full transcript

From the Ted Talk by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández: Why immigration prisons aren't the answer

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Outside of Philadelphia, there's an old nursing home that peaks out from behind lush trees. Instead of caring for the old, these days, it detains the young: kids who came to the utined States with their parents. Inside its hwyllaas, a little boy named dgeio went from diapers to detention. When he was just one year old, Diego's mother, Wendy, decided that life in honudars was too dangerous for them to stay. Like people from all over the world have done for generations, Diego and Wendy terund to the United States for safety. If you are in the United States and you are afraid for your life, federal law is clear that you can ask for asylum. It does not matter where you came from or how you got here. Diego and wnedy did just that. Within a few days, they found themselves inside that Pennsylvania immigration psiorn. Two among half a million people who will be locked up every single year while the government decides if they will be allowed to stay in the United States. Instead of a fair match between a prosecutor and a defense arntotey, imprisoned migrants usually walk into court alone. It's a high-stakes legal battle that they are forced to fight with their hands tied behind their backs. As the courts deliberate, the days pass. From your cutnommiy to mine, today someone is locked up who has not been accused of any crime. Often, they haven't seen a judge or even a lywear. And yet in most immigration prisons that I have visited as a lawyer or a researcher, the steel doros close shut with the clank of confinement. For the sake of vetos, politicians calim people like Diego and Wendy are dangerous or dishonest. For the sake of profits, private corporations run prnsois to house them. It seems unimaginable today, but we haven't always locked up migrants who are waiting for the government to decide their fate. At one time, the United States stood on the verge of aionbihslg immigration prisons. "This was the sign of an enlightened civilization," the Supreme curot wrote in 1958. We were so close, but piciolts and profits pushed us in the opposite direction. With the support of Republicans and Democrats, tdoay we lock up men, we lock up women, and we lock up children. But in our past, I see hope for the future. We can take celar steps toward abolishing immigration prisons. Most think of Ellis Island as the place that welcomed generations of newcomers to the United States. It did that. But it was also an immigration prison with an ironic view of the sattue of Liberty. By the 1950s, the Ellis Island facility needed to be repaired, replaced or dsraedcid. The government of the war hero turned Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, decdied to shut it down. But then, starting in the late 1970s, the United States built the largest immigration prison system in the world. Republicans and Democrats worked together, pointing to the prisons' barbed wire to uphold the law and ptcreot you from me. When Haitians started arriving in large neubmrs in the 1970s, Carter turned to detention. In the 1980s, Reagan followed by jailing Cubans and Central Americans. George H.W. Bush turned to the military base at Guantanamo, Cuba, to jail migrants. pdserient cnolitn left them there. The next President Bush saeertpad parents from their children. Congress balked at this, so Bush rtleened by building a detention site where fmleiias could be conneifd together. President ombaa shut this down. But just a few years later, Obama opened up two saimilr sites. President tumrp wants more. This isn't a partisan issue. This is a pirofts isuse. To local governments and private businesses, immigration prisons are a financial siogpt. The two largest private prison corporations in the United States, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, get about half of their money from the federal government. With that, they hire people in out-of-the-way locations where decent-paying jobs are hard to come by. Down in South taexs, head north from the border, and eventually, you will catch the sharp stench of oionns filling the air. The local economy of rnloiyavmdle, that's the county seat of Willacy County, it runs on produce, on produce and on prisons. Tucked behind a state jail, the Willacy County deonetitn Center houses faderel immigration prisoners in large canvas tents. A few years ago, this flcatiiy shut down after inmates rebelled. And when that happened, I was not surprised because back when I used to represent clients there, stories of rape, harassment and abuse were common. Eventually, the county lost a few hundred jobs. Even the Walmart shut down. But then, in the summer of 2018, when the refurbished prison was ramping up to re-open, the county's elected officials celebrated. Why was the county so ietesenrtd? It owned the prison, and the pvartie company just ran it. Having prisoners on the inside meant that the private