Benjamin Merrill

JD Candidate - Osgoode Hall of Law | MA Int’l Studies JKSIS | Former Refugee Protection Officer | RPCV. On a path towards decolonization and abolition 🌱

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

“Matching state policies provide formal approval and encouragement from above to move from dehumanizing thoughts to inhuman actions.
The result is, what individual officers should see […] as horrific abuses against children become for them just another day on the job.”

[Andrew Stroehlein @astroehlein]

In my newsletter today: The undeclared international competition to see who can abuse migrants and asylum seekers most brutally has a new entry from the US…

��️ in English: https://t.co/5u9lbqeQmE

📰 en français : https://t.co/h9ZsbAzrch

🔊 Listen: https://t.co/G4yOfNjVst

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

20 years on: “Around the world, Guantánamo remains one of the most enduring symbols of the injustice, abuse, and disregard for the rule of law that the US unleashed in response to the 9/11 attacks,” https://t.co/nBQIokJdwm @hrw

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

@AzeemIbrahim Curious, weren't Rohingya ostensibly a side-show to the West under the Aung San Suu Kyi regime? What motive would the West have now to change the status quo aside from similar finger-wagging?

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

It’s astounding that after a massive family separation operation, mass sexual assault of detainees, trapping immigrants in COVID-infected detention centers, and now reports of mass hysterectomies (which the US has done before), abolishing ICE is controversial.

Where’s the line?

[Ilyse Hogue @ilyseh]

A whistleblower at ICE today exposed that mass hysterectomies are being performed on detained immigrants. If it sounds like a horror show, that's because it is. Gender oppression has a direct correlation with authoritarianism. This is beyond. The vicious cruelty is staggering.

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

The cruelty is the point

[Erica L. Green @EricaLG]

ICE announces that foreign students attending colleges that go online-only either have to transfer to a school offering in-person instruction or leave the country...

[Ilhan Omar @IlhanMN]

ICE needs to release children with their families.

Pass it on.

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

WHOA. @USGAO finds that @CBP violated appropriations law when it used money Congress appropriate for "consumables" and "medical care" for migrants to do things like buy dog food and dirt bikes and pay for HVAC repair.

Outrageous!

Report: https://t.co/15m0A2T4Q2

[Michele Norris @michele_norris]

It should not be this hard to vote in America

[Lisa Victoria Fields @LisaVFields]

“Worship that ignores justice is incomplete.” -@WatsonJones3

[Samuel Sinyangwe @samswey]

For those who are interested in research-based solutions to stop police violence, here’s what you need to know - based on the facts and data. A thread. (1/x)

[Semir Bulle, MD @SemirBulle]

I can’t believe I’m posting this, but some of my colleagues from the @Docs4GunControl brought this to my attention.

Wow.

My brother was shot at 12 times- he’s a mechanic.

& Where I come from we are guilty until proven innocent.

Are these really my future colleagues?

[Luke Bretherton @WestLondonMan]

There is something theologically fitting about Trump holding aloft a closed bible before a shuttered church he cannot enter. It is a book he doesn't read & a structure dedicated to something he can't understand that preaches a narrow way he entirely opposes in all he says & does.

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

Our anti-immigration administration’s compete disregard for international obligations, and just plain morality, knows no bounds.

[Human Rights Watch @hrw]

Trump Administration Uses Pandemic as Excuse to Expel Migrants https://t.co/4F2mgk9A7U

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

“I am proudly working as a cleaner in a hospital.”

@hassan_akkad, a Syrian refugee on the front lines of the UK's fight against #coronavirus, has a message for PM Boris Johnson.

[Jim Tankersley @jimtankersley]

Fascinating leftover @CivisAnalytics stat from this piece:

Of Americans WHO OPPOSE LOCKDOWNS:

Just over 5% are nonwhite workers who have personally lost a job in the crisis.

Just under 70% are white workers who have *not* lost a job in the crisis.

[Ron Wyden @RonWyden]

Staying healthy and participating in our democracy should not be mutually exclusive. That's why this week, I introduced legislation to help states implement #VoteByMail through November in order to keep Americans safe. https://t.co/LuZpIsGmjL

[USA TODAY @USATODAY]

The investigation revealed more than 400 allegations of sexual assault or abuse, more than 800 instances of physical abuse, more than 20,000 grievances filed by detainees and at least 29 fatalities, including seven suicides, since 2017. https://t.co/Fjzzd7WFTa

[Benjamin Merrill @Benmerrill20]

@collintheese @gigirunner @realDonaldTrump Statistics: https://t.co/9VSzdfpso2