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In June 2005, a former employee from the Federal Emergency Management Agency toured the grounds of the Bonnaroo music festival in rural Tennessee. He wasn’t there to see the headliners, which included Dave Matthews Band and the lead singer of the popular jam band Phish. He was there to meet the guys setting up the toilets for the throng of psychedelics-infused campers in attendance: Richard Stapleton, a construction industry veteran, and his business partner Robert Napior, a onetime convicted pot grower, who specialized in setting up music festivals.

The meeting, described in court documents, offered the pair’s fledgling company, Deployed Resources, a key introduction to players doing government contract work for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees not only the nation’s disaster responses but also its immigration system. Over the next two decades, Stapleton and Napior hired more than a dozen former agency insiders as they turned their small-time logistics business, which had helped support outdoor festivals like Lollapalooza, into a contracting giant by building camps for a completely different use: detaining immigrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Now, as the government races to carry out President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations, Deployed is shifting its business once more — from holding people who are trying to enter the country to detaining those the government is seeking to ship out.

In Trump’s second term in office, the government is poised to spend tens of billions of dollars on immigration detention, including unprecedented plans to hold immigrants arrested in the U.S. in massive tent camps on military bases. One recently published request for contract proposals said the Department of Homeland Security could spend up to $45 billion over the next several years on immigrant detention. The plans have set off a gold rush among contractors. All this spending is unfolding at the same time the government has made sweeping cuts to federal agencies and shed other contracts.

Among those seeking a windfall is Deployed Resources, which, along with its sister company, Deployed Services, has adapted to shifting government policies and priorities in immigration enforcement.

Starting in 2016, to help respond to spikes in immigrant crossings that had periodically overwhelmed border stations, Deployed began setting up tent encampments to ease the overcrowding. These temporary structures served as short-term emergency waystations, which several former officials said provided flexibility that the U.S. needed. Many of those arriving — including families and unaccompanied children — were turning themselves in, hoping to be released into the U.S. to apply for asylum. In all, the company has been awarded more than $4 billion in government contracts building and operating border tents, according to an analysis of contracting data by ProPublica.

Since taking office in January, Trump has cracked down on asylum, pushing border crossings to record lows. Last month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it no longer needed the tent facilities run by Deployed.

Instead, ProPublica found, the military will now be contracting with Deployed to use one of those border facilities to house people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In March, one of the company’s tent complexes in El Paso, Texas, was handed over to ICE, CBP and ICE spokespeople said. In an unusual move, the Trump administration tapped funds from the Department of Defense to pay Deployed for the facility, citing the president’s declaration of an emergency at the southern border, a DOD spokesperson said. The nearly $140 million contract wasn’t posted publicly and was given to Deployed as the “incumbent contractor,” the spokesperson said, without further explaining why ICE would use military funds. ICE said it started transferring detainees to the site — which currently has the capacity to house 1,000 adults — on March 10.

As immigration raids escalate, detention space in the country’s existing network of permanent ICE prisons is filling up. There are currently around 48,000 immigrants locked up across the country, levels not seen since 2019. Deportations are happening at a slower pace than ICE arrests, according to data shared with ProPublica, so the administration is turning to companies that can quickly set up facilities.

As it looks to expand its capacity, the agency “is exploring all options to meet its current and future detention requirements,” said ICE spokesman Miguel Alvarez.

Yet using tents to house thousands of people arrested by ICE is fundamentally different from using them to house recent border crossers, many of whom weren’t supposed to be held for more than a few days, seven current and former DHS officials who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations told ProPublica.

They said it would be the first time these tent camps would be used for ICE detainees in the U.S. and that it was unclear how they could be constructed to meet the agency’s basic health and safety requirements. These include separate areas for men and women and dedicated zones for families, as well as space to segregate those who are potentially violent, and private meeting areas for lawyers and their clients. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not directly involved in the contracts.

“People that you’ve ripped out of the community, people you’ve arrested, people who want to get back to their children, people who are scared, are going to behave differently than the border crossing population,” said one former ICE official. “You have a lot more fear in the population.”

“It would take a remarkable degree of innovation from a contractor,” said another former DHS official, adding, “It would also be incredibly expensive.”

At a border security conference this week, ICE Acting Assistant Director for Operations Support Ralph Ferguson said that Deployed Resources was modifying the CBP tents in El Paso by adding more rigid structures inside, which he said would make them more secure. Deployed got an additional contract for up to $5 million to provide unarmed guards at the El Paso facility, according to a public notice posted in late March.

The company did not respond to requests for comment. On its website, Deployed says it is “dedicated to safely and efficiently providing transparent facility support and logistical services, anytime, anywhere” and describes itself as “the first-choice provider” for government contracts.

Deployed was also one of the companies interested in operating an immigrant detention camp on the nearby Fort Bliss military base, according to government documents obtained by ProPublica and interviews with people familiar with the contracting process. ICE was seeking proposals from vendors last month for a 1,000-bed camp that could grow to 5,000 beds, housing women and men, including those deemed high security risks, as well as families with small children. The contractor would be responsible for separating those groups and preventing escapes, documents reviewed by ProPublica show.