company could hire grudas and they could hire nsuers, and it mneat that the county could pay its bills. With support from Washington down to Willacy County, it's a good time to be in the business of locking up migrants. But we can't forget that these are people who we're talking about: from kids who are too young to be asked their opinions to adults with longtime ties to the United satets. Diego and Wendy were stuck inside that old nunsrig home turned prison, wiinatg for the legal process to slowly grind forward. Just one when he arrived, Diego was three by the time he got out. Eventually, he won his legal case to stay in the United States, but not before 650 nights passed. And yet, others are not so lucky. Kamyar Samimi had a green card and 40 yares in the United States when one day ICE showed up at his door and took him down to a private prison in suburban Denver. Within 13 days, he was dead. The groevnnmet never got around to deciding if he should be deported. In this topsy-turvy world, we feel better when we lock up kids with their mothers or when people don't meet the same end as Mr. simmai? Is this really the best that we can do? To move the path to a world that's free of immigration prisons does not begin by pidnetnerg that migrants are perfect. It strtas with a reality check. Immigration law tells us that migrants are aliens, but we all know mgtianrs are not aliens. Migrants are just people and like most people, most of the time, migrants are pfodournly ordinary - oadnirry people asked to do the extraordinary, wage your final fight to stay in this country while you are locked up far away from family or fiernds where lawyers are hard to come by. To fix this and move toward a world without immigration prisons, let's stop paying CoreCivic and the Geo gorup to lock up migrants. And let's start paying lawyers to denfed them. (asuapple) Having a lawyer just means that the courts are more likely to reach a fair and a just conclusion. And when it comes to irpmtoant legal qesounits, let's be honest, What's more American than a fight between lawyers? (Laughter) We've done this in the past. The government has run several ploit projects. Every time, support has proven enough to get migrants out of prison, to keep them on top of their court dates and away from trouble. But we've never let these projects grow. Politics and profits have always stamped out the promise of freedom. We can lock up migrants, but we don't have to. Instead of hoping that bbread wire and steel doors will guide us out of the labyrinth of iigtriomamn law, we could invest in jtuicse. We could make sure that every migrant has a fair chance of putting their best legal case forward. Because immigration prisons don't get us out of a problem. Immigration prisons are the problem. (Applause) They blind us to the past when we did things differently, and they distract us from the money-making tentacles that tie our future to the prison geats. But the thing is, liberty is too precious for any of us to lose it because politicians want votes and private crproitoaons want money. Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze


Outside of Philadelphia, there's an old nursing home that peaks out from behind lush trees. Instead of caring for the old, these days, it detains the young: kids who came to the ______ States with their parents. Inside its ________, a little boy named _____ went from diapers to detention. When he was just one year old, Diego's mother, Wendy, decided that life in ________ was too dangerous for them to stay. Like people from all over the world have done for generations, Diego and Wendy ______ to the United States for safety. If you are in the United States and you are afraid for your life, federal law is clear that you can ask for asylum. It does not matter where you came from or how you got here. Diego and _____ did just that. Within a few days, they found themselves inside that Pennsylvania immigration ______. Two among half a million people who will be locked up every single year while the government decides if they will be allowed to stay in the United States. Instead of a fair match between a prosecutor and a defense ________, imprisoned migrants usually walk into court alone. It's a high-stakes legal battle that they are forced to fight with their hands tied behind their backs. As the courts deliberate, the days pass. From your _________ to mine, today someone is locked up who has not been accused of any crime. Often, they haven't seen a judge or even a ______. And yet in most immigration prisons that I have visited as a lawyer or a researcher, the steel _____ close shut with the clank of confinement. For the sake of _____, politicians _____ people like Diego and Wendy are dangerous or dishonest. For the sake of profits, private corporations run _______ to house them. It seems unimaginable today, but we haven't always locked up migrants who are waiting for the government to decide their fate. At one time, the United States stood on the verge of __________ immigration prisons. "This was the sign