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Modern Witchcraft Combines Self-Love, Feminism, Self-Help With A Dazzling Array Of Crystals And Spell Casting

Gala Darling looks every bit the Instagram-famous modern witch, with nearly 60,000 followers. Being a professional witch is her full-time job.

Published

8 years ago

July 4, 2017

Geoffrey Grider

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Modern witchcraft combines feminism, self-help, and wellness. But is there more to it than pretty crystals, stunning Instagram pictures, and lucrative business opportunities?

“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the past year, I have noticed on my Instagram feed a seeming explosion in women posting pictures promoting topics like “self love”, “wellness”, “be good to yourself”, “praying to the Universe” and “boss babe”. Harmless fun, right? Just motivating women to succeed, right? Wrong. Every one of those things I just mentioned are part and parcel of modern-day witchcraft practiced by modern-day witches. You’ve been pulled into witchcraft and don’t even know it. Or maybe you do.

Gala Darling reveals that her “spiritual awakening” was like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up, miraculously transported from the sepia world of rural Kansas to the technicolor land of Oz.

Darling is standing beside her altar—a round, pink table laid with energy-charged crystals and magic candles—at The Wing, an all-women social club in Manhattan where 60 members and guests have signed up for her “Radical Self-Love Workshop.”

Gala Darling says how witchcraft changed her life:

Think twice the next time you use the #bossbabe hashtag, it comes from the witchcraft world. And in particular, it comes from Gala Darling, resident witch and spell caster.

A 33-year-old writer and self-help guru, she explains how her years-long fog of depression lifted when she discovered “tapping,” an ancient Eastern healing technique that she describes as “a combination of acupuncture and cosmic psychology.”

The audience is rapt because Darling isn’t just a self-help guru but a stylish, sassy witch who swears often and radiates cool-girl vibes. She used to be “really goth and cynical” and thought tapping was “bull****”—until, she says, it worked. Now she casts spells on Donald Trump.

Darling is tall and striking, with alabaster skin and kohl-rimmed green eyes. She wears a rainbow sherbet-colored maxi skirt, a grey tee knotted above her navel, and a silver pentagon ring. Her black hair is dip-dyed a raspberry, purpley pink shade that almost matches her lipstick. All of this makes for a punk rock-meets-My Little Pony aesthetic, complete with bicep sleeve tattoos and glittering fingernails.

Gala Darling looks every bit the Instagram-famous modern witch, with nearly 60,000 followers. Being a professional witch and self-love priestess is her full-time job. (She declined to say how much she earns through her practice.)

At a time when millennial women are embracing wellness fads and are bent on toppling the patriarchy, the contemporary witch is their enlightened, rebellious role model.

She has seen a resurgence in pop culture over the last few years, from the campy and wildly popular 2013 TV series American Horror Story: Coven to Robert Eggers’ 2015 film The Witch. Gwyneth Paltrow’s website Goop sells tools for female-oriented practical magic like jade and rose quartz “yoni” eggs that purport to do more than just exercise your kegels.

Celebrities like Katy Perry, Victoria Beckham, Cara Delevingne, and Lena Dunham are hooked on crystals’ alleged healing powers and positive vibes (it doesn’t hurt that they’re also pretty). Adele chalked up her lackluster Grammy’s performance last year to misplacing hers.

The ’90s were another heyday of witchiness—of the benign, Hollywood variety—that saw films like Hocus Pocus and The Craft become cult classics, Charmed become a TV smash, while J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone and Gregory Maguire’s Wicked were instant bestsellers (Rowling’s Potter books went on to become the second-highest-grossing film franchise of all time, and a musical adaptation of Wicked was named one of Broadway’s top-grossing shows ever last year).

Today’s witchy sweet spot lies somewhere between the mind-body wellness movement and intersectional feminism. Embracing all things witchy and “magical”—believing that visualization rituals can help you manifest your dreams; that tarot cards can tell you something about your life which your logical brain might otherwise ignore; that wearing a crystal pendant necklace will protect you from negative energy—has become a way for women to feel empowered and trust their instincts.

