Showing posts with label immigrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigrants. Show all posts

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human right violations’, new report alleges; The Guardian, December 4, 2025

, The Guardian; Detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ facing ‘harrowing human right violations’, new report alleges

"Detainees at the notorious Florida immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz” were shackled inside a 2ft high metal cage and left outside without water for up to a day at a time, a shocking report published on Thursday by Amnesty International alleges.

The human rights group said migrants held at the state-run Everglades facility, and at Miami’s Krome immigration processing center operated by a private company on behalf of the Trump administration, continue to be exposed to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” rising in some cases to torture.

The cage, known to detainees as “the box”, is used by guards for the arbitrary punishment of trivial or non-existent offenses, according to the report compiled from interviews with detainees and advocacy groups, and a site visit to Krome made by Amnesty workers in September."

Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human Rights Violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida; Amnesty International, December 4, 2025

Amnesty International; Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human Rights Violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida

"This report presents Amnesty International’s findings from a research trip to southern Florida in September 2025 to document:

  • Human rights impacts of federal and state migration and asylum policies on mass detention and deportation
  • Access to due process and
  • Detention conditions since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025.

In particular, it focuses on detention conditions at the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome) and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Krome is an ICE detention facility located in Miami-Dade County on the edge of the Everglades. In 2025, the facility has faced heightened scrutiny after reports of severe overcrowding and several deaths. Amnesty International documented delays in intake procedures, overcrowding in temporary processing areas, inadequate and inaccessible medical care, alarming disciplinary practices including the use of prolonged solitary confinement, and challenges in access to legal representation and due process at Krome.

“Alligator Alcatraz” opened in July 2025 with the capacity to detain around 3,000 people. Amnesty International’s research concludes that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are being held in inhuman and unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy.

Amnesty International considers that detention conditions at both facilities amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at “Alligator Alcatraz” amount to torture or other ill-treatment.

Amnesty International calls on the Government of the United States to:

  • End its cruel mass immigration detention and deportation machine
  • Stop the criminalization of migration
  • Bar the use of state-owned facilities for immigration custody detention
  • Ensure thorough investigations into all deaths, abuses, and allegations of torture in custody, and
  • Comply with international human rights law and standards."

Monday, December 1, 2025

Chicago’s faith leaders on front lines of resistance against ICE crackdown; The Guardian, November 28, 2025

, The Guardian ; Chicago’s faith leaders on front lines of resistance against ICE crackdown

"For weeks, Chicago has been at the center of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security officials have arrested 800 people as of 1 October, while also using violent tactics such as body-slamming and deploying teargas in residential areas.

Amid the raids and arrests, which have created a pervasive sense of fear, faith leaders have stepped up, putting themselves on the front lines of resistance.

“Faith leaders bring a very powerful prophetic and moral compass into the space,” said the Rev Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director of Live Free Illinois, a group that mobilizes Black churches around social justice issues in Chicago. “While many others may be able to argue the economic impact, or argue the law, faith leaders are typically the ones who are arguing and standing on the side of humanity and for people.”

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Pope Leo calls out 'extremely disrespectful' treatment of migrants in the U.S.; NPR, November 18, 2025

, NPR; Pope Leo calls out 'extremely disrespectful' treatment of migrants in the U.S.

"Pope Leo XIV said he is troubled by the violent and at times "extremely disrespectful" ways migrants have been treated in the United States. 

The Pope made his remarks while answering questions from journalists at Castel Gandolfo, the papal vacation residence outside Rome. 

"We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice," the Pope said. 

"No one has said that the United States should have open borders," the Pope continued. "I think every country has the right to determine who enters, how, and when.""

Sunday, November 16, 2025

In Pulpits and Pews, Catholic Churches Urge Compassion for Immigrants; The New York Times, November 16, 2025

Mark BonamoDave Philipps and , The New York Times ; In Pulpits and Pews, Catholic Churches Urge Compassion for Immigrants

"In humble rural churches and tall urban cathedrals across the country this weekend, Catholic priests and parishioners reflected on the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. Some said that the roundup of hundreds of thousands of people, which has disproportionately affected Catholic congregations full of immigrants, goes against Christian teachings.

Just a few miles from Our Lady of Grace, said Father Santora, about 1,000 immigrants were being held in a detention center. “This is not what Jesus Christ would want,” he told his flock. “It’s immoral.”...

As the administration has stepped up its deportation efforts, though, the Catholic Church has gotten louder in its criticism. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday issued a special message — the first since 2013 — opposing what it called the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

“We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants,” the bishops wrote. “We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”

At the end of their message, they said, “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement."...