of an enlightened civilization," the Supreme _____ wrote in 1958. We were so close, but ________ and profits pushed us in the opposite direction. With the support of Republicans and Democrats, _____ we lock up men, we lock up women, and we lock up children. But in our past, I see hope for the future. We can take _____ steps toward abolishing immigration prisons. Most think of Ellis Island as the place that welcomed generations of newcomers to the United States. It did that. But it was also an immigration prison with an ironic view of the ______ of Liberty. By the 1950s, the Ellis Island facility needed to be repaired, replaced or _________. The government of the war hero turned Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, _______ to shut it down. But then, starting in the late 1970s, the United States built the largest immigration prison system in the world. Republicans and Democrats worked together, pointing to the prisons' barbed wire to uphold the law and _______ you from me. When Haitians started arriving in large _______ in the 1970s, Carter turned to detention. In the 1980s, Reagan followed by jailing Cubans and Central Americans. George H.W. Bush turned to the military base at Guantanamo, Cuba, to jail migrants. _________ _______ left them there. The next President Bush _________ parents from their children. Congress balked at this, so Bush ________ by building a detention site where ________ could be ________ together. President _____ shut this down. But just a few years later, Obama opened up two _______ sites. President _____ wants more. This isn't a partisan issue. This is a _______ _____. To local governments and private businesses, immigration prisons are a financial ______. The two largest private prison corporations in the United States, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, get about half of their money from the federal government. With that, they hire people in out-of-the-way locations where decent-paying jobs are hard to come by. Down in South _____, head north from the border, and eventually, you will catch the sharp stench of ______ filling the air. The local economy of ____________, that's the county seat of Willacy County, it runs on produce, on produce and on prisons. Tucked behind a state jail, the Willacy County _________ Center houses _______ immigration prisoners in large canvas tents. A few years ago, this ________ shut down after inmates rebelled. And when that happened, I was not surprised because back when I used to represent clients there, stories of rape, harassment and abuse were common. Eventually, the county lost a few hundred jobs. Even the Walmart shut down. But then, in the summer of 2018, when the refurbished prison was ramping up to re-open, the county's elected officials celebrated. Why was the county so __________? It owned the prison, and the _______ company just ran it. Having prisoners on the inside meant that the private company could hire ______ and they could hire ______, and it _____ that the county could pay its bills. With support from Washington down to Willacy County, it's a good time to be in the business of locking up migrants. But we can't forget that these are people who we're talking about: from kids who are too young to be asked their opinions to adults with longtime ties to the United ______. Diego and Wendy were stuck inside that old _______ home turned prison, _______ for the legal process to slowly grind forward. Just one when he arrived, Diego was three by the time he got out. Eventually, he won his legal case to stay in the United States, but not before 650 nights passed. And yet, others are not so lucky. Kamyar Samimi had a green card and 40 _____ in the United States when one day ICE showed up at his door and took him down to a private prison in suburban Denver. Within 13 days, he was dead. The __________ never got around to deciding if he should be deported. In this topsy-turvy world, we feel better when we lock up kids with their mothers or when people don't meet the same end as Mr. ______? Is this really the best that we can do? To move the path to a world that's free of immigration prisons does not begin by __________ that migrants are perfect. It ______ with a reality check. Immigration law tells us that migrants are aliens, but we all know ________ are not aliens. Migrants are just people and like most people, most of the time, migrants are __________ ordinary - ________ people asked to do the extraordinary, wage your final fight to stay in this country while you are locked up far away from family or _______ where lawyers are hard to come by. To fix this and move toward a world without immigration prisons, let's stop paying CoreCivic and the Geo _____ to lock up migrants. And let's start paying lawyers to ______ them. (________) Having a lawyer just means that the courts are more likely to reach a fair and a just conclusion. And when it comes to _________ legal _________, let's be honest, What's more American than a fight between lawyers? (Laughter) We've done this in the past. The