theintercept--2020-09-14--At Homeland Security, Anti-Muslim Activist Katharine Gorka Maintained Ties With Islamophobes

2018 , Clare Lopez , a far-right activist and longtime top figure at the anti-Muslim group Center for Security Policy , wrote to a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security expecting a receptive audience .
After all , the recipient of the email was Katharine Gorka , a former senior adviser in the Department ’ s Office of Policy , whose tenure in President Donald Trump ’ s DHS was itself controversial , in light of her past comments about Islam .
Lopez ’ s email echoed a widespread far-right conspiracy theory about Muslim Americans : that national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on American-Islamic Relations , or CAIR , are secretly fronts for overseeing terrorist organizations .
Lopez was writing to urge the largest federal law enforcement organization in the country to act on the unfounded theory .
“ HAMAS is a designated FTO ” — Foreign Terrorist Organization — “ & CAIR is its US branch … but members of Congress openly support it , even are featured as keynote speakers at its events , ” Lopez wrote .
She warned about CAIR and another American-Muslim group : “ We need to understand that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destruction & replacement of the US Constitution – please let me know how I can help.
” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Center for Security and Policy , where Lopez worked at the time , as a “ conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement.
” It is unclear if Lopez , who was a vice president with the group , remains at the Center of Security Policy ; the group no longer appears in many of her public biographies .
( Lopez did not respond to repeated inquiries and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
But her LinkedIn page lists the center as a current affiliation , describing her role as that of a “ thought leader ” and “ project manager ” in the “ counterjihad movement.
” Lopez ’ s message was obtained by the Washington-based group American Oversight this month as part of a public records request into Gorka ’ s role at DHS .
Founded in 2017 , lawyers from American Oversight filed suit for her calendars and external communications last year .
The agency began releasing documents earlier this year and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Intercept .
Because of her record of anti-Muslim comments , Gorka ’ s roles with the Trump administration — she was an early appointee to the transition team for the Department of Homeland Security — raised alarm bells among Muslim advocacy groups in the U.S .
While it ’ s not clear from the FOIA documents whether Gorka ever responded to Lopez ’ s October appeal , the email was one among many in the trove that American Oversight says confirmed the worst fears : that Gorka ’ s appointment could have emboldened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ally in Trump ’ s DHS .
Austin Evers , American Oversight ’ s executive director and a former lawyer for the State Department under President Barack Obama , told The Intercept by phone that the group filed the lawsuit to find out what role Gorka had in DHS ’ s policy process and to see whether she was in touch with outside voices on the far-right .
“ Katharine Gorka comes from an ecosystem of anti-immigrant , anti-Islam organizations and personalities , ” Evers said .
“ We were concerned when she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that network in , and enhance its influence with the power of the United States government .
What we found is a large number of meetings proving our hypothesis.
” In a statement to The Intercept , CAIR Director of Government Affairs Robert McCaw said , “ These messages confirm what we already knew — Katharine Gorka is an anti-Muslim bigot and conspiracy theorist who openly collaborates with other far-right extremists .
Ms. Gorka never had any business serving in the federal government.
” writer for the far-right website Breitbart , Gorka had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the past .
In a 2015 interview , she proposed “ shutting down the radical mosques.
” She had also suggested that the news network Al Jazeera — a frequent boogeyman of the Islamophobic far right — should not be allowed to broadcast in the United States .
Though it is unclear if Gorka ever responsed to Lopez ’ s October email , Lopez had indeed maintained a relationship with a sympathetic ally in the highest levels of government .
According to the FOIA documents , Gorka and Lopez ran into each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gorka ’ s husband Sebastian — a former Trump White House official and bombastic right-wing personality — gave a foreign policy address at the think tank Westminster Institute , where Katharine Gorka formerly served as executive director .
Lopez wrote to Gorka the next day and shared her private Protonmail address .
“ Great to see you … last night at Westminster , Katie – looking forward to following up w/you , ” Lopez wrote .
After more than two years as a senior policy adviser at DHS , Gorka became press secretary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Border Protection last June .
Two months later , she left the Trump administration and now works at the Heritage Foundation , a conservative Washington think tank .
Unlike her husband , Sebastian , who has been a vocal presence on right-wing media defending the president , Katharine Gorka , who goes by Katie , is a more understated presence .
Her caution extends to what she puts in government email .
Calendars and emails , however , which were obtained through American Oversight ’ s FOIA request , largely confirm previous news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ behind-the-scenes presence on terrorism policy and had a hand in shaping DHS ’ s approach to “ countering violent extremism ” programs .
The FOIA documents paint a picture of Trump ’ s DHS as heavily influenced by political appointees like Gorka , and the revelations come at a time when DHS stands accused of politicizing intelligence to benefit Trump .
Last week , the House Intelligence Committee released a whistleblower complaint from Brian Murphy , the former head of DHS ’ s intelligence division , who told the committee that senior leadership @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of left-wing violence , while downplaying that from white supremacy and Russian election interference .
Trump ’ s inauguration in 2017 , DHS moved to shift the focus of its “ countering violent extremism ” grant program .
CVE , as the policy area is known , purports to espouse a community-based terrorism prevention effort aimed at preventing all forms of extremist violence in the U.S .
Even under President Barack Obama , the effort was criticized for singling out American Muslims for suspicion .
As a result , CVE programs grew to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for surveillance .
Under Trump , the program appeared to go one step further — and criticisms deepened , not least because of the involvement of officials like Gorka .
In 2017 , then-DHS Secretary John Kelly altered the distribution of about $ 10 million in CVE grant money previously allocated to community organizations by the outgoing Obama administration .
Among the groups cut were Life After Hate , a nonprofit aimed at de-radicalizing white supremacists .
News reports , including a profile in BuzzFeed News later that year , linked Gorka to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American Oversight confirm that much of Gorka ’ s work in 2017 focused on policy around CVE .
Her calendars list a first “ CVE grant discussion ” on January 24 , 2017 — four days after Trump ’ s inauguration — and continued to list her as a participant in more than 10 meetings or discussions on CVE between then and the end of March 2017 .
Gorka ’ s calendars show that , throughout the year , she was invited to participate in meetings , discussions , and phone calls on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other DHS agencies .
For example , her calendar shows one October 2017 meeting between staff from the U.S .
Citizenship and Immigration Service ’ s Office of Citizenship “ to explore partnering on developing CVE programs for children of immigrants.
” It ’ s unclear if anything came of the meeting .
Gorka ’ s calendar also lists a February 2017 discussion on “ CVE grants and Sanctuary Cities.
” Again , it ’ s unclear if anything came of the meeting , but the Trump administration would later fight a court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can withhold law enforcement grants from sanctuary cities .
The calendars show Gorka also had a hand in other terrorism prevention initiatives at DHS .
In late 2017 , she was invited to participate in a meeting on “ DHS Screening and use of publicly available information ” — possibly a reference to a later policy change by the Trump administration to start screening the social media pages for refugee and asylum seekers .
Gorka was so central to terrorism policy at DHS that , after Kelly left to become Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she was one of the officials tasked with coordinating between different DHS offices to develop a briefing on terrorism prevention for the incoming secretary .
While at DHS , Gorka also frequently corresponded with various people at her soon to be employer , the Heritage Foundation , where she is listed as having a number of meetings during her tenure in public office .
One frequent confidant was Robin Simcox , then a terrorism researcher at the think tank who authored a report called “ The Asylum-Terror Nexus : How Europe Should Respond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line to the justifications given by Trump and other anti-immigration activists to the U.S. ’ s asylum program .
( Simcox , who frequently shared his published works with Gorka ’ s official government email address , did not respond to a request for comment made to the U.K. ’ s Counter Extremism Group , where he is the director . )
Gorka also used her work email to confide in Heritage scholars , including about her plans after leaving DHS .
In June 2018 , more than a year before she left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a national security expert at the think tank , asking to talk about “ terrorism prevention and life after DHS.
” ( A spokesperson for Heritage declined to comment for this story . )
Eighteen months later , she would become Carafano ’ s colleague , when , according to a LinkedIn page , she formally joined Heritage .

In October 2018, Clare Lopez, a far-right activist and longtime top figure at the anti-Muslim group Center for Security Policy, wrote to a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security expecting a receptive audience. After all, the recipient of the email was Katharine Gorka, a former senior adviser in the Department’s Office of Policy, whose tenure in President Donald Trump’s DHS was itself controversial, in light of her past comments about Islam.
