Andrew Ellis Johnson, “The ICEman Cometh” (2018, detail), ink, charcoal, wax, graphite (courtesy of the artist)
They donated to inaugural balls and political action committees and further expanded their contracts for private for-profit prison chains.
In 2016, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the end of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ use of private prisons.
They made decorative paper chains to turn their chain link cages into “family-friendly facilities.”
Before April 2018, asylum seekers were generally not prosecuted. Neither were people who came to the US with their children.
Andrew Ellis Johnson, “The ICEman Cometh” (2018, detail), ink, charcoal, wax, graphite
They held hands and linked arms in human chains to prevent the placement of children in detention centers, until the police arrived. They were handcuffed as they were arrested.
As of June 26, 2018, non-violent civil disobedience remains a punishable exercise of First Amendment rights.
They tried to weaken a link in the authoritarian chain.
On June 26, 2018, an injunction at the request of the ACLU was granted to reunite children with their parents within 30 days, but the government has no clear process to comply.
Andrew Ellis Johnson, “The ICEman Cometh” (2018), ink, charcoal, wax, graphite, 84 x 84 inches
An arresting work of art.
Solemn.
Heartbreaking.
What is there for me to do except sit, quietly, and absorb the pain and the horror of ICE and its ravages.
This is no natural disaster;
No effect of nature.
It’s soulless and ugly.
It’s our shame.