The Wing is an appropriate setting for a witchy workshop on self-love and empowerment. The club describes itself as a “coven not a sorority,” and many of its 650 members—a politically progressive group of women, most of them in their twenties and thirties—work in creative industries.

Darling kicks off the “Radical Self-Love Workshop” with an exercise in “connecting to our intuitive selves” that requires dabbing her coveted “gratitude oil” on our wrists (“it has tiny crystals inside and smells am-a-zing”) and telling each other what we’re thankful for.

Next she hands out “Witchling Oracle Cards”—a whimsical take on tarot cards—and encourages us to decipher some personal message from cutesie illustrations of Witchlings like “Dreams” and “Abundance.”

Later, we write down what “spirituality” means to us (I’m tempted by Darling’s reassurance that “it’s OK to draw three big question marks!”).

We whip up “happiness recipes,” or lists of feel-good rituals that fall under “mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual” categories. “I’d like everyone to write ‘orgasm’ under the physical category, because sex magic is the best magic,” Darling says to whoops and cheers.

We also make note of things we want to “leave behind,” in the metaphysical sense, post-Summer Solstice—which, per Darling’s instructions, we must “ceremoniously burn” when we get home.

Finally, we break off in groups to create “wishing circles,” an exhausting exercise that involves blowing a wish into your hands, vigorously rubbing them together for several agonizing minutes (the witch’s equivalent of Tracy Anderson’s arm workout), then joining scalding palms with your circle neighbors and, per Darling, blowing your wish “up to the sky like a little baby birdie.”

Admittedly, I expected something called a “Radical Self-Love Workshop” to be ripe for parody: a hipster witch rhapsodizing about the healing powers of crystals to a group of spellbound, modern-day Stevie Nicks impersonators. But Darling’s tactics for cultivating self-love are relatively practical, as these things go, and dispensed with casual humor. (On reliable ways to achieve an orgasm: “While you’re working up to that moment—you know, the moment—visualize yourself beaming it out into the universe because that stuff works! Try it this week and then tag me on Instagram. Don’t make me a video, but tell me what happened because I want to know.”)

She’s not excessively moony or self-serious about the spiritual stuff (“I define spirituality as whatever makes me feel alive, thankful, and connected”). And the witchcraft-lite she weaves into her teachings—feminine power, sexuality, creative enrichment, astrology—is broadly appealing to many young women.

The Babe Collective movement is firmly rooted in witchcraft

My introduction to the occult scene in New York City was in 2015, when I attended a “goddess circle for curating extraordinary confidence” organized by three women in Brooklyn who called themselves the BABE Collective; “BABE” being an acronym for “Badass Beauties Elevating Society.”

It was a workshoppy event similar to Darling’s at The Wing: a description advertised “bringing a heightened awareness to what being confident means in the spiritual, practical and personal sense.”

It was part coven and part 12-step program: Roughly a dozen women gathered in a teepee in Williamsburg and meditated while eating expensive, organic dark chocolate—an “offering to ourselves” and an exercise in “taking time to savor something.” We prayed to Kali, the Hindu goddess who is worshipped as the Mother of the Universe.

“I haven’t focused exclusively on creating a community of witches, though that’s kind of happened indirectly,” said Robin Lee, 28, who has grown the BABE Collective into a global community with $47-a-month membership rates. “Tons of women from all over the world are just awake and curious about understanding themselves on a deeper level. When you get down to the route of witchcraft, magic, alchemy—all these things are about the Wild Feminine and using your own energy and power to change your consciousness at will.”

In a moment when feminism has escaped the academy and captivated the popular imagination, it’s fitting that the witch—a radical and dangerous figure who can’t be controlled by stuffy and uptight men—has been recast as a symbol of resistance.