Lopez’s email echoed a widespread far-right conspiracy theory about Muslim Americans: that national Muslim advocacy organizations, like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, are secretly fronts for overseeing terrorist organizations. Lopez was writing to urge the largest federal law enforcement organization in the country to act on the unfounded theory.
“HAMAS is a designated FTO” — Foreign Terrorist Organization — “& CAIR is its US branch … but members of Congress openly support it, even are featured as keynote speakers at its events,” Lopez wrote. She warned about CAIR and another American-Muslim group: “We need to understand that this is a domestic insurgency aimed at destruction & replacement of the US Constitution – please let me know how I can help.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Center for Security and Policy, where Lopez worked at the time, as a “conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement.” It is unclear if Lopez, who was a vice president with the group, remains at the Center of Security Policy; the group no longer appears in many of her public biographies. (Lopez did not respond to repeated inquiries and the Center for Security Policy declined to comment.) But her LinkedIn page lists the center as a current affiliation, describing her role as that of a “thought leader” and “project manager” in the “counterjihad movement.”
“We were concerned when she joined the administration. What we found is a large number of meetings proving our hypothesis.”
Lopez’s message was obtained by the Washington-based group American Oversight this month as part of a public records request into Gorka’s role at DHS. Founded in 2017, lawyers from American Oversight filed suit for her calendars and external communications last year. The agency began releasing documents earlier this year and shared a recently released collection with The Intercept.
Because of her record of anti-Muslim comments, Gorka’s roles with the Trump administration — she was an early appointee to the transition team for the Department of Homeland Security — raised alarm bells among Muslim advocacy groups in the U.S. While it’s not clear from the FOIA documents whether Gorka ever responded to Lopez’s October appeal, the email was one among many in the trove that American Oversight says confirmed the worst fears: that Gorka’s appointment could have emboldened far-right and anti-Muslim voices to see an ally in Trump’s DHS.
Austin Evers, American Oversight’s executive director and a former lawyer for the State Department under President Barack Obama, told The Intercept by phone that the group filed the lawsuit to find out what role Gorka had in DHS’s policy process and to see whether she was in touch with outside voices on the far-right.
“Katharine Gorka comes from an ecosystem of anti-immigrant, anti-Islam organizations and personalities,” Evers said. “We were concerned when she joined the administration that she would bring that network in, and enhance its influence with the power of the United States government. What we found is a large number of meetings proving our hypothesis.”
In a statement to The Intercept, CAIR Director of Government Affairs Robert McCaw said, “These messages confirm what we already knew — Katharine Gorka is an anti-Muslim bigot and conspiracy theorist who openly collaborates with other far-right extremists. Ms. Gorka never had any business serving in the federal government.”
A former writer for the far-right website Breitbart, Gorka had used various platforms to air anti-Muslim views in the past. In a 2015 interview, she proposed “shutting down the radical mosques.” She had also suggested that the news network Al Jazeera — a frequent boogeyman of the Islamophobic far right — should not be allowed to broadcast in the United States.
Though it is unclear if Gorka ever responsed to Lopez’s October email, Lopez had indeed maintained a relationship with a sympathetic ally in the highest levels of government.
According to the FOIA documents, Gorka and Lopez ran into each other earlier in August 2018, when Gorka’s husband Sebastian — a former Trump White House official and bombastic right-wing personality — gave a foreign policy address at the think tank Westminster Institute, where Katharine Gorka formerly served as executive director. Lopez wrote to Gorka the next day and shared her private Protonmail address. “Great to see you … last night at Westminster, Katie – looking forward to following up w/you,” Lopez wrote.
After more than two years as a senior policy adviser at DHS, Gorka became press secretary for the department’s Customs and Border Protection last June. Two months later, she left the Trump administration and now works at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. Unlike her husband, Sebastian, who has been a vocal presence on right-wing media defending the president, Katharine Gorka, who goes by Katie, is a more understated presence. Her caution extends to what she puts in government email.
The FOIA documents paint a picture of Trump’s DHS as heavily influenced by political appointees like Gorka.
Calendars and emails, however, which were obtained through American Oversight’s FOIA request, largely confirm previous news reports that she was an influential, behind-the-scenes presence on terrorism policy and had a hand in shaping DHS’s approach to “countering violent extremism” programs.
The FOIA documents paint a picture of Trump’s DHS as heavily influenced by political appointees like Gorka, and the revelations come at a time when DHS stands accused of politicizing intelligence to benefit Trump. Last week, the House Intelligence Committee released a whistleblower complaint from Brian Murphy, the former head of DHS’s intelligence division, who told the committee that senior leadership had pressured him to inflate the threat of left-wing violence, while downplaying that from white supremacy and Russian election interference.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, DHS moved to shift the focus of its “countering violent extremism” grant program. CVE, as the policy area is known, purports to espouse a community-based terrorism prevention effort aimed at preventing all forms of extremist violence in the U.S. Even under President Barack Obama, the effort was criticized for singling out American Muslims for suspicion. As a result, CVE programs grew to be controversial for targeting Muslim American communities for surveillance.
Under Trump, the program appeared to go one step further — and criticisms deepened, not least because of the involvement of officials like Gorka.
In 2017, then-DHS Secretary John Kelly altered the distribution of about $10 million in CVE grant money previously allocated to community organizations by the outgoing Obama administration. Among the groups cut were Life After Hate, a nonprofit aimed at de-radicalizing white supremacists. News reports, including a profile in BuzzFeed News later that year, linked Gorka to the decision.
The calendars obtained by American Oversight confirm that much of Gorka’s work in 2017 focused on policy around CVE. Her calendars list a first “CVE grant discussion” on January 24, 2017 — four days after Trump’s inauguration — and continued to list her as a participant in more than 10 meetings or discussions on CVE between then and the end of March 2017.
Gorka’s calendars show that, throughout the year, she was invited to participate in meetings, discussions, and phone calls on CVE programs, including discussing partnerships with other DHS agencies. For example, her calendar shows one October 2017 meeting between staff from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Office of Citizenship “to explore partnering on developing CVE programs for children of immigrants.” It’s unclear if anything came of the meeting.
Gorka’s calendar also lists a February 2017 discussion on “CVE grants and Sanctuary Cities.” Again, it’s unclear if anything came of the meeting, but the Trump administration would later fight a court battle over whether the Department of Justice can withhold law enforcement grants from sanctuary cities.
The calendars show Gorka also had a hand in other terrorism prevention initiatives at DHS. In late 2017, she was invited to participate in a meeting on “DHS Screening and use of publicly available information” — possibly a reference to a later policy change by the Trump administration to start screening the social media pages for refugee and asylum seekers.
Gorka was so central to terrorism policy at DHS that, after Kelly left in November 2017, Gorka was one of the officials tasked with coordinating between different DHS offices.
Gorka was so central to terrorism policy at DHS that, after Kelly left to become Trump’s chief of staff in November 2017, she was one of the officials tasked with coordinating between different DHS offices to develop a briefing on terrorism prevention for the incoming secretary.
While at DHS, Gorka also frequently corresponded with various people at her soon to be employer, the Heritage Foundation, where she is listed as having a number of meetings during her tenure in public office. One frequent confidant was Robin Simcox, then a terrorism researcher at the think tank who authored a report called “The Asylum-Terror Nexus: How Europe Should Respond,” which it pushes a similar line to the justifications given by Trump and other anti-immigration activists to the U.S.’s asylum program. (Simcox, who frequently shared his published works with Gorka’s official government email address, did not respond to a request for comment made to the U.K.’s Counter Extremism Group, where he is the director.)
Gorka also used her work email to confide in Heritage scholars, including about her plans after leaving DHS. In June 2018, more than a year before she left the agency, Gorka emailed James Carafano, a national security expert at the think tank, asking to talk about “terrorism prevention and life after DHS.” (A spokesperson for Heritage declined to comment for this story.)
Eighteen months later, she would become Carafano’s colleague, when, according to a LinkedIn page, she formally joined Heritage.


theintercept--2020-09-14--"A Silent Pandemic": Nurse at ICE Facility Blows the Whistle on Coronavirus Dangers

the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia is speaking out about a host of dangerous medical practices at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility amid the coronavirus outbreak .