The plans are “a recipe for disaster,” said Eunice Hyunhye Cho, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.

“All of the problems that we see with ICE detention writ large, like the abuse of force, the sexual assault, medical neglect, the lack of food, lack of access to counsel, lack of due process rights, lack of access to telephones — the list goes on — all of those things are going to be vastly more complicated in a system where you are literally setting up people in tents that are surrounded by barbed wire and armed military personnel,” Cho said.

Since 2016, Deployed Resources has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on providing CBP with immigration tent structures to help with sudden influxes of immigrants. During the first Trump administration, the contractor set up temporary tent courts for people forced to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings under a policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. The company also earned hundreds of millions of dollars during the Biden years operating emergency detention facilities for unaccompanied minors that were funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Though the value of Deployed Resources isn’t publicly known, county real estate records attest to the wealth its owners, Stapleton and Napior, have amassed in the detention business.

In the spring of 2019, shortly after the company landed what was then its biggest immigration contract — a $92 million no-bid award to run two tent facilities in Texas — Stapleton purchased a $5.7 million condo in Naples, Florida. Nearly three years and more than $1 billion in contracts later, he upgraded to a $15 million home a block away from the shore. Napior snapped up a $9 million beachside property near Sarasota, Florida, in 2023. Stapleton did not respond to requests for comment. Reached by phone, Napior said he did not comment to the press and then hung up.

After the meeting at Bonnaroo in 2005, Deployed later hired the former FEMA employee who had checked out its facilities there and to win emergency management contracting work at the agency before moving into immigration detention. In court filings, Deployed said that the meeting did not lead to its FEMA work.

Deployed went on to hire additional former DHS officials over the years, expanding its connections to the federal agencies with which it does business. With a second Trump administration poised to crack down further on the flow of immigrants to the southern border — a potential threat to Deployed’s core business — the company hired several former ICE leaders, according to online searches and current and former officials.

A month after Trump’s victory, former ICE field office director Sean Ervin announced he was joining Deployed as a senior adviser for strategic initiatives. He had previously overseen removal operations across Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The head of field operations for ICE Miami, Michael Meade — an 18-year agency veteran — also joined Deployed that month, according to their profiles on LinkedIn. Meade and Ervin did not respond to requests for comment.

Deployed has continued to win federal business even after the spending on the company’s contracts was criticized by government watchdogs and a whistleblower.

A review by Congress’ Government Accountability Office of one no-bid CBP contract that the first Trump administration awarded to Deployed found that the company’s 2,500-person facility in Tornillo, Texas, averaged just 30 detainees a night in the fall of 2019 and never held more than 68 during the five-month period it was open. It also found that CBP paid Deployed millions for meals it didn’t need to feed people it wasn’t holding. Deployed agreed to reimburse $250,000 for meals not delivered, the GAO said.

A separate whistleblower lawsuit in New Hampshire brought by a former DHS official who worked for Deployed accuses the company of cutting corners on training its staff to detect and report sexual abuse of children in facilities it set up to house unaccompanied minors during the Biden administration. In court filings, Deployed said it “vigorously disputes the allegations” and has moved to dismiss the suit.

Last year, Dan Bishop, a former Republican congressman from North Carolina, held up a Deployed Services contract in Greensboro, North Carolina, as an example of waste during a hearing on unaccompanied migrant children. The company was paid nearly $40 million to help operate a facility for immigrant children, Bishop said, but it stood empty for over two years.

Deployed nonetheless had workers there full time, according to interviews with three former employees familiar with the facility, tasking them with playacting as if they were providing care. Case managers invented case details and Deployed workers would role-play as students in classrooms, even asking for permission to go to the bathroom, according to the former Deployed workers and social media posts of former workers describing the surreal situation.

“I have no idea why they were doing that with government money,” said one former case manager, who recalled inventing elaborate backstories for fictional children, filling out make-believe statements and other paperwork for hours each day. The case manager spent about a year in Greensboro, living in housing paid for by Deployed from its government contract. Deployed did not respond to requests for comment about its Greensboro contract.

Now, with even more money to be spent on immigration detention, Deployed is just one of the companies hoping to benefit. In addition to Fort Bliss more than 10 military sites around the country are being considered for ICE detention facilities, according to a DHS document shared with ProPublica. The New York Times previously reported on elements of the plan.

The Fort Bliss contracting process has proceeded mostly out of public view, and it’s not clear if the project would go forward or fall under the larger $45 billion plan to expand immigration detention. In March, representatives from at least 10 companies, including Deployed Resources, toured Fort Bliss with DHS officials to survey the site, said two people familiar with the visit. Also there were private prison giants The GEO Group and CoreCivic, the sources said.

The GEO Group’s leadership and allied political action groups donated more than $1 million to Trump’s reelection effort, according to a review by the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan Washington watchdog group. On its most recent earnings call, GEO’s CEO said Trump’s immigration agenda was an “unprecedented opportunity” for the firm. CoreCivic — which donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee — has also spoken about the business opportunities. After Trump’s election, stock prices for both companies jumped.