“Any institution which does something against the value of human life is worthy of the church making a statement,” Father Flores said."

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants; The New York Times, November 12, 2025

 , The New York Times; Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants

"America’s Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday rebuked the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in a rare and near-unanimous statement that framed the immigration crisis in starkly moral terms.

The statement, passed at the bishops’ annual conference in Baltimore, did not call out President Trump by name, but the context was clear. The bishops said they “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

“We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity,” the statement said. “For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

The bishops, who were often divided by American politics in the Pope Francis era, showed a united front in standing behind Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, who has spoken out for immigrants and urged U.S. bishops to do the same."

Friday, November 7, 2025

Judge Criticizes Immigration Agents in Chicago: ‘Use of Force Shocks the Conscience’; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

 , The New York Times; Judge Criticizes Immigration Agents in Chicago: ‘Use of Force Shocks the Conscience’

"A federal judge castigated the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday for its aggressive use of force during an illegal immigration crackdown in Chicago in recent weeks, banning the use of tear gas and other crowd-control weapons “unless necessary to stop the immediate threat of physical harm.”

Judge Sara L. Ellis, of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, said that government officials, including the senior Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, had repeatedly lied about their own tactics and the actions of protesters."

Monday, November 3, 2025

Employee of Trump-Supporting Superstore Fired for Filming Brutal Immigration Raid; The Daily Beast, November 3, 2025

, The Daily Beast; Employee of Trump-Supporting Superstore Fired for Filming Brutal Immigration Raid


[Kip Currier: The excessive force and brutality of these raids cannot and should not be normalized. This is not normal or desirable conduct by law enforcement in a democracy.

Boycotts are one of the best ways to send messages to billionaires -- like John Menard, Jr. -- that this kind of brutal action against human beings who are deserving of dignity and due process will not be tolerated by a majority of the citizens of this country. Targeted boycotts of Teslas sent a message to Elon Musk and these types of peaceful citizen responses can be used to hold other oligarchs accountable for the undemocratic actions that they overtly and tacitly support.

Why are law enforcement persons who use excessive force to apprehend people, who are in most cases not resisting detention, not being held accountable for their unprofessional actions?

Why are they permitted to smash car windows with batons, throw people to the ground, tear gas children's parties, threaten news media and ordinary citizens for permissibly filming public arrests, and even "give the finger" to people who are observing and in some cases documenting their actions?

This is not acceptable in our democracy. These actions by often-masked law enforcement persons are more in keeping with the behaviors of militias and secret police forces who see themselves as not answerable to we the people.

I have hope and faith in the rule of law that the individuals and agencies who are engaging in this conduct can and will be held legally accountable at some point.

We must also continue to call out these lawless actions and not permit ourselves to become inured and voiceless to the brutality that we can see with our own eyes.]



[Excerpt]

"A security guard working at a superstore owned by an ally of Donald Trump was fired after filming a brutal Department of Homeland Security immigration raid in its parking lot.

Ricardo Mendez was positioned at the door of Menards—a Midwestern chain of home-improvement stores whose billionaire owner, John Menard Jr., is a GOP megadonor—in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois, when agents deployed by DHS arrived on Tuesday afternoon...

What came next was brutal, as the Puerto Rican security guard filmed two Border Patrol agents smashing the window of a white Ford pickup with their batons. 

“The poor guy was surrounded by agents, workers, and customers,” said Mendez, 27, who added that the incident was so dramatic and shocking that other store staff also came out to film."

Friday, October 10, 2025

Judge orders feds to dial back aggressive response to journalists, protesters in Chicago area; ABC 7, October 10, 2025

Mark Rivera and Barb Markoff, Christine Tressel and Tom Jones, ABC 7 ; Judge orders feds to dial back aggressive response to journalists, protesters in Chicago area

"A ruling in federal court Thursday restricts the tactics used by the Department of Homeland Security as they engage with protesters, members of the media and the public, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.

The temporary restraining order, or TRO, governs the behavior of federal agents in the entire Northern District, not just at the Broadview ICE processing facility, where there have seen numerous flare ups between ICE agents and the public.

It limits the indiscriminate use of riot control weapons, against peaceful protesters and journalists and requires nearly all federal agents to have visible identification even when wearing riot gear.

Rev. David Black of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago was shot in the head with a pepper bullet while peacefully protesting outside of the facility in Broadview last month by an ice agent standing on the roof of a building. He was able to get up after being hit."

