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.
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.
Anyone who want to be baited are worse than those who are unknowingly baited.
When the goal is to be upset then there is no reason to take action.
I mean. I dunno what to tell you.
The headline implied the turn signal is the problem and he’s an angel besides that. It might have started the police interaction but it is not the whole thing. Anyone scanning the headline is going to only get a half truth.
Still don’t think driving without a license is deport worthy, but it’s a much bigger violation and the real heart.
NGL it is a problem, because who tf gets pulled over for failure to signal? It’s just an excuse to pull someone over for DWB.
Basically anyone in rural Georgia. Those cops don’t have a lot to do. That’s why whenever you’re passing through a small town you have to drive perfectly or you will get pulled over.
These small towns keep people posted on either side of town just to write tickets for minor infractions
Where I’m from (still in US) just about anyone, no matter race, will get pulled over for it. Especially near schools or hospitals. Now, are they doing it to fulfill there supposedly non-existent ticket quota? That I’d believe.
Gotcha. Around here (also US) it’s just an excuse to pull over certain people. It’s used very selectively. TBH I wish they would enforce it equitably, there is a ton of people in this area that never use their turn signal
Bless you for reading.
Turns out most people are so used to intentionally misleading headlines that they’ll actively defend them based on the “well technically” truths.
Victim blaming dog whistle detected.
Correct, so him “not being an angel” is irrelevant
Nope. Not at all.
While a more serious offense than the turn signal thing, it’s still not punishable by deportation in a sane society and as such an equally invalid excuse for deporting anyone.
how did they initiate a stop?
I imagine it was by using their sirens.
God I wish they’d actually pull over people for not turn signaling instead of just as an excuse to deport a black person
He wouldn’t have been pulled over in the first place if he not failed to signal.
Can you imagine being pulled over every time you fail to signal? A lot of times people don’t signal when they’re in a turn-only lane because it’s obvious they’re going to turn, but technically that can be used as an excuse to pull them over.