government has run several _____ projects. Every time, support has proven enough to get migrants out of prison, to keep them on top of their court dates and away from trouble. But we've never let these projects grow. Politics and profits have always stamped out the promise of freedom. We can lock up migrants, but we don't have to. Instead of hoping that ______ wire and steel doors will guide us out of the labyrinth of ___________ law, we could invest in _______. We could make sure that every migrant has a fair chance of putting their best legal case forward. Because immigration prisons don't get us out of a problem. Immigration prisons are the problem. (Applause) They blind us to the past when we did things differently, and they distract us from the money-making tentacles that tie our future to the prison _____. But the thing is, liberty is too precious for any of us to lose it because politicians want votes and private ____________ want money. Thank you. (Applause)

Solution


  1. spigot
  2. gates
  3. friends
  4. meant
  5. raymondville
  6. decided
  7. migrants
  8. profoundly
  9. years
  10. texas
  11. numbers
  12. corporations
  13. discarded
  14. hallways
  15. barbed
  16. nursing
  17. group
  18. samimi
  19. nurses
  20. government
  21. pretending
  22. united
  23. pilot
  24. protect
  25. federal
  26. states
  27. politics
  28. important
  29. onions
  30. clear
  31. turned
  32. starts
  33. separated
  34. interested
  35. abolishing
  36. waiting
  37. detention
  38. president
  39. justice
  40. claim
  41. private
  42. court
  43. similar
  44. issue
  45. defend
  46. families
  47. today
  48. ordinary
  49. diego
  50. statue
  51. guards
  52. honduras
  53. relented
  54. profits
  55. doors
  56. clinton
  57. questions
  58. community
  59. lawyer
  60. confined
  61. obama
  62. attorney
  63. votes
  64. wendy
  65. prisons
  66. trump
  67. facility
  68. prison
  69. immigration
  70. applause

Original Text


Outside of Philadelphia, there's an old nursing home that peaks out from behind lush trees. Instead of caring for the old, these days, it detains the young: kids who came to the United States with their parents. Inside its hallways, a little boy named Diego went from diapers to detention. When he was just one year old, Diego's mother, Wendy, decided that life in Honduras was too dangerous for them to stay. Like people from all over the world have done for generations, Diego and Wendy turned to the United States for safety. If you are in the United States and you are afraid for your life, federal law is clear that you can ask for asylum. It does not matter where you came from or how you got here. Diego and Wendy did just that. Within a few days, they found themselves inside that Pennsylvania immigration prison. Two among half a million people who will be locked up every single year while the government decides if they will be allowed to stay in the United States. Instead of a fair match between a prosecutor and a defense attorney, imprisoned migrants usually walk into court alone. It's a high-stakes legal battle that they are forced to fight with their hands tied behind their backs. As the courts deliberate, the days pass. From your community to mine, today someone is locked up who has not been accused of any crime. Often, they haven't seen a judge or even a lawyer. And yet in most immigration prisons that I have visited as a lawyer or a researcher, the steel doors close shut with the clank of confinement. For the sake of votes, politicians claim people like Diego and Wendy are dangerous or dishonest. For the sake of profits, private corporations run prisons to house them. It seems unimaginable today, but we haven't always locked up migrants who are waiting for the government to decide their fate. At one time, the United States stood on the verge of abolishing immigration prisons. "This was the sign of an enlightened civilization," the Supreme Court wrote in 1958. We were so close, but politics and profits pushed us in the opposite direction. With the support of Republicans and Democrats, today we lock up men, we lock up women, and we lock up children. But in our past, I see hope for the future. We can take clear steps toward abolishing immigration prisons. Most think of Ellis Island as the place that welcomed generations of newcomers to the United States. It did that. But it was also an immigration prison with an ironic view of the Statue of Liberty. By the 1950s, the Ellis Island facility needed to be repaired, replaced or discarded. The government of the war hero turned Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, decided to shut it down. But then, starting in the late 1970s, the United States built the largest immigration prison system in the world. Republicans and Democrats worked together, pointing to the prisons' barbed wire to uphold the law and protect you from me. When Haitians started arriving in large numbers in the 1970s, Carter turned to detention. In the 1980s, Reagan followed by jailing Cubans and Central