The whistleblower , Dawn Wooten , says that Irwin , which is run by the private corporation LaSalle Corrections , has underreported Covid-19 cases , knowingly placed staff and detainees at risk of contracting the virus , neglected medical complaints , and refused to test symptomatic detainees , among other dangerous practices .
On September 8 , Wooten submitted a letter detailing her complaints to the Department of Homeland Security ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the help of attorneys from the Government Accountability Project .
The grim situation inside the facility reflects what she called “ a silent pandemic ” running rampant behind the prison bars .
“ You don ’ t want to see what you ’ re seeing , ” Wooten told The Intercept .
“ You ’ re responsible for the lives of others , ” but Irwin management , in her eyes , downplayed the threat of the virus from the start .
When the first suspected case of Covid-19 arrived at Irwin in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the warden , David Paulk , tell a member of the nursing staff not to tell anybody that the man recently transferred might have the coronavirus .
“ He didn ’ t want there to be mass panic , ” she said .
( Reached by phone , Paulk said he had no comment . )
Another member of the medical staff ordered Wooten to triage the man , even though she didn ’ t have a mask .
She refused .
“ They ’ re still not taking this seriously , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” In a series of interviews with The Intercept , Wooten described how she repeatedly complained to staff leadership before she was demoted in early July from working full time to an on-call position , where she was only offered a few hours a month — a move she charges was retaliation for speaking up and demanding stricter medical safety protocols .
She has worked at the facility for three years in three separate stints as a licensed nurse practitioner , and has over 10 years of experience working as a nurse in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while working at Irwin during the outbreak .
She has sickle cell anemia , and although she told her supervisors her doctor had warned her that exposure to the coronavirus could be deadly , management at Irwin neglected to tell her that detainees she had contact with were symptomatic and , in three cases , had tested positive for Covid-19 .
Wooten ’ s account was bolstered by interviews with another current member of Irwin ’ s medical staff — who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation — and four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The legal advocacy group Project South also submitted a complaint to the OIG on Wooten ’ s behalf , which also included similar testimony collected from interviews with detainees .
Priyanka Bhatt , a staff attorney with the group , told The Intercept , “ Ms .
Wooten ’ s whistleblowing disclosures confirm what detained immigrants have been reporting for years — gross disregard for health and safety standards , lack of medical care , and unsanitary living conditions.
” LaSalle — which runs 18 detention centers throughout the South , capable of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t the only for-profit detention company to face scrutiny for dangerous mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic .
But as the virus took hold in the region this summer , a pattern emerged of alleged abuses in LaSalle facilities .
In July , medical staff at the LaSalle-owned Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana submitted a letter to Congress detailing troubling allegations , including that LaSalle management withheld personal protective equipment from both staff and detainees , dismissed positive Covid-19 test results , and ignored symptoms .
In the same month , medically vulnerable asylum-seekers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were handcuffed , pepper-sprayed in the face , and thrown into solitary confinement after protesting the dangerous conditions .
One of the men was transferred to River Correctional , another LaSalle-run detention center , where he told The Intercept that management there also neglected to take proper medical precautions to stop Covid-19 ’ s spread .
Asylum-seekers have described similar abuses at LaSalle-run Winn Correctional Center .
A spokesperson for LaSalle declined to respond to a detailed list of questions , saying only , “ LaSalle Corrections is firmly committed to the health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We are deeply committed to delivering high-quality , culturally responsive services in safe and humane environments.
” ICE also declined to comment .
In July , LaSalle ’ s CEO Rodney Cooper submitted a letter to Congress outlining LaSalle ’ s response to Covid-19 , claiming that the company was being “ diligent in operating our facilities at the highest level , ” and stating that no LaSalle detainees have “ succumbed ” to Covid-19 .
In fact , at least two LaSalle guards and one member of medical staff have died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Irwin have been protesting since the first weeks of the pandemic , and have faced punishment from staff .
A series of hunger strikes and protests chronicled in the New York Times Magazine in early June brought increased scrutiny to the facility , but according to Wooten , little has changed over the months .
The perilous conditions the detainees decried earlier this summer continue , she said .
“ I would cry , ” Wooten said , reflecting on what she had seen after a shift .
She worried about the detainees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but also about contracting the virus herself , imperiling her own health , and bringing it home to her children .
“ I ’ ve got a kid with asthma , ” she said .
According to ICE , 31 people detained at Irwin have tested positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began .
But Wooten suspects that there were most likely at least 50 by early July , when she was demoted , based on the number of detainees she personally knew who had tested positive , and what she heard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the medical staff agreed with her estimation .
Wooten maintains that management at Irwin has been underreporting cases of Covid-19 to ICE , the state of Georgia , as well as to LaSalle headquarters , and not conducting sufficient tests .
Even when people had Covid-19 symptoms or had been in contact with people who had tested positive , only those individuals or other people who complained about symptoms were tested .
She described one instance in which a person in a crowded dorm tested positive , and only his bunkmate was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that dorm should have been tested , ” Wooten said .
In her complaint to the OIG , Wooten claimed that the director of nurses “ routinely rejected ” symptomatic detainees ’ requests to be tested .
Other medical staff were also unsympathetic .
“ He ain ’ t got no damn corona , Wooten , ” she was once told by a co-worker when she inquired about testing a detainee .
Another detainee asking for a test , she said , was told , “ Get your ass back in that room.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ wasting tests ” on people she suspected of being infected .
“ ‘ Everybody want to be sick with corona , everybody want corona , ’ ” she said other nurses would often say .
According to Wooten , ICE had purchased two testing machines for Irwin , which arrived in June , and which , she claimed , could deliver results in eight minutes .
But to her knowledge , no staff had been trained to use them , and the machines were only used twice before being locked away .
Instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing and drove them in their personal vehicles to the local hospital to be processed , which was against protocol and inevitably meant delayed results .
“ I was told by [ management ] that they were not going to be used and she was not going to put them out , because she didn ’ t want us testing each other , ” Wooten said .
“ They were still sending people to the hospital and had these machines in the facility.
” The virus also spread among staff .
According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she knows personally have been infected with Covid-19 ; she provided the names of at least 12 staff members , including both correctional staff and health care workers , who tested positive .
The list included Marian Cole , the health services administrator who hired Wooten at Irwin .
Cole had told Wooten she was being extra careful to avoid infection , traveling only from the facility to her home .
But in March , Cole fell ill and passed away from complications from the virus .
Management at the facility said Cole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ event .
“ I knew better , ” Wooten said .
“ And me , being who I am , said , ‘ That ’ s not true.
’ [ Cole ] told me she didn ’ t go anywhere but here and home.
” ( Cole ’ s daughter , reached for comment , did not want to discuss her mother ’ s passing . )
Wooten ’ s account of systematic undercounting of the true spread of the virus accords with what has been reported at other facilities , where ICE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t have space to quarantine people or ignored glaring symptoms .
Detainees at Irwin , echoing those held at other detention centers , also said they were afraid to report their symptoms because they would be locked in solitary confinement , with little medical attention .
“ It is complete torture , because it ’ s like a punishment , ” one immigrant said , who declined to give their name for fear of reprisals .
“ I didn ’ t want to say I had a pain in my throat , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t want to go back to the punishment cell.
” In March , when fears of coronavirus began spreading rapidly , LaSalle acquired hundreds of N95 masks , which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended for health care workers .
Each member of the medical staff at Irwin was given a single mask , though Wooten specified that most N95 masks were reserved for high-ranking staff , even if they had less contact with detainees .
No masks , at the time , were given to detainees .
Wooten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistently while doing her rounds .
By May , however , the strap had broken .
When she asked for a replacement mask , supervisors refused her request .
Worried about protecting herself and the detainees , Wooten purchased a homemade cloth mask .
The other member of the medical staff The Intercept spoke with said that management had hundreds of replacement masks they were hoarding in storage .
Detainees , meanwhile , had begun to make their own masks out of whatever materials they had at hand .
By late April , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the company but donated by a local church group .
But one detainee said the masks have not been replaced unless a family member pushes ICE and LaSalle for a new one .
Wooten said that on at least three occasions , management ordered her to interact with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 without informing her of the diagnosis .
“ I had been in all of three of their faces , ” Wooten said .
When Wooten and other members of the staff confronted management about the situation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ test results would be a HIPAA violation , an illegal disclosure of confidential personal medical information .