CoreCivic said it is in “regular contact” with government agencies “to understand their changing needs” but said that it does not comment on contracts it is seeking. Its contribution to inauguration events was “consistent with our past practice of civic participation” supporting both parties. The GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment.

Deployed Services has largely eschewed political donations, sticking to its strategy — also used by GEO and CoreCivic — of hiring former high-ranking government officials.

A few weeks ago Deployed scored another high-profile ICE hire: Marlen Pineiro joined Deployed after 40 years in government, including more than a decade in ICE’s Senior Executive Service, according to her LinkedIn profile. At a border security conference this week, where several former high-ranking DHS employees hired by Deployed were gathered among industry vets and Trump immigration officials, Pineiro declined an interview request from a ProPublica reporter.

But on LinkedIn, the congratulations rolled in. The acting head of ICE under Trump, Todd Lyons, posted: “Great news.” Two other senior ICE officials who had also recently joined Deployed commented: “Welcome aboard.”

“Let’s sail away,” Pineiro replied. “Woohooo see you soon.”

Note: ProPublica analyzed transaction-level contract data from usaspending.gov for this story. Contract amounts reported are federal obligations over the life of a contract or group of contracts. In the case of the recently announced Department of Defense award to Deployed Resources, the contract is new and worth up to $140 million.

Perla Trevizo contributed reporting and Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jeff Ernsthausen, Mica Rosenberg and Avi Asher-Schapiro.

The airstrike on the tent housing journalists in the grounds of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis killed Hilmi al-Faqaawi, a social media manager for pro-Palestinian Islamic Jihad broadcaster Palestine Today TV, and injured the following journalists:

• Ahmed Mansour, Palestine Today news agency editor
• Ahmed Al-Agha, BBC Arabic contributor
• Mohammed Fayeq, freelance photojournalist and drone operator
• Abdullah Al-Attar, freelance photographer for Anadolu Agency
• Ihab Al-Bardini, camera operator contributing to U.S. channel ABC
• Mahmoud Awad, Al Jazeera camera operator
• Majed Qudaih, Radio Algerie correspondent
• Ali Eslayeh, photographer for West Bank-based site Alam24

The Israel Defense Forces said the strike targeted Hassan Eslayeh, a freelance photographer who was with Hamas on October 7, 2023. The IDF said Eslayeh, who was injured on April 7, 2025, was a “terrorist” who “participated in the bloody massacre.”

In 2023, the pro-Israeli watchdog HonestReporting published a photo of Eslayeh being kissed by then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, after which CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies cut ties with the journalist.

“This is not the first time Israel has targeted a tent sheltering journalists in Gaza. The international community’s failure to act has allowed these attacks on the press to continue with impunity, undermining efforts to hold perpetrators accountable,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa  Director Sara Qudah. “CPJ calls on authorities to allow the injured, some of whom have sustained severe burns, to be evacuated immediately for treatment and to stop attacking Gaza’s already devastated press corps.”

Footage verified by Reuters news agency showed people trying to douse flames in the tent while other images of someone trying to rescue a journalist in flames were widely shared online.

CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America Media Desk to request comment did not receive an immediate response.

More than 170 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The Israeli military carried out one of its deadliest attacks in weeks when it bombed al-Mawasi in Khan Younis — designated as a “safe zone” — killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more on Saturday. Israel claimed it was targeting Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, but the group denied that Deif had been hit. Israel also struck a makeshift mosque during noon prayer in the Shati refugee camp in west Gaza City, killing 20, and a United Nations school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 22. We speak with writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, chief of communications at Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, who says, “We’ve got a situation where Israel is being told, 'You can do whatever you want, anything you want at all.'”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Still from a video shot by Kharmes al-Refi of the Israeli airstrike on the tent camp in the designated safe zone of Tel-al Sultan, western Rafah.

“Oh hell, what do mine eyes
with grief behold?”

– John Milton, Paradise Lost

People were saying their evening prayers when the IDF attacked the refuge camp at Tel al-Sultan in southern Gaza, where thousands had fled from the Israeli invasion of Rafah. They were told by the Israelis this was a safe zone, a secure place to shelter their children and grandparents. 

“For your safety, the Israeli Defense Force is asking you to leave these areas immediately and to go to known shelters in Deir el Balah or the humanitarian area in Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” read one of the leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before. “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”

The safe zone was a tent city amid the dunes–one of dozens scattered along more than 16 kilometers up the Gaza coast. The tents were made of plastic, which whipped and frayed in the coastal winds–a thin layer of protection against the sun and sand that soon turned into a death trap. 

The lure of safety was the only thing Tel al-Sultan had going for it. The conditions in the camp were wretched. Thousands of starving people crammed together with little fresh water, meager rations, few toilets and nothing much to do except scavenge the beach for scraps of food, dig pit toilets in the sand and pray that someone will intervene to put an end to the war.

When the Israeli bombs strafed the safe zone, the plastic tents caught fire, sending flames leaping two meters high, before the melting, blazing structures collapsed on the people inside, many of them children who’d just been tucked in for the evening. 

There was no water to put the flames out. No firetrucks to stop the inferno. No ambulances to rush the wounded to the hospital. No functioning hospital to treat the burned and the maimed.

