Ashcroft’s Gulag Archipelago
So Ashcroft, in his divinely inspired wisdom, has ruled that the Feds can imprison “illegal” immigrants in the US “indefinitely”. I think this move was probably prompted by personal envy at discovering how efficiently the old Saddamist regime in Iraq could imprison its populace. Of course, this just levels the playing field between US citizens and non-citizens, seeing as how the Bush Gang decided last year that it could detain US citizens indefinitely without trial or habeus corpus.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, putting into effect a sweeping change in US immigration policy, has ruled that immigrants who enter the country illegally may be held in detention indefinitely if the government deems their release would pose a national security risk. Even if an individual does not personally pose a security threat, Ashcroft ruled, that illegal immigrant can be denied release if he or she raises national security fears among US government agencies … In the past, denial of release on bond of illegal immigrants generally has required a court ruling that that person was dangerous, or would flee if released.