How to say “Concentration Camp” in Bureaucratese

20 October 2007

I’ve written these kinds of documents for businesses (though half-starving as a free-lancer, sometime reporter, sometime English teacher, sometime truck driver and full-time MexFiler seems much, much saner!), and I’m used to the bland language you use to sell the less palatable parts of a development.

Maybe Adolf Eichman could have written the 46-page ENDGAME Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan, 2003 – 2012: Detention and Removal Strategy for a Secure Homeland, but have to admit this is beyond my skill:

Illegal aliens, unaccompanied juveniles, asylum seekers, refugees, and countless other apprehended aliens cannot all be immediately removed from the country, nor can they all be released into the American community. For that reason, DRO resources and expertise are required to transport these aliens from point to point, to manage them in custody while their cases are being processed and, finally, to remove them from the country when ordered to do so. The effects of other programs’ enforcement efforts are diminished and their operations are constrained if DRO cannot execute its mission efficiently and effectively. Therefore, DRO must immerse itself within the immigration enforcement element of DHS and establish a significant and collaborative presence with its service and enforcement partners and stakeholders….

DRO and the private sector rely on each other for the services each demands and has to offer. While the private sector relies on DRO to provide national and international transportation, or to house and feed detainees, DRO relies on those same services to execute its mission when they are not available through normal government channels.

… While the alien will not necessarily perceive any “benefit” from DRO services, he will be provided with safe and secure confinement in detention facilities, as well as transportation from ports and points along the border to other detention facilities or his country of origin. These services will be provided in a professional manner; the alien will be detained in safe, secure and humane environments; he will be transported safely; and his movement will be fully coordinated with his family, legal representative, and country of origin, whenever appropriate. For these reasons, the alien is as important a stakeholder as any of the others mentioned.

The Unapologetic Mexican reprints a few comments by these “stakeholders”.