Pastor shot in the head by ICE agents sues Trump administration over First Amendment threats in Chicago; Independent, October 8, 2025

 Alex Woodward, Independent; Pastor shot in the head by ICE agents sues Trump administration over First Amendment threats in Chicago

A Presbyterian minister in Chicago is suing Donald Trump’s administration after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were captured in viral video firing pepper balls at his head during protests against the president’s anti-immigration agenda.

The Rev. David Black joined a lawsuit with Chicago reporters and protesters accusing the administration of unconstitutional threats to their First Amendment rights and religious freedoms with “a pattern of extreme brutality” designed to “silence the press and civilians.”

Last month, Black — dressed in black and wearing a clerical collar while standing with demonstrators — was hit with chemical agents while praying in front of an ICE facility in Broadview, a Chicago suburb that has emerged as a flashpoint for protests against the administration as the president deploys National Guard troops to Illinois."

Video shows federal agent shoot Chicago pastor in head with pepper ball during Broadview ICE protest; Fox 32 Chicago, October 8, 2025


"A video shows a federal agent firing pepper balls at protesters outside the ICE processing center in the Chicago suburb of Broadview last month, striking a Chicago pastor in the head.

One of the agents begins firing pepper balls and one of them hits Pastor David Black of the First Presbyterian Church in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Black then falls to the ground as others come to his aid.

Hayes told Storyful she had been at the protest only minutes when she saw Black get hit. In a post on Bluesky, she said Black was OK."

Sunday, September 7, 2025

Judges Warn ICE Is Turning Courts Into Deportation Traps; Law360, September 5, 2025

Marco Poggio, Law360; Judges Warn ICE Is Turning Courts Into Deportation Traps

""I want to thank everybody for coming here today and taking these hearings seriously," Judge Loprest said. "Have a very good rest of the day. Have a good rest of the summer, a good rest of the year."

But moments later, the goodwill Judge Loprest carefully built collapsed into farce: As the immigrants stepped into the hallway, ICE agents grabbed them, placed them in handcuffs and led them away through a side stairway, letting go only the women with children.

Arrests of noncitizens attending immigration court hearings have wreaked havoc among immigrant communities and alarmed attorneys and judges about what they see as violations of due process.

The Trump administration has been internally pushing for a minimum of 3,000 arrests of noncitizens per day. In an effort to meet that goal, ICE agents have been apprehending people in all areas inside and outside immigration court buildings across the country: hallways, lobbies, parking lots and elevators.

Former and current immigration judges who spoke with Law360 are warning that the Trump administration is using courts as a dragnet, arresting people indiscriminately and expelling them with little to no due process in a bid to fulfill President Donald Trump's goal of mass deportations.

"In order to create the vast numbers of arrests that the White House is demanding, they are arresting people who, minutes before their arrest, have legal status, and they're breaking the law left and right to do it," said Judge Dana Leigh Marks, who retired in 2021."

Saturday, September 6, 2025

‘Homie’: DHS Ridicules Dad They Plan to Deport to Tiny African Nation; The Daily Beast, September 6, 2025

 , The Daily Beast ; ‘Homie’: DHS Ridicules Dad They Plan to Deport to Tiny African Nation


[Kip Currier: This is unacceptable aberrant and abhorrent behavior for U.S. government leaders and agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to demean and torment human beings in this way. But as has so often been said of the Trump administration, the cruelty is the point: these actions are part of a broader stratagem. This behavior is an authoritarian tactic to dehumanize specific individuals and groups of people. The objectives of this systematic, intentional dehumanization are to (1) normalize cruelty, (2) undermine the rule of law, and (3) break down our democratic institutions. Political writer Hannah Arendt explains these strategies in her seminal 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism. The book is freely accessible through the Internet Archive via https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism .

Remember, too, that DHS Head Kristi Noem is the same person who told us in her 2024 autobiography No Going Back that she shot and killed her own 14-month old wire-haired pointer dog, Cricket, with premeditation and deliberation. This is not a good person, a positive role model, or someone who exercises sound judgment and well-reasoned decision-making

And this is clearly not someone who should be influencing policy and leading a government agency.]


[Excerpt]

"Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia has learned where the Department of Homeland Security has decided to deport him next. 

In an email obtained by Fox News, lawyers for the DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Abrego Garcia’s legal team on Friday that his new intended destination is the tiny African nation of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. 