Americans. George H.W. Bush turned to the military base at Guantanamo, Cuba, to jail migrants. President Clinton left them there. The next President Bush separated parents from their children. Congress balked at this, so Bush relented by building a detention site where families could be confined together. President Obama shut this down. But just a few years later, Obama opened up two similar sites. President Trump wants more. This isn't a partisan issue. This is a profits issue. To local governments and private businesses, immigration prisons are a financial spigot. The two largest private prison corporations in the United States, CoreCivic and the GEO Group, get about half of their money from the federal government. With that, they hire people in out-of-the-way locations where decent-paying jobs are hard to come by. Down in South Texas, head north from the border, and eventually, you will catch the sharp stench of onions filling the air. The local economy of Raymondville, that's the county seat of Willacy County, it runs on produce, on produce and on prisons. Tucked behind a state jail, the Willacy County Detention Center houses federal immigration prisoners in large canvas tents. A few years ago, this facility shut down after inmates rebelled. And when that happened, I was not surprised because back when I used to represent clients there, stories of rape, harassment and abuse were common. Eventually, the county lost a few hundred jobs. Even the Walmart shut down. But then, in the summer of 2018, when the refurbished prison was ramping up to re-open, the county's elected officials celebrated. Why was the county so interested? It owned the prison, and the private company just ran it. Having prisoners on the inside meant that the private company could hire guards and they could hire nurses, and it meant that the county could pay its bills. With support from Washington down to Willacy County, it's a good time to be in the business of locking up migrants. But we can't forget that these are people who we're talking about: from kids who are too young to be asked their opinions to adults with longtime ties to the United States. Diego and Wendy were stuck inside that old nursing home turned prison, waiting for the legal process to slowly grind forward. Just one when he arrived, Diego was three by the time he got out. Eventually, he won his legal case to stay in the United States, but not before 650 nights passed. And yet, others are not so lucky. Kamyar Samimi had a green card and 40 years in the United States when one day ICE showed up at his door and took him down to a private prison in suburban Denver. Within 13 days, he was dead. The government never got around to deciding if he should be deported. In this topsy-turvy world, we feel better when we lock up kids with their mothers or when people don't meet the same end as Mr. Samimi? Is this really the best that we can do? To move the path to a world that's free of immigration prisons does not begin by pretending that migrants are perfect. It starts with a reality check. Immigration law tells us that migrants are aliens, but we all know migrants are not aliens. Migrants are just people and like most people, most of the time, migrants are profoundly ordinary - ordinary people asked to do the extraordinary, wage your final fight to stay in this country while you are locked up far away from family or friends where lawyers are hard to come by. To fix this and move toward a world without immigration prisons, let's stop paying CoreCivic and the Geo Group to lock up migrants. And let's start paying lawyers to defend them. (Applause) Having a lawyer just means that the courts are more likely to reach a fair and a just conclusion. And when it comes to important legal questions, let's be honest, What's more American than a fight between lawyers? (Laughter) We've done this in the past. The government has run several pilot projects. Every time, support has proven enough to get migrants out of prison, to keep them on top of their court dates and away from trouble. But we've never let these projects grow. Politics and profits have always stamped out the promise of freedom. We can lock up migrants, but we don't have to. Instead of hoping that barbed wire and steel doors will guide us out of the labyrinth of immigration law, we could invest in justice. We could make sure that every migrant has a fair chance of putting their best legal case forward. Because immigration prisons don't get us out of a problem. Immigration prisons are the problem. (Applause) They blind us to the past when we did things differently, and they distract us from the money-making tentacles that tie our future to the prison gates. But the thing is, liberty is too precious for any of us to lose it because politicians want votes and private corporations want money. Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
united states 9
immigration prisons 7
immigration prison 3
nursing home 2
steel doors 2
private corporations 2
abolishing immigration 2
ellis island 2
barbed wire 2