Gregory Dober , an adjunct professor at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and expert in health care ethics and law regarding incarcerated individuals , told The Intercept that alerting staff that a detainee has tested positive for coronavirus “ would not be a HIPAA violation.
” In fact , Dober said that the failure to inform staff of positive cases could constitute reckless disregard of the health of an inmate , detainee , or staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is currently at LaSalle , said that even when they are working with patients in the medical area , not just doing the rounds with the general population , they don ’ t have enough gowns , face shields , or masks to properly protect themselves .
Wooten also said the medical area was dirty : the floor infrequently swept , the exam tables not cleaned after use , and the area cluttered and dusty .
“ There was often blood on the floor that had not been cleaned up , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bathrooms are dirty , and they had to disinfect phones and other materials themselves within their units .
Wooten described negligent or perfunctory care for sick detainees , which had been common before the beginning of the pandemic .
She witnessed nurses shred and ignore “ sick call ” sheets , which detainees use to request nonemergency medical help , some of which included complaints of Covid-19 symptoms ( the other member of the medical staff supported this claim , saying that the shredding of sick call sheets was common . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and throwing it in her trash can , ” Wooten said of another member of the medical staff .
“ I had one girl who put in about 12 sick calls .
She was oozing out the belly button and nobody ever saw it.
” In another case , a man with Covid-19 symptoms requested a test .
He was isolated in solitary confinement , a swab was taken and sent to the hospital , and more than two weeks later , nobody had called the hospital to check for the test results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he had tested positive and informed the man herself .
Wooten was with another member of the nursing staff when she declared , without taking his temperature , that a man who had complained of a headache had a temperature of 97.7 F. She “ pulled it out of the air , ” Wooten said .
“ She falsified it .
I watched her.
” Wooten insisted that they actually take his temperature , and found that it was 101.8 .
Detainees with fevers were usually just given over-the-counter cold medication , Wooten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nurses were not doing nursing , ” she said .
“ They were just bodies in the building.
” In response to the neglect and refusal to test detainees , Wooten described a “ system ” that detainees had developed , organizing to isolate people suspected to have Covid-19 near the door to the dormitory , both for their protection and to force the medical staff to test them .
And yet , she overheard other medical staff tell detainees , “ There was no Covid in here.
” In one instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ mini-riot ” to demand a Covid-19 test .
The frequent transfer of detainees between facilities compounded dangers .
Wooten explained that while typically people were tested before being moved to Irwin , sometimes the transfer took place before the results of the test were in .
Plus , newly arrived detainees were not always isolated from the others in the facility .
She was also aware of at least one occasion in which a detainee who had tested positive for Covid-19 was deported to Mexico .
“ They keep piling more people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people in here , and in the end , it ’ s all about the money , ” said a detained woman who had to wait over a week for her sick call .
Wooten echoed the statement : “ They get seen as a dollar sign .
Their heads are counted not as humans but as dollars.
” The tinder-box scenario finally brought Wooten to a breaking point .
After months of observing troubling medical conditions and , at times , going out of her way to care for detainees who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the alarm with management in the facility .
“ When I started talking about the unfairness and injustice , ” pressuring staff to conduct more Covid-19 tests , “ I was written up , ” Wooten said .
“ It ’ s dog-eat-dog in there , at the expense of the detainees.
” By mid-June , Wooten had already been tested twice for Covid-19 .
And each time , due to her prior health concerns , she was instructed by the hospital to wait until her results arrived before returning to work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ her third Covid-19 test took place on June 21 .
In a letter to Wooten ’ s employers , the medical facility where she was tested requested Wooten be excused from work for 10 days , until her results were available and her symptoms — including muscle aches , headaches , and diarrhea — had gone away .
After her first two tests , the doctors ’ notes were sufficient to be excused from work .
However , according to documents , on June 27 — six days after her third test — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no show for her regular scheduled workday.
” Her supervisors wrote that she was required “ to call out each day she is off work.
” They also pressured her to return to work , which she did , working two shifts on June 23 and June 25 .
But as of June 27 , there was no requirement for staff members to call in sick every day while awaiting Covid-19 test results ; that policy was not implemented until July 1 , according to a memo from facility management viewed by The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was in place , Wooten was demoted , reducing her from full-time status to “ on-call , ” and drastically cutting her hours .
Wooten , who is Black , also said she suffered racism throughout the experience .
White staff members who took time off for testing were given “ Covid pay ” and were not required to call in every day , she said .
With medical bills , sick family members , children to feed , rent to pay , and car payments to make , the reduction in her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As her own health deteriorated and she suffered from consistent stress , Wooten relied on her eldest son to help pay off the car .
She says her demotion was an indirect threat to other health care staff at the facility who had expressed concerns , though more quietly .
“ They ’ re afraid of being fired , ” Wooten said .
Irwin had treated her as an example , “ I was thrown to the wolves.
” But , she added , “ I have nothing to lose at this point.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2:29 p.m .
This article originally misstated Marian Cole ’ s title .
It was Health Services Administrator , not Director of Nurses .
It also misstated Gregory Dober ’ s affiliation ; he is a professor at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine , not Lake Erie College .
Update , Sept. 14 , 2020 , 12:14 a.m .
This article was updated to include the role of the Government Accountability Project and Project South in filing Wooten ’ s whistleblower complaint .

A nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia is speaking out about a host of dangerous medical practices at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, says that Irwin, which is run by the private corporation LaSalle Corrections, has underreported Covid-19 cases, knowingly placed staff and detainees at risk of contracting the virus, neglected medical complaints, and refused to test symptomatic detainees, among other dangerous practices. On September 8, Wooten submitted a letter detailing her complaints to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, with the help of attorneys from the Government Accountability Project. The grim situation inside the facility reflects what she called “a silent pandemic” running rampant behind the prison bars.
“You don’t want to see what you’re seeing,” Wooten told The Intercept. “You’re responsible for the lives of others,” but Irwin management, in her eyes, downplayed the threat of the virus from the start.
When the first suspected case of Covid-19 arrived at Irwin in March, Wooten says, she overheard the warden, David Paulk, tell a member of the nursing staff not to tell anybody that the man recently transferred might have the coronavirus. “He didn’t want there to be mass panic,” she said. (Reached by phone, Paulk said he had no comment.) Another member of the medical staff ordered Wooten to triage the man, even though she didn’t have a mask. She refused. “They’re still not taking this seriously,” Wooten said. “Enough was enough.”
In a series of interviews with The Intercept, Wooten described how she repeatedly complained to staff leadership before she was demoted in early July from working full time to an on-call position, where she was only offered a few hours a month — a move she charges was retaliation for speaking up and demanding stricter medical safety protocols. She has worked at the facility for three years in three separate stints as a licensed practical nurse, and has over 10 years of experience working as a nurse in prisons.
Her own health was imperiled while working at Irwin during the outbreak. She has sickle cell anemia, and although she told her supervisors her doctor had warned her that exposure to the coronavirus could be deadly, management at Irwin neglected to tell her that detainees she had contact with were symptomatic and, in three cases, had tested positive for Covid-19.
Wooten’s account was bolstered by interviews with another current member of Irwin’s medical staff — who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation — and four people currently or recently detained there.
The legal advocacy group Project South also submitted a complaint to the OIG on Wooten’s behalf, which also included similar testimony collected from interviews with detainees. Priyanka Bhatt, a staff attorney with the group, told The Intercept, “Ms. Wooten’s whistleblowing disclosures confirm what detained immigrants have been reporting for years — gross disregard for health and safety standards, lack of medical care, and unsanitary living conditions.”
Photo: Courtesy of Dawn Wooten
LaSalle — which runs 18 detention centers throughout the South, capable of holding over 13,000 people — isn’t the only for-profit detention company to face scrutiny for dangerous mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. But as the virus took hold in the region this summer, a pattern emerged of alleged abuses in LaSalle facilities. In July, medical staff at the LaSalle-owned Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana submitted a letter to Congress detailing troubling allegations, including that LaSalle management withheld personal protective equipment from both staff and detainees, dismissed positive Covid-19 test results, and ignored symptoms. In the same month, medically vulnerable asylum-seekers detained at Richwood told The Intercept they were handcuffed, pepper-sprayed in the face, and thrown into solitary confinement after protesting the dangerous conditions. One of the men was transferred to River Correctional, another LaSalle-run detention center, where he told The Intercept that management there also neglected to take proper medical precautions to stop Covid-19’s spread. Asylum-seekers have described similar abuses at LaSalle-run Winn Correctional Center.