At least 45 people, most of them women and children, were killed and nearly 300 injured with shrapnel wounds, burns, fractures and traumatic brain injuries.

“No single health facility in Gaza can handle a mass casualty event such as this one,” said Samuel Johann of Médecins Sans Frontières. “The health system has been decimated and cannot cope any longer.”

The attack came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza, open the border crossings so food, water and medicine could reach the starving Palestinians and allow human rights investigators into the Strip. This malicious act of defiance against the edicts of international law occurred on the same day Israeli tanks entered the central region of Rafah in what the Israelis had basely billed as a “limited military operation.” In the first 48 hours after the ICJ ruling, Israel bombed Rafah at least 60 times.

Tel al-Sultan in western Rafah is an official displacement camp, so designated by the Israelis. The Israelis called it: “Block 2371.” It is located next to UN aid warehouses. Desperate Palestinian families were told they would be safe here. Then the Israelis set it on fire, claiming they were targeting two Hamas operatives. The IDF said it didn’t think civilians would be harmed when it bombed the refuge camp it had told civilians to flee to. 

Disingenuousness is the IDF’s calling card these days. Yet after one massacre after another, perhaps only the Biden administration believes it. Most Israelis don’t. Some prominent Israelis cheered the burning of civilians. The Israeli TV journalist and newspaper columnist Yinon Magal posted a video of the burning refugee camp with the caption: “The central bonfire this year in Rafah”–a reference to the traditional bonfires for the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba’Ome.

“I lost five family members,” said Majed al-Attar of the “bonfire.” “We were sitting in tents when suddenly the camp was bombed. I lost five family members, all burned completely.  Among the victims were pregnant women. They kept telling us this area was safe until we were bombed.”

Israel said its targets were two Hamas operatives: Khaled al-Najjar and  Yassin Abu Rabia. Al-Najjar was said to be a “senior staff officer.” Abu Rabia, the Israelis claimed, was Hamas’ West Bank staff commander. Were they really part of Hamas’ leadership? Who’s to say? It is known that both men had been released from Israeli prisoners in 2011 by Netanyahu in the prisoner swap that freed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Both men were also originally from the West Bank and had been expelled by the Israelis to Gaza. Had long had Abu Rabia and al-Najjar been on the IDF’s so-called “target bank,” a hit list of Palestinians the Israeli army and intelligence can kill at will for acts committed years in the past.

“Bombing a tent camp full of displaced people is a clear-cut, full-on war crime,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, former head of disaster relief for US AID. “Even if Hamas troops were present, that does not absolve the IDF of the obligation to protect civilians. It does not turn a tent camp into a free fire zone.”

Who picked the targets? Who tracked them to the tent camp? Who okayed the airstrike? Was it the Israelis  Lavender AI software program, which permits 20 “uninvolved civilians” to be killed for each targeted junior member of Hamas and 100 civilians to be killed “in exchange” for a senior member? 

“We were sitting safely and suddenly we find bodies thrown on the ground, blood splattered on the ground — heads cut off, hands cut off,” said Malak Filfel. “This is not a life. There is no safety. We’re not getting out. No matter where we go, we will die here.”

Video of the attack showed babies thrashing in pain, women with their skin blackened to a crisp, men with their faces melted to the skull, a decapitated child, parents clutching the bodies of their burned children in their arms, a boy screaming in anguish as he watches his father being burned alive inside a flaming tent.  “We pulled out children who were in pieces,” Mohammed Abuassa told the Associated Press. “We pulled out young and elderly people. The fire in the camp was unreal.”

Israel defended itself by saying the murderous attack stayed within the boundaries Biden and Blinken had outlined for such massacres. They used small bombs (smaller at 250 pounds than the 2000-pound blockbusters Biden briefly decried to CNN, anyway) that were precision-guided to their target (a refugee camp in the humanitarian zone they had designated). 

And so they did. The GBU-39 bombs that burned the Rafah tent camp were made in the US by Boeing (a company the Portland State students targeted in their occupation of the campus). Biden has sold Israel more than 1,000 of these incendiary weapons since October. “They send us chickpeas,” one Palestinian said. “And to the Israelis they send weapons.”

Still, days after CNN and the New York Times confirmed that Israel bombed the tent camp with US-made weapons, the Biden administration refused to cop to it, claiming ignorance. The State Department’s hapless PR flack Vedant Patel was sent out to try, ineptly, to deflect attention from Israel’s use of a bomb made and designed in the US which the Biden administration has repeatedly urged the Israelis to use more frequently in its war on Gaza–a bomb designed to spray shrapnel fragments as far as 2,000 feet.

Reporter: Do you have any comment on CNN and NYT’s reports that the Israelis used US weapons in the Rafah attack?

Patel: I’m gonna let the IDF speak to their investigation…

Reporter: I’m asking you, was this a US weapon?

Patel: It’s not for us to speak to. We can’t speak to individual weapons load-outs to individual Israeli aircraft. So I will let the IDF speak to their investigation’s findings and indicate anything they have to share about what weapons were used.

Remains of the Tail Actuation System of the GBU-39 guided missile at the Tel-Sultan tent camp. A weapon made and designed by Boeing.

