It’s been 50 years since Godfrey Wade arrived to the United States from Jamaica at the age of 15 with his mother, moving to New York with a green card that granted him permanent residency.
The Black man enlisted in the U.S. Army a few years later, spending eight years in the service, where he was primarily stationed in Germany before he received an honorable discharge. He then began a civilian life in Georgia while raising a family, working as a fashion designer, master tailor, tennis coach and chef over the years while staying out of trouble.
That is, until September, when he was pulled over in Conyers, Georgia, for failing to use a turn signal, which was when police discovered he was driving without a license and arrested him.
. . . He has been incarcerated in overcrowded ICE detention centers since the arrest, a three-month ordeal where he was forced to sleep on a makeshift bed on the ground for the first 12 days, according to 11 Alive News.
In a telephone interview with local media from the Stewart Detention Center in Stewart County, Georgia, Wade said there are only two working urinals for an entire pod of 80 people.
“We don’t have any bunk space,” he told the news station. “We’re given what we call boats, and those are placed on the floor with a two-inch mat.”
“There’s sewage water flowing on the ground,” he said.
11 Alive News also reported that it had obtained records of the Office of Detention Oversight, a unit within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that oversees the federal detention centers, which revealed 12 deficiencies within the Stewart Detention Center related to health and safety, food service, phone access, use of force, and more.
“The agency also noted violations of the required 12-to-1 detainee-to-toilet ratio,” 11 Alive News reported, adding that the private for-profit company that runs the detention center, CoreCivic, has ignored various inquires by reporters seeking comment.
But the Trump administration has repeatedly demonstrated it believes it is above the law and the Constitution.
Okay, what is happening to him is a humanitarian crisis, but they arrested him for driving without a license, not because he missed a turn signal.
What ICE is doing is abhorrent. We don’t need to exaggerating and/or lie to make horrifying headlines marginally worse.
Edit - Jesus christ, you all have some real issues with connotation, huh? Yes, he was pulled over for a turn signal, which set off the chain of events, but the intention of the headline is to connect the mostly innoculous act of forgetting to signal to the resulting deportation, when that is blatantly not the case. All the “UMMM, ACKSHUALLY, THIS REALLY DID HAPPEN” completely misses the point here.
Fuck me for refusing to just let it slide when media uses intentionally misleading titles to invoke extreme reactions for engagement, I guess.
Okay, what is happening to him is a humanitarian crisis, but they arrested him for driving without a license, not because he missed a turn signal.
Technically true, but the turn signal was an excuse to pull him over, it’s not like they knew he didn’t have a license. At the same time, is he able to get a license without legal status? He has lived in the country for 50 years, but these technicalities are what give the excuse to deport him.
It can be argued “the law is the law” but what kind of society are we trying to achieve by enforcing these technicalities (while also permitting the corruption and outright illegal acts of the president)? It’s a case that highlights the broken (intentional or otherwise) system of legal status within this country and how it’s used to exercise control over people’s lives.
That is, until September, when he was pulled over in Conyers, Georgia, for failing to use a turn signal, which was when police discovered he was driving without a license and arrested him.
I mean. I dunno what to tell you.
how did they initiate a stop?
I imagine it was by using their sirens.
Not using turn signal? Straight to jail.
it was probably more the lack of a driving license that did it, but ofc the headline leaves that out
It was actually the fascist policies enacted by the trumpist extremists in power.
This is so heart breaking and shameful, I don’t believe America as a concept anymore, and I say that as an American. The things the US military does are blasphemy to humanity, and not all the participants are saints, but in principle if someone is willing to die for a country. They should be allowed to live there.
Nations shouldn’t exist, we’re all just people
This and much more is why I despised GWB, but Trump has somehow managed to be exponentially worse.
Somehow, we went for a couple centuries with no ICE, but we just couldn’t get supersonic jets to respond to two subsonic passenger jets in spite of years of warning.
Sounds like we should have bought more city air defenses instead of ICE, don’t we have missiles to shoot down planes to protect our largest cities? Seriously, isn’t that pretty basic? Am I stupid?
The beginnings of a US based KZ system.
Gotta wonder how many of these trained, blooded combat veterans are going to take this abuse laying down.
Before I say this, ICE is awful and driving without a license shouldn’t be a deportable offense. Also, military service should give automatic citizenship.
I feel like this article is leaving something out. How did ICE get involved in this? I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got involved simply because they saw a record of a non-citizen getting arrested but I’m wondering if he didn’t renew his green card or something.
I’m not arguing that this guy deserves to be deported (I think he should be a citizen) but I do wish we got the whole story on things.
I shed my blood for this country
he was primarily stationed in Germany
Hmm 🤔
Yeah it’s not like a lot of our veterans were stationed outside of the US or anything
Hey, eight years as a grunt ain’t nothin’. It’s still a disgrace he gets treated like this (it’s obviously a disgrace anyone gets treated like this, but the republiQan mindset used to at least support veterans with pretty words. Now they din’t think of them at all.)
