The U.S. Government Needs 350,934 Copies of National Detainee Handbook by April 29, 2011.
April 20, 2011
On April 18, the U.S. Government Printing Office posted what appeared to be an emergency print job demand. It needs over 350,000 copies of the National Detainee Handbook. Within hours, the on-line posting was pulled.
One organization spotted this -- how, I do not know. The spotter did not act fast enough to save an original copy of the request order. Fortunately for us, Google cached the page. The outfit was able to get a PDF of it. It is posted here: http://cryptogon.com/?p=21864.
I used Snagit to capture a copy of the cached page. So, just in case it disappears from the first site, you can read it here. If you click the link, you will see some tiny thumbnail images. Click one. A full size image of the document will pop up.
The 2007 edition is on line. It's mostly on detainees' rights. It's conventional. The 2011 edition is no doubt innocuous. But why is the GPO in rush-to-press mode? To set up and print over 350,000+ copies of anything takes a lot of capital. Why is the GPO going to private industry? Maybe because it can't produce the booklet this fast.
Why did the ICE -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- wait until the last two weeks to get this item ordered?
I keep thinking "Cinco de Mayo."
The ICE wants most of the copies in Spanish.
Border control uses the latest technology to help capture illegal immigrants in the process of crossing, sometimes detain/prosecute, and send them back over the border. According to the US Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol Enforcement Integrated Database, apprehensions have increased from 955,310 in 2002 to 1,159,802 in 2004. "But fewer than 4 percent of apprehended migrants were actually detained and prosecuted for illegal entry, partly because it costs $90 a day to keep them in detention facilities and bed space is very limited. For the remainder of the apprehended migrants, if they are willing to sign a form attesting that they are voluntarily repatriating themselves, they are simply bussed to a gate on the border, where they re-enter Mexico."
When we deal with the U.S. government, we find out that most of what goes on does not make sense to outsiders. I wonder if it makes sense to insiders.