Ridiculing Abrego Garcia’s legal claim of fear of persecution or torture—a core asylum principle—in many of the nations the government has considered deporting him to, the DHS wrote on social media that “Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere”."

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Trump Is Squandering the Greatest Gift of the Manhattan Project; The New York Times, August 12, 2025

 Garrett M. Graff , The New York Times; Trump Is Squandering the Greatest Gift of the Manhattan Project

"The Manhattan Project was a towering achievement, one of the great stories of human effort and accomplishment. Yet the Trump administration has been systematically dismantling the culture of research that the Manhattan Project and World War II bequeathed us, a culture that propelled American prosperity.

At no other time in modern history has a country so thoroughly turned its back on its core national strengths. The very elements that made the Manhattan Project such a success are today under assault. With devastating cuts to science and health research, the administration is turning its back on a history of being powered and renewed by the innovation and vision of immigrants. What America may find is that we have squandered the greatest gift of the Manhattan Project — which, in the end, wasn’t the bomb but a new way of looking at how science and government can work together."

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

‘We have to clear our names’: Venezuelan makeup artist who survived Ice detention tries to rebuild his life; The Guardian, August 4, 2025

, The Guardian ; ‘We have to clear our names’: Venezuelan makeup artist who survived Ice detention tries to rebuild his life

"Hernández, a makeup artist, was one of 251 Venezuelan men flown from Texas to the notorious Cecot maximum security prison in El Salvador as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration. They endured months in a facility described as the “cemetery of the living dead” before finally being repatriated in late July, following a deal between the US and Venezuelan governments...

Life inside Cecot followed a bleak rhythm. There was no sunlight, no answers, no information. But always, there was the sound of handcuffs. “I think they used it as emotional control – that sound of the cuffs and the doors,” he recalled.

The yelling never stopped. “For everything. Because we spoke. Because we asked questions. For everything.

“If that’s how they treated us, knowing we were just migrants, I don’t even want to imagine how they treat the regular inmates – the ones who’ve actually committed crimes,” he said.

As a gay man, Hernández endured relentless harassment and taunting by the guards.

“In El Salvador, believe me, human rights don’t exist. And LGBTQ rights? Even less. People in there who belong to the community have to be brave... we carry an extra burden. It’s hard for a regular prisoner to accept that he shares a cell with someone from the community. Someone different. Someone who loves the same sex. Who sees the world differently.”"

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin says "Supes and I are old friends" as he praises James Gunn's DC movie: "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about"; Games Radar, July 26, 2025

 , Games Radar; Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin says "Supes and I are old friends" as he praises James Gunn's DC movie: "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about"

"Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin has shared his verdict on James Gunn's Superman – and it's very positive.

"Supes and I are old friends, and this is one of the best Superman movies in a long time… maybe ever," Martin shared on his Not a Blog page. "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about when I was a kid, the strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. (And yes, an innocent, of course, he's always been an immigrant. And an illegal immigrant, when you stop to think of it)."

James Gunn Says ‘Superman’ Is An “Immigrant” Story About “Basic Human Kindness”; Deadline, July 6, 2025

Natalie Oganesyan , Deadline; James Gunn Says ‘Superman’ Is An “Immigrant” Story About “Basic Human Kindness”

"Long established as an allegory for the immigrant experience, especially when viewed through the personal histories of Superman‘s comic book co-creators — second-generation Jewish immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn said his forthcoming film entry of Kal-El keeps in tune with the original 1938-created vision.

“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” the Superman helmer told The Times U.K. in a new profile. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”"

Monday, July 14, 2025

We Will Regret Not Standing Up to This Venomous Cruelty; The New York Times, July 14, 2025

, The New York Times ; We Will Regret Not Standing Up to This Venomous Cruelty

"Something beyond the raw politics of immigration lies behind the venomous cruelty on display, and I think it is this: To everyone involved, from the policymakers in Washington to the masked agents on the street, undocumented individuals are “the other,” people who not only lack legal rights as a formal matter but who stand outside the web of connection that defines human society. Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, refers to undocumented immigrants as “the gotaways,” the ones we didn’t catch.

In a lecture at Loyola University Chicago in April, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso observed that the current immigration crisis “is driven by the deeper crisis of public and social life.” He continued: “On a fundamental level, these are signs that we are losing the story of who we are as a country. This is a crisis of narrative. Are we no longer a country of immigrants? Are we no longer a country that values the dignity of the human person, individual liberties, and with a healthy regard for checks and balances?”