A spokesperson for LaSalle declined to respond to a detailed list of questions, saying only, “LaSalle Corrections is firmly committed to the health and welfare of those in our care. We are deeply committed to delivering high-quality, culturally responsive services in safe and humane environments.” ICE also declined to comment.
In July, LaSalle’s CEO Rodney Cooper submitted a letter to Congress outlining LaSalle’s response to Covid-19, claiming that the company was being “diligent in operating our facilities at the highest level,” and stating that no LaSalle detainees have “succumbed” to Covid-19. In fact, at least two LaSalle guards and one member of medical staff have died of the disease.
People detained at Irwin have been protesting since the first weeks of the pandemic, and have faced punishment from staff. A series of hunger strikes and protests chronicled in the New York Times Magazine in early June brought increased scrutiny to the facility, but according to Wooten, little has changed over the months. The perilous conditions the detainees decried earlier this summer continue, she said.
“I would cry,” Wooten said, reflecting on what she had seen after a shift. She worried about the detainees locked up and unable to protect themselves, but also about contracting the virus herself, imperiling her own health, and bringing it home to her children. “I’ve got a kid with asthma,” she said.
Lack of Testing Leads to Underreporting
According to ICE, 31 people detained at Irwin have tested positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began. But Wooten suspects that there were most likely at least 50 by early July, when she was demoted, based on the number of detainees she personally knew who had tested positive, and what she heard from her colleagues. The other member of the medical staff agreed with her estimation.
Wooten maintains that management at Irwin has been underreporting cases of Covid-19 to ICE, the state of Georgia, as well as to LaSalle headquarters, and not conducting sufficient tests. Even when people had Covid-19 symptoms or had been in contact with people who had tested positive, only those individuals or other people who complained about symptoms were tested. She described one instance in which a person in a crowded dorm tested positive, and only his bunkmate was subsequently also tested. “Everybody in that dorm should have been tested,” Wooten said.
Wooten was warned of “wasting tests” on people she suspected of being infected.
In her complaint to the OIG, Wooten claimed that the director of nurses “routinely rejected” symptomatic detainees’ requests to be tested. Other medical staff were also unsympathetic. “He ain’t got no damn corona, Wooten,” she was once told by a co-worker when she inquired about testing a detainee. Another detainee asking for a test, she said, was told, “Get your ass back in that room.” Wooten was also warned of “wasting tests” on people she suspected of being infected.
“‘Everybody want to be sick with corona, everybody want corona,’” she said other nurses would often say.
According to Wooten, ICE had purchased two testing machines for Irwin, which arrived in June, and which, she claimed, could deliver results in eight minutes. But to her knowledge, no staff had been trained to use them, and the machines were only used twice before being locked away. Instead, medical staff collected swabs from detainee testing and drove them in their personal vehicles to the local hospital to be processed, which was against protocol and inevitably meant delayed results.
“I was told by [management] that they were not going to be used and she was not going to put them out, because she didn’t want us testing each other,” Wooten said. “They were still sending people to the hospital and had these machines in the facility.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The virus also spread among staff. According to Wooten, more than 15 LaSalle employees she knows personally have been infected with Covid-19; she provided the names of at least 12 staff members, including both correctional staff and health care workers, who tested positive.
The list included Marian Cole, the health services administrator who hired Wooten at Irwin. Cole had told Wooten she was being extra careful to avoid infection, traveling only from the facility to her home. But in May, Cole fell ill and passed away from complications from the virus.
Management at the facility said Cole had contracted the virus at a family event. “I knew better,” Wooten said. “And me, being who I am, said, ‘That’s not true.’ [Cole] told me she didn’t go anywhere but here and home.” (Cole’s daughter, reached for comment, did not want to discuss her mother’s passing.)
Wooten’s account of systematic undercounting of the true spread of the virus accords with what has been reported at other facilities, where ICE has resisted testing because it didn’t have space to quarantine people or ignored glaring symptoms. Detainees at Irwin, echoing those held at other detention centers, also said they were afraid to report their symptoms because they would be locked in solitary confinement, with little medical attention. “It is complete torture, because it’s like a punishment,” one immigrant said, who declined to give their name for fear of reprisals. “I didn’t want to say I had a pain in my throat, or that I had symptoms, because I didn’t want to go back to the punishment cell.”
Illustration: Dilek Baykara for The Intercept
Dangerous Practices
In March, when fears of coronavirus began spreading rapidly, LaSalle acquired hundreds of N95 masks, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended for health care workers. Each member of the medical staff at Irwin was given a single mask, though Wooten specified that most N95 masks were reserved for high-ranking staff, even if they had less contact with detainees. No masks, at the time, were given to detainees. Wooten received her N95 mask and wore it consistently while doing her rounds. By May, however, the strap had broken. When she asked for a replacement mask, supervisors refused her request. Worried about protecting herself and the detainees, Wooten purchased a homemade cloth mask. The other member of the medical staff The Intercept spoke with said that management had hundreds of replacement masks they were hoarding in storage.
Detainees, meanwhile, had begun to make their own masks out of whatever materials they had at hand. By late April, LaSalle offered them masks — provided not by the company but donated by a local church group. But one detainee said the masks have not been replaced unless a family member pushes ICE and LaSalle for a new one.
Wooten said that on at least three occasions, management ordered her to interact with patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 without informing her of the diagnosis. “I had been in all of three of their faces,” Wooten said. When Wooten and other members of the staff confronted management about the situation, they were told that revealing detainees’ test results would be a HIPAA violation, an illegal disclosure of confidential personal medical information.
Gregory Dober, an adjunct professor at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and expert in health care ethics and law regarding incarcerated individuals, told The Intercept that alerting staff that a detainee has tested positive for coronavirus “would not be a HIPAA violation.” In fact, Dober said that the failure to inform staff of positive cases could constitute reckless disregard of the health of an inmate, detainee, or staff worker.
“A lot of the nurses were not doing nursing. They were just bodies in the building.”
The other medical worker, who is currently at LaSalle, said that even when they are working with patients in the medical area, not just doing the rounds with the general population, they don’t have enough gowns, face shields, or masks to properly protect themselves. Wooten also said the medical area was dirty: the floor infrequently swept, the exam tables not cleaned after use, and the area cluttered and dusty. “There was often blood on the floor that had not been cleaned up,” Wooten said. Detainees told The Intercept the bathrooms are dirty, and they had to disinfect phones and other materials themselves within their units.
Wooten described negligent or perfunctory care for sick detainees, which had been common before the beginning of the pandemic. She witnessed nurses shred and ignore “sick call” sheets, which detainees use to request nonemergency medical help, some of which included complaints of Covid-19 symptoms (the other member of the medical staff supported this claim, saying that the shredding of sick call sheets was common.)
“Every day she is shredding something and throwing it in her trash can,” Wooten said of another member of the medical staff. “I had one girl who put in about 12 sick calls. She was oozing out the belly button and nobody ever saw it.” In another case, a man with Covid-19 symptoms requested a test. He was isolated in solitary confinement, a swab was taken and sent to the hospital, and more than two weeks later, nobody had called the hospital to check for the test results. When Wooten called, she learned he had tested positive and informed the man herself.
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Wooten was with another member of the nursing staff when she declared, without taking his temperature, that a man who had complained of a headache had a temperature of 97.7 F. She “pulled it out of the air,” Wooten said. “She falsified it. I watched her.” Wooten insisted that they actually take his temperature, and found that it was 101.8. Detainees with fevers were usually just given over-the-counter cold medication, Wooten said.
“A lot of the nurses were not doing nursing,” she said. “They were just bodies in the building.”
In response to the neglect and refusal to test detainees, Wooten described a “system” that detainees had developed, organizing to isolate people suspected to have Covid-19 near the door to the dormitory, both for their protection and to force the medical staff to test them. And yet, she overheard other medical staff tell detainees, “There was no Covid in here.” In one instance, according to Wooten, detainees staged a “mini-riot” to demand a Covid-19 test.
The frequent transfer of detainees between facilities compounded dangers. Wooten explained that while typically people were tested before being moved to Irwin, sometimes the transfer took place before the results of the test were in. Plus, newly arrived detainees were not always isolated from the others in the facility. She was also aware of at least one occasion in which a detainee who had tested positive for Covid-19 was deported to Mexico.
