia called his sister in desperation , Del Valle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was throwing up and suffering from headaches , and that his pleas to detention center officials to see a doctor were not being acknowledged .
“ Their officers were aware , fully aware , that he was not feeling well , ” Del Valle said .
Over the next six days , the men inside Otay Mesa noted that Esocbar Mejia was no longer leaving his room .
He lay in bed , vomiting and clearly sick .
“ He was so sick and he kept complaining about it .
He wouldn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Navarez said .
“ The last day that he was here in my pod , he was just lying on his bunk , there was liquid all over the floor , I don ’ t know if he had thrown up or he spilled something , but he was so sick , he couldn ’ t even get up to clean it.
” José Javier Malpica Perez , a Venezuelan man who had also tested positive for Covid-19 , was with Escobar Mejia in the quarantined unit .
He was the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was hospitalized , providing English-to-Spanish translation for a detention center nurse .
“ We saw him in his room , he couldn ’ t breathe , ” Malpica Perez recalled .
He asked the nurse why Escobar Mejia hadn ’ t already been taken to the hospital .
“ He was already sick , ” he said .
“ We told him , hey you got to get out of here , man.
” When the decision was finally made to move Escobar Mejia to a hospital , Malpica Perez did what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I told him , go to the hospital , ” he said .
“ You ’ re going to be better over there.
” Malpica Perez and the group of men he was quarantined with were later moved back to his old Otay Mesa pod , among detainees who were not suspected of having Covid-19 .
Though his infection was confirmed in a test , Malpica Perez said he and the others were not given a second test to determine whether they had recovered or developed antibodies — though he said he did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t know if we still have it , ” he said .
“ We just don ’ t have the symptoms.
” admitted to the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City , California , on Friday , April 24 .
According to ICE , he tested positive for Covid-19 that same day .
Four days later , Del Valle received a call from ICE officials looking to find Escobar Mejia ’ s current attorney and next of kin — signs that his prognosis was not good .
Rosa , meanwhile , had learned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the hospital , though she did not know how bad it was .
Del Valle called to gently inform her of the news that ICE would soon deliver .
“ Other than that call , they have never reached out .
They have never said , ‘ I ’ m sorry for his death , ’ ” Del Valle said .
“ Nothing.
” The following Monday , an ICE attorney told the judge who had denied Escobar Mejia ’ s bond that his health had taken a turn for the worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
At 2:15 a.m. on May 6 , Escobar Mejia was pronounced dead .
ICE said that the appropriate oversight bodies were informed of his death and that senior agency officials would review the matter .
The Intercept sent the immigration enforcement agency and CoreCivic a list of questions concerning the timeline of events that led to his passing — none were answered .
Amanda Gilchrist , director of public affairs for the private prison giant , wrote that , “ Even before any confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our facilities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local , state and federal health authorities , as well as our government partners .
We have responded to this unprecedented situation appropriately , thoroughly and with care for the safety and well-being of those entrusted to us and our communities.
” Gilchrist directed all other inquiries to ICE ’ s office of public affairs .
“ U.S .
Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on active investigations , ” Jonathan Moor , a public affairs specialist for the agency , said in an email.
“ Per ICE procedures , the death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation .
ICE will not be able to answer questions about this until the investigation is complete.
” According to Del Valle , Escobar Mejia ’ s death was the result of two failures : first , O ’ Connor ’ s denial of his bond , and second , the decision on the part of officials at ICE and CoreCivic not to take him to the hospital when he asked to see a doctor .
“ If they had taken him to the doctor before , there ’ s very high likelihood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Del Valle said .
“ But we will never know because they never did that.
” Del Valle sometimes imagines Escobar Mejia ’ s final moments , alone in a hospital bed , struggling for air , scared and far from Rosa , the only person he had left .
“ The way that he left this world has to be the most desperate , ” she said .
“ That ’ s what haunts me.
” Following his death , Escobar Mejia ’ s family learned that it would cost $ 1,700 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ network of immigration attorneys helped Del Valle to raise the funds and organize a funeral service .
Back at Otay Mesa , the men who cared for Escobar Mejia tacked letters to his door , apologies to Rosa for failing her brother .
Inside the room , his dried vomit still caked the floor .
“ We ’ re less than human to these people , ” Navarez said .
