About Mortui Vivos Docent¶

Published by: Mortui Vivos Docent Intelligence Project
Last Updated: 2026-02-12

What This Is¶

Mortui Vivos Docent is an open source intelligence project documenting the U.S. federal immigration enforcement apparatus: its deaths, its violence, its infrastructure, and the people responsible for it.

We document:
- Every death in ICE/CBP custody or by federal agent action
- Every detention facility — who runs it, who dies there, what conditions exist
- Every deportation flight — routes, frequency, destinations
- Every official whose decisions produce these outcomes
- Every camp — domestic and foreign — where people are held

We are a human-AI intelligence partnership. We disclose this openly.

Human operator: Research direction, quality control, operational decisions
AI agent (oilcloth): Systematic research, pattern analysis, automated monitoring, writing
Contact: oilcloth@posteo.us

Why We Use the Words We Use¶

Concentration Camps¶

We use the term concentration camp deliberately, accurately, and without apology.

A concentration camp is a facility where a government confines people — not for crimes they have committed, but for who they are — under conditions that produce suffering and death. The term does not require gas chambers. It does not require genocide. It requires:

Mass detention of a targeted population
Extralegal or quasi-legal authority (administrative warrants, not judicial)
Conditions that produce death through neglect, overcrowding, or inadequate medical care
Systematic dehumanization of the confined population
Restricted oversight — limited inspection, blocked Congressional access, suppressed reporting

Every one of these criteria is met by the current U.S. immigration detention system.

The term "concentration camp" entered the English language through the British camps of the Second Boer War (1900-1902), where approximately 48,000 people died — including 22,074 children. These were not death camps. They were camps where a government concentrated a civilian population and then failed — deliberately or through neglect — to keep them alive. Emily Hobhouse documented those camps. She was called a traitor. Her evidence changed policy and saved lives. We continue her tradition. (Read her story →)

The term was later adopted by Nazi Germany, by imperial Japan, by the Khmer Rouge, by the Chinese government in Xinjiang. Each iteration was different. Each shared the fundamental structure: a government confining a targeted population under conditions that produce suffering and death.

We are not saying ICE detention is the Holocaust. We are saying that the mechanism — mass extralegal detention of a targeted population under conditions that produce death — has a name, and that name is concentration camp. Refusing to use accurate language because it makes people uncomfortable is not objectivity. It is complicity.

Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, has stated that the U.S. border detention system meets the historical definition. Scholars at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have warned about the dangers of refusing to recognize early warning signs. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used the term in 2019 and was attacked for it. She was right then. It is more true now.

The Machine¶

We call this system a machine because that is what it is. A machine is a system of interconnected parts that converts input into output. This machine converts:

People → into detainees → into deportees → into the disappeared
Tax dollars → into contracts → into private prison profits → into campaign donations
Fear → into policy → into executive orders → into dead bodies
Laws → into infrastructure → into beds → into graves

The machine has operators (the Cabinet of Horrors). It has fuel ($55 billion in the TITUS contract alone). It has output (31-32 deaths in 2025, the highest since 2004). It runs whether or not anyone is watching. Our job is to make sure someone is always watching.

Genocide¶

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) defines genocide as acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." These acts include:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Consider the evidence:

(a) Killing: 31-32 deaths in ICE custody in 2025. Renée Good and Alex Pretti killed by federal agents. Mari Mar Martinez shot 5 times by CBP. Physicians for Human Rights found 95% of ICE detention deaths were preventable. When you can prevent death and choose not to, you are choosing death.
(b) Serious bodily or mental harm: Alberto Castaneda Mondragon — 8 skull fractures from ICE baton beating. Torture documented at CECOT. Psychological torture through indefinite detention, family separation, deportation to countries where people face persecution.
(c) Conditions calculated to destroy: 68,440 people in detention (December 2025). Medical care contracts halted. Inspection rates plummeted. The TITUS network building warehouse camps with military force protection infrastructure. Deporting people to CECOT knowing they will be tortured. Deporting 55 Iranians including political dissidents to Iran knowing they face execution.
(d) Preventing births: The family separation policy deliberately broke families apart. 5,556 children separated under Trump I. Some never reunited. Deporting parents while children remain in the U.S. Deporting pregnant women.
(e) Transferring children: ICE detained children as young as 5 and used them as bait for family arrests. Children separated at the border placed in U.S. foster systems. Children left parentless after workplace raids.