The US largely stands mute as Israel turns evacuation zones into zones of extermination. Instead, Biden continues to repeat discredited stories of Israeli children burned in ovens or decapitated by Hamas, while saying nothing about actual Palestinian children decapitated and burned alive by US-made weapons.

After the images of burning tents and charred bodies spread across the world igniting a new round of global indignation and disgust, Netanyahu made a rare, if half-hearted, attempt at damage control, calling the bombing a “tragic mistake.” Once is a mistake, twice a “tragic mistake.” 15,000 times is a genocide.

In eight months of war, Israel has killed thirty times more children in Gaza than Russia has killed Ukrainian children in two years and years months of war. Gaza’s population is just 1/18th the size of Ukraine’s. But instead of sanctioning Israel, Biden and Blinken have threatened to sanction the one agency that’s tried to hold it accountable: the ICJ. Every atrocity Israel gets away with encourages it to do something even more grotesque.

Two days after the firebombing of Tel al-Sultan, Israel attacked another tent encampment for displaced Palestinians, this time in Al-Mawasi, a Bedouin village in a coastal area on the outskirts of Rafah. Like Tel al-Sultan, Al-Mawasi was a designated humanitarian zone, packed with families, when it was struck by at least four Israeli tank shells, probably the highly destructive 120 mm shells supplied by the Biden administration. At least 21 Palestinians were killed in the shelling inside what Israel has designated a civilian evacuation zone and another 65 were injured, 10 of them critically. Twelve of the dead were women.

Biden’s National Security Advisor John Kirby said there was nothing in the massacres on Sunday or Tuesday that would prompt the United States to rethink its military aid to Israel.

Reporter: How does this not violate the red line the President laid out?

John Kirby: We don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah and we haven’t seen one.

Reporter: How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the President considers a change in policy?

John Kirby: I take offense at the question…

Typically, Kirby took offense at the question, but not the children carbonized by US-made bombs.

Biden has voluntarily tied himself to a regime that burns children to death as they sleep in tents they were forced to move into by the people who incinerated them. His red lines are drawn in the blood of Palestinian babies.

The post Who By Fire? The Burning of Rafah’s Tent People appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jeffrey St. Clair.

In a former industrial neighborhood in Chicago’s Southwest Side, protest signs hang off a chain link fence, many of them with the same message: “This land is contaminated.” 

Welcome to Brighton Park, the proposed site of a winter tent camp for migrants, a controversial plan from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson that has drawn opposition from both residential neighbors and environmental advocates. 

Construction is paused on the camp as the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency reviews a city-issued report released late last week detailing the contaminants found at the site and the efforts to clean them up, according to Jordan Abudeyyah, a spokesperson for Governor JB Pritzker.   

“They have some outstanding questions for the consultants,” said Abudeyyah to Grist over email. 

Arsenic, lead and mercury all turned up in soil sampling across the site, as well as toxic compounds including pesticides and PCBs, also known as polychlorinated biphenyls, according to the nearly 800-page report. While city officials say the majority of the contaminants have been cleared from the soil, the report notes that DEHP or bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, a compound used to make plastics flexible, was found at the site and will not be amended until approximately December 8, 2023. 

The tent city is being built by GardaWorld Federal Services, part of the multinational private security firm that inked a nearly $30 million deal with the city for its services in September. GardaWorld has faced scrutiny for its role in bussing migrants out of Florida and allegations of mistreating migrant children. In the past week, the company has raised the metal skeleton of several of the massive tent structures, spanning a city block. The full installation was scheduled to open later this month.  

Since August of 2022, more than 22,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Chicago from countries such as Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. To date, nearly 13,000 are living in shelters across the city or are housed in police stations and O’Hare International Airport. 

“It’s not a surprise,” said Anthony Moser, a founding member of Neighbors for Environmental Justice, a watchdog environmental organization based on the South Side of Chicago. “That when you pick an industrial lot in the industrial corridor, and it turns out to have contamination.” 

The lot in Brighton Park was home to a freight terminal, zinc smelter and an underground diesel storage tank. Environmental advocates worry about potential health concerns for migrants who will be housed at the former industrial site. From the beginning, advocates like Moser said the city left the community in the dark. 

“They did not announce when they started considering this site, they did not announce when they signed a contract for this site,” said Moser. “They did not announce when they found something as a result of environment testing, they did not announce that they were going to begin construction.”

In a press conference last week, Johnson pointed to approaching winter temperatures when defending his decision to raise the Brighton Park base camp before releasing the environmental analysis to the public. Johnson added that migrants will not be transferred to the encampment until the analysis has been completed.

Advocates are calling Johnson to cancel the contract for the tent city. They are also calling on the city’s Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy to hold meetings into the site was selected, as well as further oversight from state and federal agencies. 

The state is footing the $65 million bill to build the tent encampment in Brighton Park and retrofit a nearby empty drugstore to shelter migrants. According to the governor’s office If the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency does not sign off on the report on the Brighton Park camp the state will not proceed with work there.

Initially, the plan was to transfer 500 migrants to the newly built base camp. According to the contract, the site capacity is between 250 to 1,400, but the city is aiming to shelter up to 2,000 migrants there. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Chicago pauses proposed tent city for migrants amid contamination fears on Dec 5, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco.