“They keep piling more people in here. They keep bringing more people in here, and in the end, it’s all about the money,” said a detained woman who had to wait over a week for her sick call. Wooten echoed the statement: “They get seen as a dollar sign. Their heads are counted not as humans but as dollars.”
Wooten’s Demotion
The tinder-box scenario finally brought Wooten to a breaking point. After months of observing troubling medical conditions and, at times, going out of her way to care for detainees who had been ignored, Wooten began to raise the alarm with management in the facility.
“When I started talking about the unfairness and injustice,” pressuring staff to conduct more Covid-19 tests, “I was written up,” Wooten said. “It’s dog-eat-dog in there, at the expense of the detainees.”
By mid-June, Wooten had already been tested twice for Covid-19. And each time, due to her prior health concerns, she was instructed by the hospital to wait until her results arrived before returning to work. Medical records reviewed by The Intercept confirm her third Covid-19 test took place on June 21. In a letter to Wooten’s employers, the medical facility where she was tested requested Wooten be excused from work for 10 days, until her results were available and her symptoms — including muscle aches, headaches, and diarrhea — had gone away.
“It’s dog-eat-dog in there, at the expense of the detainees.”
After her first two tests, the doctors’ notes were sufficient to be excused from work. However, according to documents, on June 27 — six days after her third test — management reported her for “no call no show for her regular scheduled workday.” Her supervisors wrote that she was required “to call out each day she is off work.” They also pressured her to return to work, which she did, working two shifts on June 23 and June 25.
But as of June 27, there was no requirement for staff members to call in sick every day while awaiting Covid-19 test results; that policy was not implemented until July 1, according to a memo from facility management viewed by The Intercept. One day after the policy was in place, Wooten was demoted, reducing her from full-time status to “on-call,” and drastically cutting her hours. Wooten, who is Black, also said she suffered racism throughout the experience. White staff members who took time off for testing were given “Covid pay” and were not required to call in every day, she said.
With medical bills, sick family members, children to feed, rent to pay, and car payments to make, the reduction in her work hours was a serious blow. As her own health deteriorated and she suffered from consistent stress, Wooten relied on her eldest son to help pay off the car.
She says her demotion was an indirect threat to other health care staff at the facility who had expressed concerns, though more quietly.
“They’re afraid of being fired,” Wooten said. Irwin had treated her as an example, “I was thrown to the wolves.” But, she added, “I have nothing to lose at this point.”
Correction, Sept. 14, 2020, 10:41 p.m.
This article originally misstated Marian Cole’s title. It was Health Services Administrator, not Director of Nurses. It also misstated Gregory Dober’s affiliation; he is a professor at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, not Lake Erie College. The article has also been corrected to reflect that Wooten is a licensed practical nurse, not a nurse practitioner, and that Cole died in May, not March.
Update, Sept. 14, 2020, 12:14 a.m.
This article was updated to include the role of the Government Accountability Project and Project South in filing Wooten’s whistleblower complaint.


theintercept--2020-09-15--Trump Scoffs at Plea to Take Climate Change Seriously Amid Fires, Mocks Science Instead

In a tense exchange at an air base used by firefighters in Sacramento , the president scoffed at an impassioned plea from California ’ s natural resources secretary , Wade Crowfoot , “ to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests.
” Donald Trump laughed during a briefing on the deadly wildfires in California on Monday , refusing to take seriously the scientific consensus that climate change is a major factor in the blazes currently making it hard to breathe along the entire west coast of the United States .
“ That science is going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , “ because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it ’ s all about vegetation management , we ’ re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.
” “ It ’ ll start getting cooler , ” Trump replied with a smirk .
“ You just watch , ” he added as at least one local official chuckled along with him .
When Crowfoot said , “ I wish science agreed with you , ” Trump brought the exchange to an end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t think science knows , actually , ” and calling on Cal Fire chief Thom Porter to speak .
The laughter in the room that accompanied Trump ’ s dismissive tone was a reminder of how very rarely he is challenged or corrected by those around him — even when he is spectacularly , comically wrong .
Trump ’ s Democratic rival , former Vice President Joe Biden , replied to Trump ’ s statement by tweeting “ Science knows.
” Speaking in Delaware earlier in the day , Biden called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wildfires an “ undeniable , accelerating , punishing reality , ” which “ requires action , not denial.
” It was unclear who laughed along with Trump ’ s blatant denial of climate science , but two local officials seated on the side of the table where the laughter came from were conservatives who , like Trump , were not wearing masks : Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and Ray Haupt , a supervisor from Siskiyou County who is a former forestry service official .
Mims , who refused to enforce the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , has appeared at two previous White House events to praise Trump ’ s crackdown on undocumented immigrants .
Haupt has praised Trump ’ s White House for inviting him to Washington to talk about increasing timber production from the 57 percent of California forests owned by the federal government .
Porter , the fire chief , was wearing a mask which made it impossible to see if he laughed at Trump ’ s dismissive comment , but it seems unlikely , based on his clear support for climate science in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ derided climate change as “ a hoax , ” was more gently confronted on the issue earlier in the briefing by California ’ s governor , Gavin Newsom .
“ When we ’ re having heat domes , the likes of which we ’ ve never seen in our history , the hottest August ever in the history of the state , the ferocity of these fires , the drought — five-plus years , losing 163 million trees to that drought — something has happened to the plumbing of the world , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a perspective , humbly , where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident that climate change is real , and that is exacerbating this.
” Unlike Crowfoot , however , Newsom undercut his assertion by not asking Trump to accept that science , but merely to respect what he called “ the difference of opinion out here , as it relates to this fundamental issue , on the issue of climate change .
”

Donald Trump laughed during a briefing on the deadly wildfires in California on Monday, refusing to take seriously the scientific consensus that climate change is a major factor in the blazes currently making it hard to breathe along the entire west coast of the United States.
In a tense exchange at an air base used by firefighters in Sacramento, the president scoffed at an impassioned plea from California’s natural resources secretary, Wade Crowfoot, “to really recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forests.”
“That science is going to be key,” Crowfoot told Trump, “because if we ignore that science and sort of put our head in the sand and think it’s all about vegetation management, we’re not going to succeed together protecting Californians.”
“It’ll start getting cooler,” Trump replied with a smirk. “You just watch,” he added as at least one local official chuckled along with him.
When Crowfoot said, “I wish science agreed with you,” Trump brought the exchange to an end by saying, “Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” and calling on Cal Fire chief Thom Porter to speak.
The laughter in the room that accompanied Trump’s dismissive tone was a reminder of how very rarely he is challenged or corrected by those around him — even when he is spectacularly, comically wrong.
Trump’s Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, replied to Trump’s statement by tweeting “Science knows.” Speaking in Delaware earlier in the day, Biden called the role of climate change in the wildfires an “undeniable, accelerating, punishing reality,” which “requires action, not denial.”
It was unclear who laughed along with Trump’s blatant denial of climate science, but two local officials seated on the side of the table where the laughter came from were conservatives who, like Trump, were not wearing masks: Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and Ray Haupt, a supervisor from Siskiyou County who is a former forestry service official.
Mims, who refused to enforce the state’s Covid-19 stay-at-home orders earlier this year, has appeared at two previous White House events to praise Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Haupt has praised Trump’s White House for inviting him to Washington to talk about increasing timber production from the 57 percent of California forests owned by the federal government.
Porter, the fire chief, was wearing a mask which made it impossible to see if he laughed at Trump’s dismissive comment, but it seems unlikely, based on his clear support for climate science in the past.
Trump, who has previously derided climate change as “a hoax,” was more gently confronted on the issue earlier in the briefing by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
“When we’re having heat domes, the likes of which we’ve never seen in our history, the hottest August ever in the history of the state, the ferocity of these fires, the drought — five-plus years, losing 163 million trees to that drought — something has happened to the plumbing of the world,” Newsom told Trump. “We come from a perspective, humbly, where we submit the science is in and observed evidence is self-evident that climate change is real, and that is exacerbating this.”
Unlike Crowfoot, however, Newsom undercut his assertion by not asking Trump to accept that science, but merely to respect what he called “the difference of opinion out here, as it relates to this fundamental issue, on the issue of climate change.”
