Advocates Warn of 'Forced Labor' Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order

[cbabe]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/utah-homeless-internment-camp

Advocates Warn of ‘Forced Labor’ Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order

An advocate for the National Homelessness Law Center warned that the 1,300-bed facility could be a “pilot” to put homeless people into similar conditions to Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.”

STEPHEN PRAGER
Oct 28, 2025

In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.

Last month, Utah’s homeless services agencies came to an agreement for the state to acquire a nearly 16-acre parcel of rural land in the Northpoint area of northwest Salt Lake City to construct the first-of-its-kind facility, which is slated to have 1,300 beds.

…

Tars said that at the Utah facility, “even though theoretically you could come and go, they’re going to be actively enforcing anti-camping, anti-loitering, all these other laws... if you step foot off the campus,” which he noted is over seven miles away from downtown Salt Lake City and “in the middle of nowhere,” with “no public transportation.”

… more … locked units … forced labor … involuntary commitment with no legal recourse or rights …

[Yonnie3]

1. arbeit macht frei (work will set you free )

Where have I heard that before?

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei

Use by the Nazis

In 1933, the first communist prisoners were being rounded up for an indefinite period without charges. They were held in a number of places in Germany. The slogan Arbeit macht frei was first used over the gate of the Oranienburg concentration camp,[8] which was set up in an abandoned brewery in March 1933 (it was later rebuilt in 1936 as Sachsenhausen).[9]

The slogan's use was part of the 1937–1938 reconstruction by Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Theodor Eicke at Dachau concentration camp.[10] From Dachau, it was copied by the Nazi officer Rudolf Höss, who had previously worked there. Höss was appointed to create the original camp at Auschwitz, which became known as Auschwitz (or Camp) 1 and whose intended purpose was to incarcerate Polish political detainees.[11][12]

[Grins]

2. I remember when the Reich-wing lost their collective shit over "FEMA Camps..."

And now… (crickets….)

[orangecrush]

3. Back to the workhouses

After 1835 many workhouses were constructed with the central buildings surrounded by work and exercise yards enclosed behind brick walls, so-called "pauper bastilles". The commission proposed that all new workhouses should allow for the segregation of paupers into at least four distinct groups, each to be housed separately: the aged and impotent, children, able-bodied males, and able-bodied females.[30] A common layout resembled Jeremy Bentham's prison panopticon, a radial design with four three-storey buildings at its centre set within a rectangular courtyard, the perimeter of which was defined by a three-storey entrance block and single-storey outbuildings, all enclosed by a wall. That basic layout, one of two designed by the architect Sampson Kempthorne (his other design was octagonal with a segmented interior, sometimes known as the Kempthorne star[31]), allowed for four separate work and exercise yards, one for each class of inmate.[32] Separating the inmates was intended to serve three purposes: to direct treatment to those who most needed it; to deter others from pauperism; and as a physical barrier against illness, physical and mental.[33] The commissioners argued that buildings based on Kempthorne's plans would be symbolic of the recent changes to the provision of poor relief; one assistant commissioner expressed the view that they would be something "the pauper would feel it was utterly impossible to contend against", and "give confidence to the Poor Law Guardians"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse



Same shit, different assholes.

[comradebillyboy]

4. Is Common Dreams a reliable source of information?

Based on reading other items sourced from them I am really skeptical.

[cbabe]

5. Search common dreams bias or reliability. Lots of sites.

Example:

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/common-dreams/

[comradebillyboy]

6. Thanks.