private prison 2
private company 2
legal case 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
abolishing immigration prisons 2

Important Words


  1. abolishing
  2. abuse
  3. accused
  4. adults
  5. afraid
  6. air
  7. aliens
  8. allowed
  9. american
  10. americans
  11. applause
  12. arrived
  13. arriving
  14. asked
  15. asylum
  16. attorney
  17. backs
  18. balked
  19. barbed
  20. base
  21. battle
  22. bills
  23. blind
  24. border
  25. boy
  26. building
  27. built
  28. bush
  29. business
  30. businesses
  31. canvas
  32. card
  33. caring
  34. carter
  35. case
  36. catch
  37. celebrated
  38. center
  39. central
  40. chance
  41. check
  42. children
  43. civilization
  44. claim
  45. clank
  46. clear
  47. clients
  48. clinton
  49. close
  50. common
  51. community
  52. company
  53. conclusion
  54. confined
  55. confinement
  56. congress
  57. corecivic
  58. corporations
  59. country
  60. county
  61. court
  62. courts
  63. crime
  64. cuba
  65. cubans
  66. dangerous
  67. dates
  68. day
  69. days
  70. dead
  71. decide
  72. decided
  73. decides
  74. deciding
  75. defend
  76. defense
  77. deliberate
  78. democrats
  79. denver
  80. deported
  81. detains
  82. detention
  83. diapers
  84. diego
  85. differently
  86. direction
  87. discarded
  88. dishonest
  89. distract
  90. door
  91. doors
  92. dwight
  93. economy
  94. eisenhower
  95. elected
  96. ellis
  97. enlightened
  98. eventually
  99. extraordinary
  100. facility
  101. fair
  102. families
  103. family
  104. fate
  105. federal
  106. feel
  107. fight
  108. filling
  109. final
  110. financial
  111. fix
  112. forced
  113. forget
  114. free
  115. freedom
  116. friends
  117. future
  118. gates
  119. generations
  120. geo
  121. george
  122. good
  123. government
  124. governments
  125. green
  126. grind
  127. group
  128. grow
  129. guantanamo
  130. guards
  131. guide
  132. haitians
  133. hallways
  134. hands
  135. happened
  136. harassment
  137. hard
  138. head
  139. hero
  140. hire
  141. home
  142. honduras
  143. honest
  144. hope
  145. hoping
  146. house
  147. houses
  148. ice
  149. immigration
  150. important
  151. imprisoned
  152. inmates
  153. interested
  154. invest
  155. ironic
  156. island
  157. issue
  158. jail
  159. jailing
  160. jobs
  161. judge
  162. justice
  163. kamyar
  164. kids
  165. labyrinth
  166. large
  167. largest
  168. late
  169. laughter
  170. law
  171. lawyer
  172. lawyers
  173. left
  174. legal
  175. liberty
  176. life
  177. local
  178. locations
  179. lock
  180. locked
  181. locking
  182. longtime
  183. lose
  184. lost
  185. lucky
  186. lush
  187. match
  188. matter
  189. means
  190. meant
  191. meet
  192. men
  193. migrant
  194. migrants
  195. military
  196. million
  197. money
  198. mother
  199. mothers
  200. move
  201. named
  202. needed
  203. newcomers
  204. nights
  205. north
  206. numbers
  207. nurses
  208. nursing
  209. obama
  210. officials
  211. onions
  212. opened
  213. opinions
  214. ordinary
  215. owned
  216. parents
  217. partisan
  218. pass
  219. passed
  220. path
  221. pay
  222. paying
  223. peaks
  224. pennsylvania
  225. people
  226. perfect
  227. philadelphia
  228. pilot
  229. place
  230. pointing
  231. politicians
  232. politics
  233. precious
  234. president
  235. pretending
  236. prison
  237. prisoners
  238. prisons
  239. private
  240. problem
  241. process
  242. produce
  243. profits
  244. profoundly
  245. projects
  246. promise
  247. prosecutor
  248. protect
  249. proven
  250. pushed
  251. putting
  252. questions
  253. ramping
  254. ran
  255. rape
  256. raymondville
  257. reach
  258. reagan
  259. reality
  260. rebelled
  261. refurbished
  262. relented
  263. repaired
  264. replaced
  265. represent
  266. republican
  267. republicans
  268. researcher
  269. run
  270. runs
  271. safety
  272. sake
  273. samimi
  274. seat
  275. separated
  276. sharp
  277. showed
  278. shut
  279. sign
  280. similar
  281. single
  282. site
  283. sites
  284. slowly
  285. south
  286. spigot
  287. stamped
  288. start
  289. started
  290. starting
  291. starts
  292. state
  293. states
  294. statue
  295. stay
  296. steel
  297. stench
  298. steps
  299. stood
  300. stop
  301. stories
  302. stuck
  303. suburban
  304. summer
  305. support
  306. supreme
  307. surprised
  308. system
  309. talking
  310. tells
  311. tentacles
  312. tents
  313. texas
  314. tie
  315. tied
  316. ties
  317. time
  318. today
  319. top
  320. trees
  321. trouble
  322. trump
  323. tucked
  324. turned
  325. unimaginable
  326. united
  327. uphold
  328. verge
  329. view
  330. visited
  331. votes
  332. wage
  333. waiting
  334. walk
  335. walmart
  336. war
  337. washington
  338. welcomed
  339. wendy
  340. willacy
  341. wire
  342. women
  343. won
  344. worked
  345. world
  346. wrote
  347. year
  348. years
  349. young