arrests designed to inspire terror

* my post about Larisa's cousin being held incommunicado and facing deportation caused a bit of a storm, partly because I was imprecise (because I didn't know the facts) when I wrote:

'Another 900 people' in some indeterminate part of Florida (perhaps the State?) have been given their deportation notices in the last little while

That paragraph now reads:

'Another 900 people' in Broward county alone have been given their deportation notices since Sept 1.'

everyone happy now? sheesh. That's 900 people, in 3 weeks, in one county.

In other news, this from an interview in Harpers:

Soviet arrests were designed to inspire terror. Some people were taken off the street. Others were surprised in their beds in late night roundups. In Soviet prisons, detainees were stripped, searched, and led into special rooms where they were told to face the wall and assume stress positions. Most people were rounded up with no real evidence and without prior investigation. Interrogators withheld food, water, medical assistance, communication with relatives, and sleep until detainees agreed to talk.

Update: This from the Miami Herald:

"An increase in detentions of foreign nationals by immigration officers in Florida has led to a surge in the detainee population at the already crowded Krome facility in West Miami-Dade.

Stepped up enforcement by immigration officers has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of detainees at the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade where the population may now exceed 1,000 -- almost double its publicly stated capacity.

[]

Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an e-mail that a recent increase in enforcement operations was largely responsible for the detainee ''surge'' at the site. ``This is the result of local immigration enforcement activity within the Miami Field Office.''."