By Al InCognito/Counselor to the Weird

This picture was worth 1,000 words … or at least enough for an Al InCognito column:

Three kids — two boys and a girl, ages 9 to 12 — zip-tied outside a courthouse in San Antonio. Their wrists bound like they’d stole state secrets, not shown up for a legal hearing they didn’t understand. One had a backpack. One had no shoelaces. None had a lawyer.

And I thought: Summer camp.

Not real summer camp, of course. Not the kind with bug spray and canoes and that one weird counselor who always brought his guitar to lunch. No, this was the kind of “camp” designed by people who call January 6 a “Capitol tour” and believe waterboarding builds character.

The kind of folks who look at a zip-tied 12-year-old and think: Junior’s learning responsibility!

They probably hand out merit badges for “Failure to Appear” and “Looking Suspiciously Honduran.”

Welcome to Campa Gestapa™ — America’s hottest new summer program, where kids are encouraged to flee violence, then punished for surviving.

Imagine the camp brochure:

Camp Rules:

1. No Parents Allowed: Unless they’re being deported with you. Family separation is so 2018; now we do family detentions.
2. No Legal Representation: Lawyers are like sunscreen — unnecessary and frowned upon.
3. No Volleyball: Seriously, you might get arrested if you even go there; ask Marcelo Gomes.

Activities

• Arts & Crafts: Create your own I-94 bracelet using genuine zip ties. Just like the San Antonio kids — future felons, obviously.
• Storytime: Campers gather ‘round the fire as ICE agents read from the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.  Spoiler alert: Everyone gets deported in the end, no matter what the Supreme Court says.
• Medical Mystery Hour: Guess who’s the kid with cancer! Bonus points if you can identify the child deported without meds.
• Deportation Dodgeball: Where the balls are metaphors for due process, and you’re always out.
• Borderline Bingo: Match kids to countries they haven’t seen in years!
• MAGA Indoctrination Bonfire: Sing patriotic hymns while Counselor Cletus reads aloud from The Art of the Deal.

And everyone’s favorite…

Hide and Seek:

A camp classic! Except you’re always “it,” and ICE agents are the ones hiding — in plain clothes, outside immigration courts, ready to scoop you up post-hearing. Remember how we used to shout “Ollie ollie oxen free!” to say it was safe to come out?

Not here.

Here, it means: We already got your mom.

Fun linguistic fact: not surprisingly, some say the phrase comes from the German “alle, alle auch sind frei” — “all, all, also are free.”

Yeah. That tracks.

And I’m sure the camp songs are fun,

My favorite as a kid was a little ditty by the great Allan Sherman.

It’s still a hit, but the lyrics may have changed:

Campa Gestapa (To the tune of “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”)

Where’s my momma? Where’s my papa?
I’m all alone now at Camp Gestapa.

ICE told me I would get some recreation,
Instead they threatened me with early deportation.

Take me home, oh, Momma, Papa!

Take me home, I hate Gestapa!

Don’t leave me in the cages where

Kids vanish like we’re never there. 

Even the music has stopped being funny.

But all the unhappy campers at Gestapa can take comfort from the words of wisdom from Counselor Joni Ernst:

“Well, we’re all going to die.”

ChatGPT 4.0 contributed to the writing and editing of his column and the illustration.