The “Moral Monsters” Among Us

“I’m terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long, they really don’t think I’m human. I base this on their conduct, not on what they say. And this means that they have become, in themselves, moral monsters.”
–James Baldwin

LET’S GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY: When it comes to the recent deaths of immigrants being held in detention, it would be wrong to describe the situation as wholly unprecedented. Detainees died under Bush, Obama, and Biden. But detainee deaths have accelerated during President Donald Trump’s second term, with 17 already since his inauguration. During the Biden administration, there were 26 deaths in 48 months—roughly one death every two months. During Trump’s term, that rate has nearly quadrupled. And ICE, now one of the best-funded operations of the federal government, is planning to double detention space before the end of the year.

“It’s absolutely horrific,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the immigration subcommittee, told me before jumping into the numbers above. In July, ICE was awarded $45 billion to expand its operations—its budget is now significantly larger than that of the federal prison system. And now, Jayapal points out, a little-known LLC has been awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build a facility in Texas despite never having previously won a federal contract for more than $16 million. Meanwhile, another $2.25 million contract was given to a Republican donor who received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton in 2000 after having pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

“Contracts are being distributed to Trump’s buddies and people with no experience running detention centers, many of these contracts are no-bid,” Rep. Jayapal said. “They’re incarcerating people and allowing them to die, not providing medical facilities. There are no standards. It’s horrific.”

Most ICE and border patrol agents will continue working during the government shutdown; their status as “essential” will shield them from the layoffs OMB director Russell Vought has requested in lieu of furloughs from most agencies and departments. But the nature of immigration officers’ “essential” work has significantly changed over the past eight months to become something far more brutal than procedural; in some cases, it has come to appear simply heartless. We have entered a period in which it is becoming important to ask: What happens when our leaders and the people who work for them see immigrants not as human beings but as scum? And what happens when that way of thinking about people starts also to be applied to others, like journalists and political opponents?

THE QUESTION OF DEHUMANIZATION isn’t theoretical. Consider the case of Hediberto Ramirez Perez. He was detained on September 4 and wrongfully deported to Guatemala despite having a U.S. work authorization card to work at a factory in upstate New York. Body-camera footage from the scene of the arrest, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, recorded the unguarded comments of a federal agent describing his time at the Ursula detention center in McAllen, Texas, where Perez would be sent.

The agent said he routinely denied detainees’ use of a telephone and requests for medical attention:

I would not let anybody out of their cells, so we did it in an orderly fashion, had them all lined up. It’s bathroom time, or it’s f— brush your teeth time, or it’s food time. Other than that, nope, your a— is staying in there. “But you can’t do that.” I absolutely can. “I need a phone call.” No you don’t. “I need to go to medical.” Nope, you look good to me.

“They’re animals anyway,” the agent said. “That’s what I would tell my kids all the time.”

Or consider the case of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. On September 12 in Chicago, he had just dropped off his 3-year-old son at day care when an unmarked car pulled in front of his own. Less than a minute later he was dead, killed by an ICE agent.

The Department of Homeland Security was quick to tell us a story of a terrible immigrant who resisted arrest, dragged an agent with his car, and threatened public safety, until he was put down by one of our brave immigration agents.

Well, there is more to the story, including some inconvenient video. As the Chicago Sun Times reported, the footage shows the agent was fully mobile after the shooting and said his own injuries were “nothing major.”

“DHS lied about what happened,” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said on X. “There needs to be a full, thorough investigation into what happened that morning. All camera footage must be released. And [DHS Secretary Kristi] Noem must come to the [House Homeland Security] committee and account for ICE’s unlawfulness and lies.”