“ This person was neglected and now he lost his life .
What has to happen in order for them to take us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be hurt ?
How many more people have to die ?
”

If there’s one thing the men locked inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center want the world to know, it’s that Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia didn’t need to die. The 57-year-old passed away in a southern California hospital on May 6, becoming the first person in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody to lose their life to Covid-19. The men who knew him fear that he won’t be the last.
“This could have been avoided,” said Oscar Navarez, a Mexican national detained at Otay Mesa. The for-profit facility is currently home to the largest coronavirus outbreak in immigration detention in the country by far, with 155 confirmed cases of infected detainees and 11 cases among detention personnel, according to ICE’s running tally. Navarez is one of four men housed at the facility who, in audio interviews obtained by The Intercept, chose to speak out about the conditions that led to Escobar Mejia’s death. “I need people to know what happened here,” Navarez said. “He was our friend.”
From the moment the coronavirus began spreading in the United States, advocates and experts warned that ICE’s network of detention centers posed a serious problem — medical experts at the Department of Homeland Security called the facilities a “tinderbox” for the spread of the disease — and said they expected detainees to die absent changes in ICE detention policies and priorities. As one of the most visible arms of the Trump administration’s ultra-hardline immigration agenda, ICE has resisted those changes.
Because people in ICE custody are held for civil rather than criminal violations, the agency could release them at any time. Though ICE has made limited releases in some areas, including the Otay Mesa Detention Center, it continues to hold more than 26,600 people, many in for-profit facilities with abysmal health and safety records. The agency has tested only a fraction of those in its custody — 2,394 people in total, as of Saturday. Among that population, more than half, 1,201 individuals, have tested positive for Covid-19. An additional 44 ICE employees at detention centers have also tested positive.
In place of wide-scale releases, ICE has adopted a practice of consolidating people suspected of having Covid-19 in designated areas and waiting to see if they get better or worse. Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia was one of those people.
The men who were with Escobar Mejia in his final days say they did everything they could to alert ICE and CoreCivic, the private prison corporation that runs Otay Mesa, of his worsening condition, and that the officials responsible for his well-being failed to take those alerts seriously. Escobar Mejia had lived in the U.S. for 40 years. In addition to being locked in a coronavirus hotbed where social distancing is impossible, he had a range of underlying health conditions that exacerbated his vulnerability to the virus, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart problems. His right foot was partially amputated, and he used a wheelchair.
The men in his unit believe that if Escobar Mejia had been taken directly to a hospital when the seriousness of his illness first became obvious, rather than being quarantined in a unit for infected detainees he might still be alive today. “He complained many times,” said José Antonio Vidal Basa, a second detainee currently being held at Otay Mesa, adding that the other men in the unit would sometimes wheel Escobar Mejia to a nurse looking for help. “He’s feeling bad,” Vidal Basa recalled telling medical staff. “He never comes out of his room and he’s always sick. Can we please do something about it?”
Escobar Mejia was given ibuprofen to treat his symptoms, the men in his unit recalled.
Vidal Basa, who also contracted Covid-19 and was only recently released from the pod where ICE keeps infected detainees, said Escobar Mejia was routinely instructed to fill out a sick card, which in theory would set in motion a formal medical response from the facility. “He would sign it and they would bring him back — the same thing over and over again,” he said. “They would never do nothing about it.” Escobar Mejia was given ibuprofen to treat his symptoms, the men in his unit recalled. He was living on bologna sandwiches and crackers, the only meal detainees were given for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, said Tomas Enrique Castro Lopez. According to Castro Lopez, who took on the role of caretaker for Escobar Mejia inside the facility, virtually all kitchen staff preparing the food were eventually hit with the virus.
Escobar Meija came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a teenager in 1980. At the time, a wave of refugees was beginning to flee the country, hoping to escape a catastrophic civil war that featured the torture, disappearance, and death of tens of thousands of Salvadoran civilians, often at the hands of U.S.-backed death squads, and the displacement of more than a million others. At the outset of the conflict, Escobar Mejia’s brother was murdered, with family members suspecting that government forces were behind the killing. A few years later, when his sister narrowly avoided a massacre orchestrated by guerrilla fighters on the other side of the war, his mother decided to take her children — Escobar Mejia was the youngest of five — and flee north.
