Pirate's Cove

Has the Times ever worried about “spiritual care” for any American locked up in jail? Or for anything else?

For Immigrants in Detention, Spiritual Care Can Be Hard to Find

As the Trump administration has dramatically increased the number of people held in federal immigration detention facilities, detainees’ access to medical care, sufficient food, basic hygiene and legal counsel have all come under scrutiny.

But the past couple of weeks have also shed light on another basic necessity that advocates say detainees are being deprived of — the ability to worship. Their concerns have intensified as two major seasons, Lent and Ramadan, began for Christians and Muslims.

To gain access, some religious groups have sued the Department of Homeland Security. Others, like the American Roman Catholic Bishops, have called out the lack of access in statements condemning the immigration enforcement tactics of the Trump administration.

In some cases, that pressure has been successful. In others, however, it has left detainees — there are currently close to 70,000, the majority being Christians — with little or no access to religious services at a time of year central to their faiths.

You know where they can find religious services easily? In their home country. And all they have to do is say “I want to go home” and Los Federales will give them some money and stick them on a plane. Easy peasy.

“It feels like there’s a hypocrisy in an administration or a party that has regularly advocated for things like posting the Ten Commandments in public spaces, but denied people the actual practice of their faith,” said Fr. Brendan Busse, a priest at Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles, who was denied access to a detention facility on Ash Wednesday.

In Minnesota, several Protestant groups and a Catholic priest sued the Department of Homeland Security last week, saying they had been blocked from providing spiritual care to detainees at the Whipple Federal Building, which the suit notes was named for a 19th-century Episcopal bishop who was an “advocate for the dignity and rights of noncitizens.” The suit frames the obstruction as an unconstitutional violation of the plaintiffs’ rights to practice their religion by being denied the right to offer pastoral care.

I guess this is the new line of attack from the pro-illegal alien crowd, folks who generally have either no need for religion or change religion away from the Bible to fit their nutjob beliefs. People who want to remove religion from just about everything.

Meanwhile, Connecticut thinks they have power

Proposal would ban sharing CT license plate data for immigration enforcement

Weeks after a CT Insider investigation found out-of-state police were using Connecticut license plate camera data for immigration enforcement, state lawmakers are proposing a bill aimed at curbing certain uses of license plate data.

Automatic license plate cameras, which the bill seeks to regulate, capture images of vehicles and their license plates as they drive by. At least two dozen police departments in the state use stationary license plate cameras installed on the sides of roads, allowing those departments to run searches for license plate numbers and locate a vehicle. There is no known public listing of just how many departments use the cameras and many departments that do use them do not disclose their precise locations.

The bill would prevent law enforcement agencies from entering into new contracts with license plate reader companies unless a series of conditions are met, including that the agencies cannot share license plate data information if it might be used for immigration enforcement or investigating reproductive health services.

Um, what’s with the last? Reproductive services? Really? Kinda shows just how wacko Dems are over abortion. Anyhow, it also shows just how wacko Dems are on trying to protect illegals. They aren’t banning the use for Americans. Just illegals.