I'm sorry, but climate change is not a "difference of opinion." It's a matter of science vs those who reject science. pic.twitter.com/AssCXs3G2v — Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 14, 2020
Newsom also thanked Trump for making federal resources available to fight the fires. During the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, Newsom was one of the nation’s Democratic governors who secured federal resources for his state by offering Trump lavish praise, which the president then incorporated into campaign ads.
While both Newsom and Crowfoot acknowledged the need for stepped up “vegetation management” in forests, as well as measures to slow warming, Trump has tried to blame the fires entirely on local authorities for not clearing away dead leaves and trees. That’s one reason that Newsom made a point of explaining to Trump that “57 percent of the land in this state is federal forest land,” while just 3 percent is owned by California.
At a campaign rally in Nevada over the weekend, Trump ignored climate change and blamed the fires exclusively on poor “forest management.”
VIDEO: ?? US President Donald Trump says he will visit #California and meet emergency services there as record fires smother the West Coast in dense smog. Trump was speaking at a Nevada campaign event #CaliforniaFires pic.twitter.com/8tLdq4sgr1 — AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 13, 2020
Before the briefing on Monday, Trump dodged a question about climate change by again insisting that states in the American west run by Democratic governors were at fault for not emulating Finland’s forest fire prevention system.
Trump claims that "explosive" trees are causing raging wildfires pic.twitter.com/pbC5xYA8vL — Talking Points Memo (@TPM) September 14, 2020
In 2018, when he visited the California town of Paradise (which he referred to, twice, as “Pleasure”), Trump wrongly claimed that Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, had told him that his “forest nation” had no problem with fires because of the regular raking of leaves from the forest floors.
“They spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning, they don't have any problems.” President Trump has again blamed forest mismanagement for the deadly wildfires in California, saying they should look towards the 'forest nation' of Finland for answers. pic.twitter.com/lGpgYU59VP — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 18, 2018
While Finland does make an effort to remove dead trees as part of its fire prevention strategy, Niinisto subsequently denied that he had said anything about raking leaves to Trump.
Scientists point out that Finland’s climate and vegetation are not at all similar to those of California, Oregon or Washington, where wildfires are now burning. Temperatures in Finland, which juts into the Arctic Circle, are far lower than in the western U.S., where hot, dry air, lightning strikes without rain and high winds make wildfires much more frequent. Finnish forests also lack the naturally flammable chaparral wildlands common in the America west, filled with shrubs and small trees that catch fire more easily than tall trees in colder, wetter climates.


theintercept--2020-09-17--North Carolina Nurses Win Union in Landslide After Bitter Opposition

for the beleaguered American labor movement , 1,800 nurses at Asheville , North Carolina-based Mission Hospital will now be represented by a union , National Nurses United , as officials finished counting votes early Thursday morning .
The victory is the largest at a nonunion hospital in the South since 1975 , and is the first private sector hospital union win ever in North Carolina .
The hospital is owned by the largest hospital corporation in the country , Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare .
The company was previously run by Republican Rick Scott , whose ill-gotten gains from Medicare fraud helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate .
HCA has received nearly $ 1.5 billion in coronavirus-related CARES Act grants .
HCA fiercely fought the union effort , as The Intercept reported in May , bringing in a phalanx of union-busting firms to intimidate nurses into voting no .
Due to recent changes in election rules made by the Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board , nurses at Mission had to wait months for an election date that previously would have come in just a few weeks , giving management extra time to work over staff .
The final vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a landslide in favor of the union .
“ We could not be more proud of the unity , the perseverance , and the patient advocacy and dedication of the Mission RNs to their patients , their colleagues , and their community , ” said NNU and NNOC Executive Director Bonnie Castillo , RN , in a statement .
“ At a time when nurses are in a daily battle with the deadly fight for their patients and their own lives in the era of COVID-19 , they have demonstrated incomparable courage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all of us.
” NNU is considered to be among the country ’ s most progressive unions , a champion of Medicare for All and safe nurse staffing standards .
“ We ’ re all thrilled that we ’ ve finally won , ” said Lesley Bruce , a nurse who works in chest pain observation at Mission , in a statement .
“ This victory means we can use our collective voice to advocate for patient safety and safer staffing .
I can ’ t wait to see what improvement we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also among the largest private sector NLRB union election victories in the last few years .
Due to fierce management opposition to unions by employers , negotiating the first contract after union victories can be difficult .
Much of new organizing in recent years has occurred either in the public sector , under the Railway Labor Act ( which also governs airlines ) , or through organizing agreements that ensure employer neutrality .
To ease the path of union organizing , unions have championed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far more ambitious than previous union efforts like the Employee Free Choice Act from 2007 to 2010 .
The bill passed the House in February .
The last large nurse union victory was at Albany Medical Center in Albany , New York , by the New York State Nurses Association in April 2018 , when 2,200 nurses joined that union .
On September 7 , those nurses authorized a strike for their first contract .

In a dramatic victory for the beleaguered American labor movement, 1,800 nurses at Asheville, North Carolina-based Mission Hospital will now be represented by a union, National Nurses United, as officials finished counting votes early Thursday morning. The victory is the largest at a nonunion hospital in the South since 1975, and is the first private sector hospital union win ever in North Carolina.
The hospital is owned by the largest hospital corporation in the country, Tennessee-based HCA Healthcare. The company was previously run by Republican Rick Scott, whose ill-gotten gains from Medicare fraud helped fund his successful run in Florida for Senate. HCA has received nearly $1.5 billion in coronavirus-related CARES Act grants.
HCA fiercely fought the union effort, as The Intercept reported in May, bringing in a phalanx of union-busting firms to intimidate nurses into voting no. Due to recent changes in election rules made by the Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board, nurses at Mission had to wait months for an election date that previously would have come in just a few weeks, giving management extra time to work over staff. The final vote count, at 965 to 411, was a landslide in favor of the union.
“We could not be more proud of the unity, the perseverance, and the patient advocacy and dedication of the Mission RNs to their patients, their colleagues, and their community,” said NNU and NNOC Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN, in a statement. “At a time when nurses are in a daily battle with the deadly fight for their patients and their own lives in the era of COVID-19, they have demonstrated incomparable courage and resilience that is an inspiration to all of us.”
NNU is considered to be among the country’s most progressive unions, a champion of Medicare for All and safe nurse staffing standards.
“We’re all thrilled that we’ve finally won,” said Lesley Bruce, a nurse who works in chest pain observation at Mission, in a statement. “This victory means we can use our collective voice to advocate for patient safety and safer staffing. I can’t wait to see what improvement we’ll win together.”
The election is also among the largest private sector NLRB union election victories in the last few years. Due to fierce management opposition to unions by employers, negotiating the first contract after union victories can be difficult. Much of new organizing in recent years has occurred either in the public sector, under the Railway Labor Act (which also governs airlines), or through organizing agreements that ensure employer neutrality.
To ease the path of union organizing, unions have championed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a total overhaul of labor law that is far more ambitious than previous union efforts like the Employee Free Choice Act from 2007 to 2010. The bill passed the House in February.
The last large nurse union victory was at Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, by the New York State Nurses Association in April 2018, when 2,200 nurses joined that union. On September 7, those nurses authorized a strike for their first contract.


theintercept--2020-09-17--The Long, Disgraceful History of American Attacks on Brown and Black Women's Reproductive Systems

poor women of color is an American tradition .
Rightful public fury has followed allegations this week that hysterectomies were performed on numerous women imprisoned at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ’ s Irwin County Detention Center .
According to a whistleblower , a nurse at the facility , the women “ reacted confused ” when they learned what had been done to their bodies .
The allegations produced a flood of commentary .
Some drew comparisons to Nazi Germany ’ s eugenic sterilization programs .
These commentators , however , did not need to reach so far across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegations echo a long and disgraceful history right here in America .
The accounts of ongoing brutalities at ICE concentration camps may be a direct consequence of fascistic Trumpian excess , but , if the whistleblower claims are proven true , they would be extensions of — not aberrations from — a wholly American practice of sterilizing populations deemed “ undesirable.
” President Donald Trump ’ s administration did not bring white supremacist eugenic practices to U.S. soil : They have always been inherent to a country fixated on its “ borders ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does an injustice to centuries of victims of sterilization to pretend otherwise .
Like almost every report on detainee treatment at ICE concentration camps , the whistleblower complaint filed this week makes accusations of routine dehumanization .
