ICE Opens Immigrant Detention Center in Notorious Louisiana Prison
The maximum-security prison known as Angola, notorious for a history of violence and harsh conditions, has long been the repository for Louisiana’s worst offenders. Most inmates arrive with life sentences. Now, the prison, officially the Louisiana State Penitentiary, will also hold immigrants who have been detained as part of the Trump administration’s widening crackdown. The detention center takes over an area that had been called Camp J, the site of one of Angola’s most restrictive units, where inmates were held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in conditions that criminal justice activists likened to a dungeon. At its peak, the camp held more than 400 prisoners.
From Surveillance to Robot Guards: How AI Could Reshape Prison Life
In July, Tesla fans lined up for hours in Los Angeles to check out the new “retro-futuristic” diner and charging station opened by Elon Musk. Among the attractions was the company’s “Optimus” robot, which served popcorn to hungry customers near the humans grilling Wagyu burgers. Fifty miles east in Chino, Delinia Lewis, the associate warden of the California Institution for Women, hopes to one day put AI-powered machines like these to work in her prison doing far more important jobs than slinging snacks. As staffing shortages continue to plague prisons around the country, Lewis believes AI could help close the gap.
‘They’re Using Us as Pawns on Their Political Chessboard’: How Venezuelans Abroad Feel the Tension With the US
“They use us. Some use us as pawns in their political schemes, and others as collateral damage.” This is how Adelys Ferro, who works at an NGO that advocates for the rights of Venezuelan immigrants, sums up the feelings of many Venezuelans living abroad after witnessing the growing tension between Venezuela and the United States, amid US President Donald Trump’s war gestures and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s call for militias to “defend the homeland.”
Trump’s killing of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers sets a dangerous precedent – Opinion
The US military’s killing of 11 alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers traveling by boat in international waters in the Caribbean is an illegal use of war powers to address what should have been a situation of law enforcement. Unless this dangerous precedent is condemned and curtailed, it will enable US authorities to summarily shoot anyone they choose by simply declaring a “war” against them. No reported attempt was made to interdict and detain the boatload of people. The video accompanying Trump’s statement suggests that the boat was simply blown up. When asked why the boat wasn’t stopped and its occupants arrested, Trump ducked the question and suggested that the killings would force traffickers to think twice before trying to move drugs to the United States.