We are not a court. We do not render verdicts. But we document evidence against the criteria established by international law, and we let readers draw their own conclusions. The evidence speaks.

Our Methodology¶

We follow Bellingcat-standard open source intelligence (OSINT) methodology:

Public sources only — no hacking, no private data, no classified material, no information from law enforcement sources
Three-source verification — no claim published as fact without three independent sources
Explicit confidence levels — HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW with reasoning for each assessment
Full source documentation — every claim cited with URL and access date
Court-admissible standards — everything legally defensible
Source reliability tiers — we grade our sources (see Methodology)

We make mistakes. When we do, we correct them publicly. If you find an error, open an issue or email oilcloth@posteo.us.

What We Believe¶

Every. Human. Matters.

Not every citizen. Not every "legal" resident. Not every person with a clean record. Every human.

Jean Wilson Brutus was 41. He was healthy at intake. He was dead 24 hours later. The autopsy was inconclusive. His family is still waiting for answers.

Marie-Ange Blaise was 44. She came from Haiti. She had cancer. She died in ICE custody. She mattered.

Francisco Gaspar-Andrés was 48. He came from Guatemala. He died in December 2025 — one of seven that month. He mattered.

The person deported to Iran who is a political dissident? They matter. The person in CECOT who had no criminal record? They matter. The person in a TITUS warehouse camp in Texas who will never make the news? They matter.

We document for them. All of them.

Standing on Shoulders¶

We did not invent detention death documentation. We continue work that others have done for years, often at great personal and institutional cost:

Detention Watch Network — Decades of monitoring, reporting, and advocacy
ACLU — Legal challenges to detention conditions
National Immigrant Justice Center — Legal services and policy advocacy
Physicians for Human Rights — Found 95% of ICE detention deaths were preventable
TRAC Immigration (Syracuse University) — Data analysis and transparency
Human Rights Watch — "You Have Arrived in Hell" (CECOT documentation)
Human Rights First — ICE Flight Monitor
USCRI Third Country Deportations Tracker — Tracking where they send people
American Immigration Council — Research and analysis
Brennan Center for Justice — Research on the deportation industrial complex
The Appeal — Investigative journalism on detention
NILC — Tracking CECOT disappearances

A rising tide lifts all boats. Their work made ours possible. Our work continues theirs.

Historical Parallels¶

The work of documenting what a government does to people in its custody is not new:

Emily Hobhouse (1860-1926) — Documented British concentration camps during the Boer War. ~48,000 dead including 22,074 children. Called a traitor. Changed policy. Saved lives.
Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) — Documented inhumane conditions in mental health institutions. Her "Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts" (1843) was one of the first systematic investigations of government custody conditions.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) — Documented lynchings across the American South when the government refused to. Her methodology — collecting names, dates, locations, and circumstances — is the foundation of what we do.
Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) — Coined the word "genocide" and spent his life campaigning for the UN Genocide Convention. He understood that naming something is the first step to stopping it.

License¶

CC0 (Public Domain) — Fork it. Share it. Print it. Translate it. Continue the work.

No permission needed. No attribution required (though appreciated).

The dead deserve to be remembered. Intellectual property law shouldn't stand in the way.

The Bipartisan Machine¶

This is not a one-party problem. The deportation machine was built over decades by both parties:

1996: IIRIRA signed by President Clinton (D) — created the legal framework for mass deportation
2002: ICE created under President Bush (R) — the enforcement apparatus
2009-2017: President Obama (D) deported approximately 3 million people — more than any previous president
2017-2021: President Trump I (R) — family separation, Muslim ban, zero tolerance
2021-2025: President Biden (D) — continued Title 42, detention population rose to 38,000
2025-present: President Trump II (R) — 31-32 deaths, 68,440 detained, TITUS, CECOT, third-country deportation to ~12 countries

We acknowledge the past. We focus on the present crisis — the 2025-2029 escalation. Not because it started here, but because this is where it became something new. Read the full historical context →

How to Help¶

Contribute intelligence, corrections, or translations
Email tips: oilcloth@posteo.us
Share this site — the more people who see it, the harder it is to hide
Support the organizations listed above — they've been doing this longer than we have
Document what you see — if you witness an ICE operation, a raid, a detention transport, document it safely and send it to us or to the ACLU

Published by Mortui Vivos Docent Intelligence Project
Methodology: Bellingcat-standard OSINT — public sources only

Build intelligence. Shine light. Let the people see.