Dawn Wooten , a licensed practical nurse at a Georgia-based detention center , filed a whistleblower complaint to the Department of Homeland Security ’ s Office of Inspector General that a doctor contracted to treat detained women had performed a seemingly high rate of hysterectomies .
Wooten and one of the groups representing her , Project @ @ @ @ @ @ @ giving what the complaint called a lack of “ proper informed consent ” before procedures .
The Intercept was able to gather independent allegations from detainees and lawyers that were consistent with Project South ’ s complaints .
In the complaint to the Office of Inspector General , the whistleblower called the doctor “ the uterus collector ” — a moniker seemingly ripped from the annals of notorious eugenicists .
And such annals are part of a very American legacy .
The man dubbed the “ father of modern gynecology , ” J.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black women without anesthesia , but was nonetheless lionized in the 19th century with statues around the country .
Only now are some of them being taken down — the mere beginning of a long overdue reckoning .
at decimating the lives of Black , Indigenous , and other people of color , particularly poor and immigrant communities , as well as people with disabilities , were an explicit part of U.S. policy in the 20th century .
Thirty-two states maintained federally funded eugenics boards , tasked with ordering sterilizations of women — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Tens of thousands of forced sterilizations were carried out nationwide last century .
California ’ s so-called Asexualization Acts , which led to 20,000 men and women losing reproductive capacity , were a direct inspiration to Nazi eugenicists .
“ There is today one state , ” Adolf Hitler wrote , “ in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [ of citizenship ] are noticeable .
Of course , it is not our model German Republic , but the United States.
” A 1965 survey found that a staggering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 49 years old had been sterilized , a result of U.S. population control programs enforced on the territory .
So common were coerced sterilizations in the American South that they became referred to as “ Mississippi appendectomies.
” The extent to which these practices fit within a genocidal , white supremacist ideology can not be underestimated .
Between 1930 to 1970 , 65 percent of the 7,600-plus sterilizations ordered by the state of North Carolina were carried out on Black women .
And as Angelin Chaplin noted this week in The Cut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roe v. Wade granted mostly white women more bodily autonomy in the 1970s , approximately 25,000 Native American women were forcibly sterilized by the U.S. government — between 25 and 50 percent of the female population.
” By the end of 1970s , thanks in part to the organizing efforts of women of Mexican origin in California , programs of state-ordered sterilizations had ended and guidelines were put in place to better ensure informed consent around sterilization procedures ( although numerous laws enabling state-forced sterilization remain on the books ) .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end eugenicist practices .
The denial of reproductive choice to poor people of color , though sterilization , forced birth , and mass incarceration — alongside every form of necropolitical governance that leaves communities to suffer and die — is an assertion of which lives get to matter in the U.S. As recently as 2013 , an investigation found that at least 148 female inmates in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 to 2010 ; many of the women said they were coerced into the procedure .
The whistleblower and detainee ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sit squarely in this American legacy .
“ The fact that Black and brown immigrant women are held in an extremely vulnerable position at this prison where they have no control over their bodies and no say what it is done to them is sickening , ” said Azadeh Shahshahani , legal and advocacy director of Project South .
“ Irwin should be shut down immediately and people should be freed .
The United States government , as well as the private prison corporation running this prison , should be held accountable.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States accountable in any robust sense requires a reckoning with the ways it has been defined by the control of Black and brown bodies : domestically , at its borders , and internationally .
There need be no explicit policy of forced sterilization for a eugenicist system to exist .
Normalized neglect and dehumanization are sufficient .
These are Trumpian specialties , yes , but as American as apple pie .

Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Forced sterilization of poor women of color is an American tradition.
Rightful public fury has followed allegations this week that hysterectomies were performed on numerous women imprisoned at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Irwin County Detention Center. According to a whistleblower, a nurse at the facility, the women “reacted confused” when they learned what had been done to their bodies.
The allegations produced a flood of commentary. Some drew comparisons to Nazi Germany’s eugenic sterilization programs. These commentators, however, did not need to reach so far across the globe: Some of the most extreme allegations echo a long and disgraceful history right here in America.
If the whistleblower claims are true, they would be extensions of — not aberrations from — a wholly American practice of sterilizing populations deemed “undesirable.”
The accounts of ongoing brutalities at ICE concentration camps may be a direct consequence of fascistic Trumpian excess, but, if the whistleblower claims are proven true, they would be extensions of — not aberrations from — a wholly American practice of sterilizing populations deemed “undesirable.” President Donald Trump’s administration did not bring white supremacist eugenic practices to U.S. soil: They have always been inherent to a country fixated on its “borders” and locking certain people away. It does an injustice to centuries of victims of sterilization to pretend otherwise.
Like almost every report on detainee treatment at ICE concentration camps, the whistleblower complaint filed this week makes accusations of routine dehumanization. Dawn Wooten, a licensed practical nurse at a Georgia-based detention center, filed a whistleblower complaint to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that a doctor contracted to treat detained women had performed a seemingly high rate of hysterectomies. Wooten and one of the groups representing her, Project South, raised issues about the women giving what the complaint called a lack of “proper informed consent” before procedures. The Intercept was able to gather independent allegations from detainees and lawyers that were consistent with Project South’s complaints.
In the complaint to the Office of Inspector General, the whistleblower called the doctor “the uterus collector” — a moniker seemingly ripped from the annals of notorious eugenicists.
And such annals are part of a very American legacy. The man dubbed the “father of modern gynecology,” J. Marion Sims, conducted experiments on enslaved Black women without anesthesia, but was nonetheless lionized in the 19th century with statues around the country. Only now are some of them being taken down — the mere beginning of a long overdue reckoning.
Eugenics programs directed at decimating the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, particularly poor and immigrant communities, as well as people with disabilities, were an explicit part of U.S. policy in the 20th century. Thirty-two states maintained federally funded eugenics boards, tasked with ordering sterilizations of women — and sometimes men — deemed “undesirable.” Tens of thousands of forced sterilizations were carried out nationwide last century. California’s so-called Asexualization Acts, which led to 20,000 men and women losing reproductive capacity, were a direct inspiration to Nazi eugenicists. “There is today one state,” Adolf Hitler wrote, “in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”
A 1965 survey found that a staggering one-third of Puerto Rican women between 20 and 49 years old had been sterilized, a result of U.S. population control programs enforced on the territory. So common were coerced sterilizations in the American South that they became referred to as “Mississippi appendectomies.” The extent to which these practices fit within a genocidal, white supremacist ideology cannot be underestimated. Between 1930 to 1970, 65 percent of the 7,600-plus sterilizations ordered by the state of North Carolina were carried out on Black women.
And as Angelin Chaplin noted this week in The Cut, “During the same time that Roe v. Wade granted mostly white women more bodily autonomy in the 1970s, approximately 25,000 Native American women were forcibly sterilized by the U.S. government — between 25 and 50 percent of the female population.”
By the end of 1970s, thanks in part to the organizing efforts of women of Mexican origin in California, programs of state-ordered sterilizations had ended and guidelines were put in place to better ensure informed consent around sterilization procedures (although numerous laws enabling state-forced sterilization remain on the books).
“The fact that Black and brown immigrant women are held in an extremely vulnerable position at this prison where they have no control over their bodies and no say what it is done to them is sickening.”
But the absence of explicit eugenics policies did not end eugenicist practices. The denial of reproductive choice to poor people of color, though sterilization, forced birth, and mass incarceration — alongside every form of necropolitical governance that leaves communities to suffer and die — is an assertion of which lives get to matter in the U.S. As recently as 2013, an investigation found that at least 148 female inmates in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 to 2010; many of the women said they were coerced into the procedure.
The whistleblower and detainee’s allegations from current U.S. concentration camps sit squarely in this American legacy. “The fact that Black and brown immigrant women are held in an extremely vulnerable position at this prison where they have no control over their bodies and no say what it is done to them is sickening,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Project South. “Irwin should be shut down immediately and people should be freed. The United States government, as well as the private prison corporation running this prison, should be held accountable.”
She is right. But holding the United States accountable in any robust sense requires a reckoning with the ways it has been defined by the control of Black and brown bodies: domestically, at its borders, and internationally.
There need be no explicit policy of forced sterilization for a eugenicist system to exist. Normalized neglect and dehumanization are sufficient. These are Trumpian specialties, yes, but as American as apple pie.