The family landed in Los Angeles. While Escobar Mejia’s siblings eventually obtained citizenship, he did not. He seemed to carry the trauma of the civil war into his adult life, his former attorney, Joan Del Valle, told The Intercept. He struggled with addiction and in the 1980s and early 1990s, received convictions for grand theft, possession of a controlled substance, receiving stolen property, and a DUI. Though the last of those convictions was in 1993, according to Del Valle, ICE nonetheless cited the decades-old cases in its statement announcing Escobar Mejia’s death.
Del Valle, a Los Angeles-based attorney, began representing Escobar Mejia in 2012 when he landed in ICE custody following a low-level drug arrest. The conviction was expunged, and Del Valle secured his release from immigration custody. She continued to represent him pro bono for the next eight years. During that time, Del Valle said, Escobar Mejia turned his life around. “I saw his change,” she said. He was the kind of client who not only showed up for all of his court hearings, she said, but arrived hours before they began to insure there were no problems.
Escobar Mejia lived in L.A. with his mother and one of his sisters, Rosa, with whom he shared a seemingly unbreakable bond. As the years went on, Del Valle said, she grew close to the family. Nothing in Escobar Mejia’s life was ever easy, she explained, but through it all he maintained a positivity that she found endearing. In 2014, Escobar Mejia’s mother died. He worked construction and other odd jobs to provide for Rosa who, increasingly, had become the center of his life. Last year, a work accident followed by an infection and several rounds of unsuccessful surgeries culminated in the amputation of his foot.
Because he had to start using a wheelchair, Escobar Mejia relied on others to drive him around. He was receiving one such ride when, this past January, he and a friend were pulled over by the Border Patrol outside San Diego. The pair were taken to Otay Mesa, where Escobar Mejia began a final losing battle to regain his freedom.
Following his detention in 2012, Escobar Mejia was placed in removal proceedings. He and Del Valle had been fighting the case, with a trial scheduled for this October. The timing and location of his January arrest would prove fatal. With more than 140 miles between her office in Los Angeles and the border detention center — and with the world’s leading public health experts later urging strict social distancing — Del Valle made a decision to hand his case off to a local attorney. “I was devastated when I had to withdraw,” she said. “I don’t have the manpower to have a case pro bono in San Diego when all my caseload is in Los Angeles — I’m a solo practitioner and single mom, I had no choice.”
Del Valle broke the news in person. She remembers how frail Escobar Mejia looked at the time. “I cried my whole day coming back to L.A.,” she said. “If I had the means, economically, I would have kept him.”
“I don’t know if he had thrown up or he spilled something, but he was so sick, he couldn’t even get up to clean it.”
Inside Otay Mesa, Escobar Mejia’s world was turned upside down. Simple things became a fight. It took a week just to obtain access to a wheelchair, Del Valle said. On April 15, nearly four months after his arrest, Escobar Mejia had a bond hearing before Judge Lee O’Connor. The judge fixated on his criminal record, specifically a domestic violence arrest in the 1990s. Del Valle was well-aware of the incident — Escobar Mejia was taken into custody in a case of mistaken identity and released without charge — but the longtime attorney was not in the courtroom that day.
O’Connor determined that the 57-year-old amputee, who had shown up to all of his previous hearings for the past eight years, who had four decades in the U.S. and could not drive himself around, was a “flight risk.” His bond was denied.
In the days that followed, Escobar Mejia’s health took a dramatic turn. Less than three weeks later, he was dead.
The weekend after the hearing, Escobar Mejia called his sister in desperation, Del Valle said, and told her that he was throwing up and suffering from headaches, and that his pleas to detention center officials to see a doctor were not being acknowledged. “Their officers were aware, fully aware, that he was not feeling well,” Del Valle said. Over the next six days, the men inside Otay Mesa noted that Esocbar Mejia was no longer leaving his room. He lay in bed, vomiting and clearly sick. “He was so sick and he kept complaining about it. He wouldn’t come out of the room,” Navarez said. “The last day that he was here in my pod, he was just lying on his bunk, there was liquid all over the floor, I don’t know if he had thrown up or he spilled something, but he was so sick, he couldn’t even get up to clean it.”
