Alligator Alcatraz: Yes, US Homeland Security posted AI-photo of alligators with ICE hats
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France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
US migrant raids spark boom for private detention providers
Migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to be temporarily housed in places like the facility being readied in California City, prior to deportation. "When you talk to the majority of residents here, they have a favorable perspective on it," said Marquette Hawkins, mayor of the hardscrabble settlement of 15,000 people, 100 miles (160 kilometres) north of Los Angeles. "They look at the economic impact, right?" California City is to be home to a sprawling detention center that will be operated by CoreCivic, one of the largest companies in the private detention sector. The company, which declined AFP requests for an interview, says the facility would generate around 500 jobs, and funnel $2 million in tax revenue to the city. "Many of our residents have already been hired out there to work in that facility," Hawkins told AFP. "Any revenue source that is going to assist the town in rebuilding itself, rebranding itself, is going to be seen as a plus," he said. Boom Trump's ramped-up immigration arrests, like those that provoked protests in Los Angeles, saw a record 60,000 people in detention in June, according to ICE figures. Those same figures show the vast majority have no conviction, despite the president's election campaign promises to go after hardened criminals. More than 80 percent of detainees are in facilities run by the private sector, according to the TRAC project at Syracuse University. And with Washington's directive to triple the number of daily arrests -- and $45 billion earmarked for new detention centers -- the sector is looking at an unprecedented boom. "Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now," Damon Hininger, executive director of CoreCivic, said in a May call with investors. When Trump took office in January, some 107 centers were operating. The number now hovers around 200. For Democratic politicians, this proliferation is intentional. "Private prison companies are profiting from human suffering, and Republicans are allowing them to get away with it," Congresswoman Norma Torres told reporters outside a detention center in the southern California city of Adelanto. At the start of the year, there were three people detained there; there are now hundreds, each one of them attracting a daily stipend of taxpayer cash for the operator. Torres was refused permission to visit the facility, run by the privately owned GEO Group, because she had not given seven days' notice, she said. "Denying members of Congress access to private detention facilities like Adelanto isn't just disrespectful, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it is a desperate attempt to hide the abuse happening behind these walls," she said. "We've heard the horrifying stories of detainees being violently arrested, denied basic medical care, isolated for days, and left injured without treatment," she added. Kristen Hunsberger, a staff attorney at the Law Center for Immigrant Advocates, said one client complained of having to wait "six or seven hours to get clean water." It is "not sanitary and certainly not... in compliance with just basic human rights." Hunsberger, who spends hours on the road going from one center to another to locate her clients, says many have been denied access to legal counsel, a constitutional right in the United States. Both GEO and ICE have denied allegations of mistreatment at the detention centers. "Claims there is overcrowding or subprime conditions in ICE facilities are categorically FALSE," said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. "All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers." 'Strategy' But some relatives of detainees tell a different story. Alejandra Morales, an American citizen, said her undocumented husband was detained incommunicado for five days in Los Angeles before being transferred to Adelanto. In the Los Angeles facility, "they don't even let them brush their teeth, they don't let them bathe, nothing. They have them all sleeping on the floor, in a cell, all together," she said. Hunsberger said that for detainees and their relatives, the treatment appears to be deliberate. "They're starting to feel that this is a strategy to wear people down, to have them in these inhumane conditions, and then pressure them to sign something where they could then agree to being deported," she said.
France 24
10 hours ago
- France 24
French left urges Macron to act over US plan to destroy contraceptives
A State Department spokesperson told AFP this week that "a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain" birth control products from "terminated Biden-era USAID contracts." The US Agency for International Development, the country's foreign aid arm, was dismantled by Donald Trump's administration when he returned to office in January, replacing former president Joe Biden. Under the plan, some $9.7 million worth of implant and IUD contraceptives stored in Belgium are reportedly set to be incinerated in France. An open letter signed by French Green leader Marine Tondelier and several female lawmakers called the US decision "an affront to the fundamental principles of solidarity, public health and sexual and reproductive rights that France is committed to defending." In the letter, they urged the French president "not to be complicit, even indirectly, in retrograde policies," saying women's contraception products such as IUDs and implants were intended for "low- and middle-income countries." "Cutting aid for contraception is shameful, destroying products that have already been manufactured and financed is even more mind-boggling," Tondelier told AFP. The Greens urged Macron to request the suspension of the plan "as part of a joint initiative with the European Commission." They also called on him to back humanitarian organisations that say they are ready to redistribute the contraception products. Separately, Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party, also urged Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to take action. "You have a responsibility to act to prevent this destruction, which will cost lives," she said on X. "These resources are vital, particularly for the 218 million women who do not have access to contraceptive care." The US plan has sparked outrage from global health NGOs, with Doctors Without Borders denouncing the "callous waste." "It is unconscionable to think of these health products being burned when the demand for them globally is so great," said Rachel Milkovich of the medical charity's US office. The State Department spokesperson said the destruction will cost $167,000 and "no HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed." Doctors Without Borders says that other organisations have offered to cover the shipping and distribution costs of the supplies, but the US government declined to sign off. US lawmakers have approved slashing some $9 billion in aid primarily destined for foreign countries.
France 24
16 hours ago
- France 24
China urges global consensus on balancing AI development, security
His remarks came just days after US President Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive low-regulation strategy aimed at cementing US dominance in the fast-moving field, promising to "remove red tape and onerous regulation" that could hinder private sector AI development. Opening the World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on Saturday, Li emphasised the need for governance and open-source development, announcing the establishment of a Chinese-led body for international AI cooperation. "The risks and challenges brought by artificial intelligence have drawn widespread attention... How to find a balance between development and security urgently requires further consensus from the entire society," the premier said. Li said China would "actively promote" the development of open-source AI, adding Beijing was willing to share advances with other countries, particularly developing ones. "If we engage in technological monopolies, controls and blockage, artificial intelligence will become the preserve of a few countries and a few enterprises," he said. "Only by adhering to openness, sharing and fairness in access to intelligence can more countries and groups benefit from (AI)." The premier highlighted "insufficient supply of computing power and chips" as a bottleneck. Washington has expanded its efforts in recent years to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China, concerned that these can be used to advance Beijing's military systems and erode US tech dominance. For its part, China has made AI a pillar of its plans for technological self-reliance, with the government pledging a raft of measures to boost the sector. In January, Chinese startup DeepSeek unveiled an AI model that performed as well as top US systems despite using less powerful chips. 'Pet tiger cub' At a time when AI is being integrated across virtually all industries, its uses have raised major ethical questions, from the spread of misinformation to its impact on employment, or the potential loss of technological control. In a speech at WAIC on Saturday, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Geoffrey Hinton compared the situation to keeping "a very cute tiger cub as a pet". "To survive", he said, you need to ensure you can train it not to kill you when it grows up. In a video message played at the WAIC opening ceremony, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said AI governance would be "a defining test of international cooperation". The ceremony also saw the French president's AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, underscore the "an urgent need" for global action. At an AI summit in Paris in February, 58 countries including China, France and India -- as well as the European Union and African Union Commission -- called for enhanced coordination on AI governance. But the United States warned against "excessive regulation", and alongside the United Kingdom, refused to sign the summit's appeal for an "open", "inclusive" and "ethical" AI.