The referendum on the indigenous Voice in Australia last Saturday was an historic event. Australians were asked to vote on whether to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution through an indigenous Voice.

The voters were asked to vote “yes” or “no” on a single question:

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

“Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Voice

The Voice was proposed as an independent, representative body for First Nations peoples to advise the Australian Parliament and government, giving them a voice on issues that affect them.

Here are some key points:

• The proposal was to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution by creating a body to advise Parliament, known as the “Voice”.
• The “Voice” would be an independent advisory body. Members would be chosen by First Nations communities around Australia to represent them.
• The “Voice” would provide advice to governments on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, such as health, education, and housing, in the hope that such advice will lead to better outcomes.
• Under the Constitution, the federal government already has the power to make laws for Indigenous people. The “Voice” would be a way for them to be consulted on those laws. However, the government would be under no obligation to act on the advice.
• Indigenous people have called for the “Voice” to be included in the Constitution so that it can’t be removed by the government of the day, which has been the fate of every previous indigenous advisory body. It is also the way indigenous people have said they want to be recognised in the constitution as the First Nations with a 65,000-year connection to the continent — not simply through symbolic words.

It was necessary for a majority of voters to vote “yes” nationally, as well as a majority of voters in at least four out of six states, for the referendum to pass.

Unfortunately, it was rejected by the majority with more than 60 percent with the vote still being counted. In all six states and the Northern Territory, a “No” vote was projected.

According to the ABC, a majority of voters in all six states and the Northern Territory voted against the proposal.

New South Wales
81.2 percent counted, 1.81 million voted yes (40.5 percent) and 2.67M million voted no (59.5 percent).

Victoria
78.5 percent counted, 1.56 million voted yes (45.0 percent), and 1.91 million voted no (55.0 percent).

Tasmania
82.7 percent counted, 134,809 voted yes (40.5 percent), and 198,152 voted no (59.5 percent).

South Australia
79.1 percent counted, 355,682 voted yes (35.4 percent), 648,769 voted no (64.6 percent).

Queensland
74.3 percent counted, 835,159 voted yes (31.2 percent), 1.84 million voted no (68.8 percent).

Western Australia
75.3 percent counted, 495,448 voted yes (36.4 percent), and 866,902 voted no (63.6 percent).

Northern Territory
63.4 percent counted, 37,969 voted yes (39.5 percent), and 58,193 voted no (60.5 percent).

ACT
82.8 percent counted, 158,097 voted yes (60.8 percent), and 102,002 voted no (39.2 percent).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the next steps after the failed Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum are yet to be decided and called the expectation of having a plan just days after the vote “not respectful”.

For the latest news, visit: https://t.co/X6qtu24rNp pic.twitter.com/smgqgeV55Y

— SBS News (@SBSNews) October 17, 2023

In addition to being viewed as divisive along racial lines, concerns about how the Voice to Parliament would work (whether indigenous Australians would be given greater power) and uncertainties about how the new body would result in meaningful change for indigenous Australians contributed to the rejection.

Australia has held 44 referendums since its founding in 1901. However, the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in 2023 was the first of its kind to focus specifically on Indigenous Australians.

As part of a broader push to establish constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, the Voice proposal was seen as a significant step towards reconciliation and was the result of decades of indigenous advocacy and work.

A key turning point came in 2017 when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from across the country met at Uluru for the First Nations’ National Constitutional Convention. The proposal, known as the Voice, sought to recognise Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution and establish a First Nations body to advise the government on issues affecting their communities.

However, the Voice proposal was not unanimously accepted. In the course of the campaign, intense conflict and discussion ensued between supporters and opponents, resulting in what supporters viewed as a tragic outcome, while the victorious opponents celebrated their victory.

The support of Oceania’s indigenous leaders
Pacific Islanders expressed their views before the referendum on the Voice to Parliament.

Henry Puna, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, said that Australia’s credibility would be boosted on the world stage if the yes vote won the Indigenous voice referendum. He stated that it would be “wonderful” if Australia were to vote yes, because he believed it would elevate Australia’s position, and perhaps even its credibility, internationally.

The former Foreign Minister of Vanuatu (nd current Climate Change Minister), Ralph Regevanu, warned Australia’s reputation would plummet among its allies in the Pacific if the Voice to Parliament was defeated.

These views indicate the potential impact of the voice referendum on Australia’s relationship with Pacific Island nations, which it often refers to as “its own backyard”.

The “No” camp claimed the Voice was an “elite” idea, that “real” Indigenous people didn’t want it, because Peter Dutton had spoken to “shoppers”. Even with the results, they still insist communities did not want one – taking away what little voice they gothttps://t.co/kWt0hjDHEC

— Rachel Withers (@rachelrwithers) October 17, 2023

Division, defeat and impact
A tragic aspect of the Voice proposal is the fact that not only were Australian settlers divided about it, but even worse, indigenous leaders themselves, who were in a position to bring together a fragmented and tormented nation, were at odds with each other — including full-on verbal wars in media.

