The CRC will Not Exploit Immigrants
I’m Taking a Pro-Active Stance on ‘Path to Citizenship’
Exposing a Heinous Agenda Underway by the Trump Regime
by Sondra Wilson. Written July 26, 2025.
Forced Labor in ICE Detention: A Historical and Legal Warning
Across the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers—many operated by private corporations—continue to face lawsuits and investigative scrutiny for coercing immigrant detainees into labor under the so-called “Voluntary Work Program.” Detainees are often paid $1/day for tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and reports document threats of punishment for refusal (Booth, 2020; Funk, 2025).
The detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” in Ochopee, Fla. Rebecca Blackwell / AP
These practices violate the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and raise constitutional concerns under the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime. Many immigrants held in ICE facilities haven’t been convicted of any crimes, yet are subjected to labor schemes benefiting private corporations like GEO Group and CoreCivic (Hatton, 2025).
🛑 Iowa Will Not Be Complicit
As your candidate for governor, I make this solemn pledge:
- No ICE detainees will be used in Iowa’s FarmHire program.
- The Set the Captives Free! Act will reject any form of coerced labor.
- The Civilian Restoration Corps will be built on voluntary service, fair wages, and dignity.
- My administration will pursue a compassionate, proactive path to citizenship, not exploitation.
We will not repeat the mistakes of history. We will lead with justice, transparency, and humanity.
🧠 History Repeats—Unless We Learn
The use of forced labor in ICE detention centers echoes some of the darkest chapters in American and global history:
- After the Civil War, convict leasing allowed private companies to “rent” prisoners—many of whom were Black men falsely convicted under Black Codes—to work in mines, railroads, and brick factories under brutal conditions (Blackmon, 2008; Reyes, 2016).
- In Nazi Germany, over 12 million civilians and prisoners of war were abducted and forced to work in war industries. Corporations like Siemens and IG Farben profited immensely while the public was kept unaware or fed propaganda (USHMM, 2025; Zwangsarbeit Archiv, 2025).
- In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin exposed the cruelty of slavery to a largely unaware Northern public. The novel helped spark the abolitionist movement, proving that truth-telling can shift public opinion and policy (Reynolds, 2011; Britannica, 2025).
We must ask: What will be our Uncle Tom’s Cabin moment? Will we wait for future exposés to reveal the suffering of immigrant detainees forced to work for $1/day? Or will we act now?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana
⚖️ Legal Accountability: The Nuremberg Precedent
The defense of “just following orders”—known as the Nuremberg Defense—was rejected by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) after World War II. Under Nuremberg Principle IV, following an unlawful order is not a valid defense against charges of war crimes:
“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” (IMT, 1945)
This principle was upheld in the Dostler case, where German General Anton Dostler was convicted and executed for ordering the unlawful execution of U.S. soldiers—even though he claimed he was following Hitler’s orders (Wikipedia, 2025; TJAGLCS, 2020).
In U.S. law, military personnel are duty-bound to disobey unlawful orders, and the Nuremberg rulings remain a guiding precedent. Corporate actors and government officials cannot hide behind bureaucratic chains of command when human rights are violated.
🏗️ Expansion of Detention Infrastructure
Federal programs continue to expand detention facilities:
- FEMA allocated $608 million to help states build new immigrant detention centers (Reuters, 2025).
- The U.S. Army contracted Acquisition Logistics LLC to build a 5,000-bed ICE detention camp at Fort Bliss, Texas (USA Today, 2025).
- These facilities are designed for mass internment and rapid deportation, often bypassing traditional legal protections (Human Rights Watch, 2025).
Experts warn of a looming shift toward renting detainees to private industry, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing (Sentient Media, 2025).
🧭 A New System for a New Era
As Buckminster Fuller once said:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” (Fuller, as cited in Vance & Deacon, 1995)
My platform for governor is that new model. It rejects the old, brutal playbooks of exploitation and secrecy. It offers Iowans a vision rooted in dignity, transparency, and opportunity. We are not here to patch up broken systems—we are here to replace them with something better.
Iowans have a choice right now: to continue down a path of plausible deniability and corporate abuse, or to build a future we’ll be proud to be remembered for.
📚 APA References
Blackmon, D. A. (2008). Slavery by another name: The re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Doubleday.
Booth, J. (2020). Ending forced labor in ICE detention centers: A new approach. Georgetown Immigration Law Journal.
Britannica. (2025). Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Funk, M. (2025, March 19). GEO Group is fighting to pay ICE detainees as little as $1 a day to work. ProPublica.
Hatton, E. (2025). Coercive labor in immigration detention. SUNY Buffalo Prison Labor Project.
Reyes, C. (2016, February 8). State-imposed forced labor: History of prison labor in the U.S. End Slavery Now.
Reuters. (2025, July 25). FEMA to send states $608 million to build migrant detention centers. NBC News.
Reynolds, D. S. (2011). Mightier than the sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the battle for America. W. W. Norton & Company.
Sentient Media. (2025, April 16). Could people in ICE detention centers be forced to work in slaughterhouses?
TJAGLCS. (2020). Training the defense of superior orders. The Army Lawyer.
USA Today. (2025, July 23). ICE, Army to build nation’s biggest immigrant jail.
USHMM. (2025). Experiences of forced labor in wartime Europe. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Vance, M., & Deacon, D. (1995). Think out of the box. Career Press.
Wikipedia. (2025). Superior orders.
Zwangsarbeit Archiv. (2025). Forced labor – Background.
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