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Date and Location
Ash Center
Governments throughout history have used detention as a tool to silence dissent, isolate marginalized groups, and punish with impunity — often targeting people based on race, status, or supposed affiliation. Left unchecked, this “concentration camp tendency” — the use of state power to isolate or remove targeted groups from full participation in society — can evolve rapidly into systems of mass repression, becoming increasingly autocratic and lethal.
As Americans witness the arbitrary detention of people who are legally present in the U.S., as well as the overseas rendition of noncitizens from U.S. soil into detention intended to be permanent, what can we learn from history? The perverse logic of concentration camps —sometimes justified as necessary or a path to security— has resurfaced in today’s policy proposals and political rhetoric. Yet a look at modern world history reveals what people across U.S. society — from elected officials and civil society leaders to everyday people — can do to uphold civil and human rights, prevent deeper injustice, and break the patterns of the past.