While their opinions on the proposal were divided, some had practical and realistic ideas to address the problems faced by indigenous communities in remote towns. Others proposed a treaty between settlers and original indigenous people.

There are also those who advocate for a strong political recognition within the nation’s constitutional framework.

Despite these divisions among indigenous leaders, the referendum on Voice represents a significant milestone in the ongoing indigenous resistance that spans over 200 years.

It is a resistance that began on January 26, 1788, when the invasion began (Pemulwuy’s War), and continued through various milestones such as the 1937 Petition for citizenship, land rights, and representation, the 1938 Day of Mourning, the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions, the 1965 Freedom Rides, and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972.

It further extended to 1990-2005 with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the 1991 Song Treaty by Yothu Yindi, Eddie Mabo overturning terra nullius in 1992, Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart until the recent defeat of the Voice Referendum in 2023.

A dangerous settlers’ myth and its consequences
The modern nation of Australia (aged 244 years) has been shaped by one of European myths: “Terra Nullius”, the Latin term for “nobody’s land”. This myth was used to describe the legal position at the time of British colonisation.

Accordingly, the land had been deemed as terra nullius, which implies that it had belonged to no one before the British Crown declared sovereignty over it.

Eddy Mabo: A Melanesian Hero
An indigenous Melanesian, Eddy Mabo, overturned this myth in 1992, known as “the Mabo Case,” which recognised the land rights of the Meriam people and other indigenous peoples.

The Mabo Case resulted in significant changes in Australian law in several areas. One of the most notable changes was the overturning of the long-standing legal fiction of “terra nullius,” which posited that Australia was unpopulated (no man’s land) at the time of British colonisation.

In this decision, the High Court of Australia recognized the legal rights of Indigenous Australians to make claims to lands in Australia. It marked a historic moment, as it was the first time that the law acknowledged the traditional rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In addition, the Mabo Case contributed directly to the establishment of the Native Title Act in 1993.

Even though these changes are significant, debates persist regarding the state of indigenous Australians under colonial settlement.

Indigenous Affairs reporter Isabella Higgins says the No victory in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum could change the way Indigenous Australians will want to interact with the rest of the country going forward. pic.twitter.com/g5CxBaU0Op

— ABC News (@abcnews) October 15, 2023

Indigenous leaders need to see a big picture
The recent referendum on the Voice sparked heated debates on a topic that has long been a source of contention: the age-old battle of “my country versus your country, my mob versus your mob, I know best versus you know nothing.”

While it’s important to celebrate and protect cultural diversity and the unique perspectives it brings, it’s equally important to recognise that British settlers didn’t just apply the myth of terra nullius to a select few groups or regions — they applied it to all areas inhabited by indigenous peoples, treating them as a single, homogenous entity.

This means that any solution to indigenous issues must be rooted in a collective, unified voice, rather than a patchwork of fragmented groups.

Indigenous leaders need to prioritise the creation of a unified front among themselves and mobilise their people before seeking support from Australians. Currently, they are engaging in competition, outdoing each other, and fighting over the same issue on mainstream media platforms, indigenous-run media platforms, and social media.

This approach is reminiscent of the “divide, conquer, and rule” strategy that the British effectively employed worldwide to expand and maintain their dominion. This strategy has historically caused harm to indigenous nations worldwide, and it is now harming indigenous people because their leaders are fighting among themselves.

It is important to note that this does not imply a rejection of every distinct indigenous language group, clan, or tribe. However, it is crucial to recognise that indigenous peoples throughout Oceania were viewed through a particular European lens, which scholars refer to as “Eurocentrism”.

This “lens” is a double-edged sword, providing semantic definition and dissection power while also compartmentalising based on a hierarchy of values. Melanesians and indigenous Australians were placed at the bottom of this hierarchy and deemed to be of no historical or cultural significance.

This realisation is of utmost importance for the collective attainment of redemption, unity and reconciliation.

The larger Australian indigenous’ cause
From Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s momentous crossing of the Isthmus of Panama to Ferdinand Magellan’s pioneering Spanish expedition across the Pacific Ocean in 1521, and Abel Janszoon Tasman’s remarkable exploration of Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, to James Cook’s renowned voyages in the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779, the indigenous peoples of Oceania have endured immense suffering and torment as a consequence of the European scramble for these territories.

The indigenous peoples of Oceania were forever scarred by the merciless onslaught of European maritime marauders. When the race for supremacy over these unspoiled regions unfolded, their lives were shattered, and their communities torn asunder.

The web of life in Australia and Oceania was severely disrupted, devalued, rejected, and subjected to brutality and torment as a result of the waves of colonisation that forcefully impacted their shores.

The colonisers imposed various racial prejudices, civilising agendas, legal myths, and the Discovery doctrine, all of which were conceived within the collective conceptual mindset of Europeans and applied to the indigenous people.

These actions have had a lasting and fatalistic impact on the collective indigenous population in Australia and Oceania, resulting in dehumanisation, enslavement, genocide, and persistent marginalisation of their humanity, leading to unwarranted guilt for their mere existence.