An adaptation of Bishop Seitz’s powerful lecture was published bythe Catholic magazine Commonweal, which is where I read it. (Another bishop, Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, Calif., 60 miles east of Los Angeles, took the rare step of telling the 1.6 million worshipers in the diocese by letter last week that they were excused from attending Mass if they were afraid of immigration enforcement if they came to church.) The Catholic Church has distinguished itself by the moral clarity of its critique of the president’s deportation obsession...

I’ve been wondering when the moment will come when ICE will go far enough to persuade more people outside Los Angeles that it must be reined in. Maybe it will look something like the military invasion of the city’s MacArthur Park the other day, when soldiers and federal agents on horseback and in armored vehicles swept in for no obvious purpose other than to sow terror. “It’s the way a city looks before a coup,” Mayor Karen Bass, who rushed to the park, said later.

Can New Yorkers envision such a scene in Central Park? Is anywhere safe now for someone who can’t show the right papers?

People of a certain age might remember the songwriter Jimmy Webb’s weirdly compelling “MacArthur Park,” with its refrain that begins, “MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark.” Growing up in the east, I had never heard of MacArthur Park when the song hit the charts in 1968, and I wasn’t sure it was a real place. All these years later, something real is melting for sure. It is the glue that holds civil society together."

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Video: U.S. Senator Alex Padilla shoved, handcuffed at DHS Kristi Noem's news conference; Fox KTVU, June 12, 2025

 Fox KTVU; Video: U.S. Senator Alex Padilla shoved, handcuffed at DHS Kristi Noem's news conference

"U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) was physically shoved out of the room Thursday during a news conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, where he was also briefly put into handcuffs by the FBI. 

The confrontation was caught on video by dozens of journalists and later took the internet by storm at the sight of a U.S. senator being taken down to the ground by federal agents after asking a question, even if he interrupted Noem as she was speaking.

Padilla, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, was then let go and led to a private room with Noem for 10 minutes, who was in Los Angeles to address the ongoing demonstrations protesting President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

"I will say this, if this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country," Padilla said to reporters at a hastily called news conference of his own."

Thursday, February 27, 2025

Ohio’s J.D. Vance rebuked by the Pope, denounced by NATO allies, ridiculed for bizarre rant; Ohio Capital Journal, February 25, 2025

Marilou Johanek, Ohio Capital Journal ; Ohio’s J.D. Vance rebuked by the Pope, denounced by NATO allies, ridiculed for bizarre rant

"For a supposed Ivy League intellectual, Vance sure spouts stupidity on the regular: Honestly, you’ve got to be really off base on Catholic theology for the Vatican to correct your twisted take on love with descending priorities as justification for mass deportations. In Vance’s godawful reading of the Christian order of love concept; (to mesh with his political ideology) family, community, and country come first and everyone outside that concentric circle later or not so much. Which puts migrant families outermost from Vance’s construct on brotherly love for me but not thee from outside our borders. 

Francis rejected the VP’s sophomoric theoretical defense of cruel immigration crackdowns as flatly wrong. He urged the misguided millennial to meditate on the parable of the Good Samaritan, “on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” But “American citizens first” nativist Vance has no interest in building a “fraternity open to all,” just an all-white patriarchy focused on baby-making. To that point, he started a holy war (barely a week after inauguration) against charitable organizations across the country that feed, clothe and house refugees and immigrants (i.e., Catholic Charities and Catholic relief groups) by implying they perform their labor of love for federal money — not humanitarian concerns. 

“Devout Catholic” convert Vance went all glib and combative on compassion and care for the “least of these” because they included Brown and Black mothers and fathers and children fleeing horrendous homelands for hope. But upholding the dignity of every human being (native-born or not) as a core tenet of Christianity clashes with the core MAGA mission to degrade, shackle and ship terrified families back to the foreign hellscapes they fled. Vance threw nasty and mean into the mix to look tough on dehumanized “illegals” and scorn mercy. He is a dutiful, if not decent, Trump toady. 

But the swift rebuttals to Vance’s hollow broadsides from the Church and the pope himself only reinforced the veep’s smallness as a smug sycophant slinging ugly. Whatever reputation Vance may have enjoyed in the past as a thoughtful individual with at least a modicum of integrity is long gone. With a brief stint as a venture capitalist, an even briefer stint as Ohio senator and now VP, Vance is heady with power and hubris over his meteoric rise from bending the knee to a man he once derided as “America’s Hitler.” Then Vance went to the Munich Security Conference recently, not to collaborate with NATO allies on mutual security interests and Ukraine, but to turn on them."