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By that point, Escobar Mejia could barely speak, Navarez said. Rather than being taken to a hospital, Escobar Mejia was moved to a pod for detainees suspected of having Covid-19 — an indication that he was subjected to “cohorting,” the controversial measure ICE and its private detention partners have used in the worsening coronavirus outbreak in lieu of releasing detainees. “When they took him, they didn’t even take him to the hospital,” Navarez said. “His life could have probably been saved if they took him straight to the hospital.”
Photo: Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images
José Javier Malpica Perez, a Venezuelan man who had also tested positive for Covid-19, was with Escobar Mejia in the quarantined unit. He was the last detainee to speak to Escobar Mejia before he was hospitalized, providing English-to-Spanish translation for a detention center nurse. “We saw him in his room, he couldn’t breathe,” Malpica Perez recalled. He asked the nurse why Escobar Mejia hadn’t already been taken to the hospital. “He was already sick,” he said. “We told him, hey you got to get out of here, man.” When the decision was finally made to move Escobar Mejia to a hospital, Malpica Perez did what he could to provide encouragement. “I told him, go to the hospital,” he said. “You’re going to be better over there.”
Malpica Perez and the group of men he was quarantined with were later moved back to his old Otay Mesa pod, among detainees who were not suspected of having Covid-19. Though his infection was confirmed in a test, Malpica Perez said he and the others were not given a second test to determine whether they had recovered or developed antibodies — though he said he did request one. “We don’t know if we still have it,” he said. “We just don’t have the symptoms.”
Escobar Mejia was admitted to the Paradise Valley Hospital in National City, California, on Friday, April 24. According to ICE, he tested positive for Covid-19 that same day. Four days later, Del Valle received a call from ICE officials looking to find Escobar Mejia’s current attorney and next of kin — signs that his prognosis was not good. Rosa, meanwhile, had learned from a detainee that her brother was in the hospital, though she did not know how bad it was. Del Valle called to gently inform her of the news that ICE would soon deliver. “Other than that call, they have never reached out. They have never said, ‘I’m sorry for his death,’” Del Valle said. “Nothing.” The following Monday, an ICE attorney told the judge who had denied Escobar Mejia’s bond that his health had taken a turn for the worse — the government lawyer suggested praying for him.
At 2:15 a.m. on May 6, Escobar Mejia was pronounced dead. ICE said that the appropriate oversight bodies were informed of his death and that senior agency officials would review the matter. The Intercept sent the immigration enforcement agency and CoreCivic a list of questions concerning the timeline of events that led to his passing — none were answered. Amanda Gilchrist, director of public affairs for the private prison giant, wrote that, “Even before any confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our facilities, we have rigorously followed the guidance of local, state and federal health authorities, as well as our government partners. We have responded to this unprecedented situation appropriately, thoroughly and with care for the safety and well-being of those entrusted to us and our communities.” Gilchrist directed all other inquiries to ICE’s office of public affairs. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on active investigations,” Jonathan Moor, a public affairs specialist for the agency, said in an email.“Per ICE procedures, the death of Carlos Escobar-Mejia is currently undergoing internal investigation. ICE will not be able to answer questions about this until the investigation is complete.”
According to Del Valle, Escobar Mejia’s death was the result of two failures: first, O’Connor’s denial of his bond, and second, the decision on the part of officials at ICE and CoreCivic not to take him to the hospital when he asked to see a doctor. “If they had taken him to the doctor before, there’s very high likelihood that he would have survived,” Del Valle said. “But we will never know because they never did that.”
Del Valle sometimes imagines Escobar Mejia’s final moments, alone in a hospital bed, struggling for air, scared and far from Rosa, the only person he had left. “The way that he left this world has to be the most desperate,” she said. “That’s what haunts me.”
Following his death, Escobar Mejia’s family learned that it would cost $1,700 to cremate his body. A small network of immigration attorneys helped Del Valle to raise the funds and organize a funeral service. Back at Otay Mesa, the men who cared for Escobar Mejia tacked letters to his door, apologies to Rosa for failing her brother. Inside the room, his dried vomit still caked the floor.
“We’re less than human to these people,” Navarez said. “This person was neglected and now he lost his life. What has to happen in order for them to take us serious? How many more people have to be hurt? How many more people have to die?”