The European collective perception of Oceania, exemplified by the notion of terra nullius, has resulted in numerous transgressions of indigenous laws, customs, and cosmologies, affecting every aspect of life within the entire landscape. These violations have led to the loss of land, destruction of language, erasure of memories, and imposition of British customs.

Furthermore, indigenous peoples were forcibly relocated to concentration camps, missions, and reserves.

The Declaration received support from a total of 144 countries, with only four countries (which have historically displaced indigenous populations through settler occupation) voting against it — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

However, all four countries subsequently reversed their positions and endorsed the Declaration. It should be noted that while the Declaration does not possess legal binding force, it does serve as a reflection of the commitments and responsibilities that states have under international law and human rights standards.

The challenges and concerns confronting indigenous communities are undeniably more severe and deplorable than the current “yes or no” referendum. It is imperative for the entire nation, including indigenous leaders, to acknowledge the profound extent of the Indigenous human tragedy that extends beyond the divisive binary.

Old and new imperial vultures
Similar to the European vultures that once encircled Oceania centuries ago, partitioned its territories, subjugated its people, conducted bomb experiments, and eradicated its population in Tasmania, the present-day vultures from the Eastern and Western regions exhibit comparable behaviours.

It is imperative for indigenous leaders hailing from Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia to unite and demand that the colonial governments be held responsible for the multitude of crimes they have perpetrated.

Message to divided indigenous leaders
Simply assigning blame to already fragmented, tormented, and highly marginalised Indigenous communities, and endeavouring to empower them solely through a range of government handouts and community-based development programs, will not be adequate.

Because the trust between indigenous peoples and settlers has been shattered over centuries of abuse, deeply impacting the core of Indigenous self-image, dignity, and respect.

My personal experience in remote indigenous communities
I am a Papuan who came to Australia over 20 years ago to study in the remote NSW town of Bourke. I lived, studied, and worked at a small Christian College called Cornerstone Community.

During my time there, I was adopted by the McKellar clan of the Wangkumara Tribe in Bourke and worked closely with indigenous communities in Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Cobar, Wilcannia, and Dubbo.

Unfortunately, my experiences in these places left me traumatised.

These communities have become so broken. I found myself succumbing to depression as a result of the distressing experiences I witnessed. It dawned upon me being “blackfella” — Papuan indigenous descent — was and still consistently subjected to similar mistreatment regardless of location.

This realisation instilled within me a sense of guilt for my own identity, as I was constantly made feel guilty of who I was. Tragically, a significant number of the young indigenous whom I endeavoured to aid and guide through diverse community and youth initiatives have either been incarcerated or committed suicide.

West Papua, my home country, is currently experiencing a genocide due to the Indonesian settler occupation, which is supported by the Australian government. This is similar to what indigenous Australians have endured under the colonial system of settlers.

Indigenous Australians in every region, town, and city face a complex and diverse set of issues, which are unique, tragic, and devastating. These issues are a result of how the settler colony interacted with them upon their arrival in the country.

Nevertheless, the indigenous people were not subjected to centuries of abuse and mistreatment solely based on their tribal affiliations. Rather, they were targeted by the settler government as a collective, disregarding the diversity among indigenous groups.

This included the indigenous people from Oceania, who have endured dehumanisation and racism as a result of colonisation.

It is imperative to acknowledge that the resolution of these predicaments cannot be attained by a solitary leader representing a particular group. The indigenous leaders need a unified vision and strategy to combat these issues.

All indigenous individuals across the globe, including Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and West Papua, are afflicted by the same affliction. The only distinguishing factor is the degree of harm inflicted by the virus, along with the circumstances surrounding its occurrence.

A statement from Indigenous Australians who supported the Voice referendum. https://t.co/UlW2kvd9oa pic.twitter.com/1159uz3bxk

— ulurustatement (@ulurustatement) October 15, 2023

A paradigm shift
Imagine a world where indigenous peoples in Australia and Oceania reclaim their original languages and redefine the ideas, myths, and behaviours displayed on their land with their own concepts of law, morality, and cosmology. In this world, I am confident that every legal product, civilisational idea, and colonial moral code applied to these peoples would be deemed illegal.

It is time to empower indigenous voices and perspectives and challenge the oppressive systems that have silenced them for far too long.

Commence the process of renaming each island, city, town, mountain, lake, river, valley, animal, tree, rock, country, and region with their authentic local languages and names, thereby reinstating their original significance and worth.

However, in order to accomplish this, it is imperative that indigenous communities are granted the necessary authority, as it is ultimately their power that will reinforce such transformation. This power does not solely rely on weapons or monetary resources, but rather on the determination to preserve their way of life, restore their self-image, and demand the recognition of their dignity and respect.

Last Saturday’s No Vote tragedy wasn’t just about the majority of Australians rejecting it. It was a heartbreaking moment where indigenous leaders, who should have been united, found themselves fiercely divided.

Accusations were flying left and right, targeting each other’s backgrounds, positions, and portfolios. This bitter divide ended up gambling away any chance of redemption and reconciliation that had reached such a high national level.

It was a devastating blow to the hopes and aspirations for a better world for one of the most disadvantaged originals continues human on this ancient timeless continent — Australia.

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

• Other Yamin Kogoya articles

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.