“The timing makes perfect sense: Spiritual hunger, environmental concerns, and gender politics all combine here,” Stacy Schiff, author of The Witches: Salem, 1692, told The Daily Beast of the witch’s trendy resurgence. “Plus witches are subversive, something which our political times demand. We’ve little vocabulary for female power, or at least few words of which we can be proud. It’s all the more enticing to reclaim imagery and nomenclature that has been used against you for hundreds of years.”

The witch’s taboo appeal is a double-edged sword, and Schiff suggested it could be more empowering for women to identify with real women, or at least a mythological figure who didn’t have such a fraught history.

“In a perfect world it would be lovely if women could reach to more nonfictional role models, as boys are able to. If we’re in the world of myth, why witches rather than Athena? I suppose she’s part of the establishment, and she doesn’t come down to us with a long list of martyred forebears. Plus, we know that Athena is wholly mythical. It seems at least some men are still concerned there might be sorcerers among us.”

Indeed, the witch remains a threatening figure, particularly to the Alex Jones’ and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world. Days before the 2016 election, Jones ran a story on his alt-right website, Infowars, claiming Hillary Clinton “‘regularly’ attended witch’s church,” and citing a “Clinton insider” as his source. After the first presidential debate, Limbaugh called Clinton a “witch with a capital B.”

Right-wingers wielded rhetorical pitchforks at rapper Azealia Banks when she came out of the broom closet in January 2015 (“The truth is I’m a witch”) in one of her infamous Twitter rants.

“The most magical people are the ones who have to deal with oppression, because the non-magical are jealous,” Banks wrote. “That’s why Jews and Blacks have been persecuted over and over again throughout history… all I’m trying to say is that black people are naturally born SEERS, DIVINERS, WITCHES AND WIZARDS.”

Witches band together to cast a binding spell on President Trump

Last February, Lana Del Ray took to Twitter to promote dates for a series of online “binding spells” to prevent President Trump and his administration from doing harm. Gala Darling was among the self-identifying witches who orchestrated an anti-Trump binding spell on Facebook live, though hers wished harm on the president.

“120,000 people from around the world signed on with pictures of Trump and wrapped them in string while I said an incantation,” she told me, speaking on the phone the day after the workshop. Most of the online participants were women between the ages of 25 and 34, according to Darling (geographically, California, Texas, England, and New York saw the highest volume of participants).

The hex wasn’t as harmful as participants hoped. Indeed, casting spells can seem hokey and ineffective—even to other patriarchy-defying witches.

“People always assume I do that stuff, but I just help women who want to have their witch awakening, which is just an awakening to their feminine energy and the cause of healing Mother Earth,” said Sarah Wilson, 37, who lives in Martha’s Vineyard and organizes online covens.

But for others, channeling their feminine energy in massive online spells offers a sense of community.

“There was some pushback on Facebook from people saying things like, ‘The most effective thing you can do is vote,’” Darling said of her Trump binding spell. “But why not do both? I believe in marrying the physical and the metaphysical. Obviously the spell didn’t work in the sense that he’s still alive. But have you looked at his life right now?” source

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Turning Point USA Reveals ‘Counter-Reformation Agenda’ With Plans To Infiltrate The Christian Church To Bring In A Roman Catholic Nationalism Hybrid

Published

2 days ago

December 26, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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Wake up, pastors, Turning Point USA is now a recruitment arm of the Roman Catholic Church, and they’re coming looking for sheep, your sheep

First and foremost, this article is aimed at pastors of Bible believing churches all across America, with an urgent message you would do well to heed. Do not allow Turning Point USA entrance into your churches, for any reason at any time. Three and a half months after the death of Charlie Kirk, TPUSA has completely flipped itself around to act as the recruiting arm of the Roman Catholic Church. They are looking for sheep, don’t let them take yours.

“Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.” Acts 20:30,31 (KJB)

I never spent much time watching Charlie Kirk when he visited various college campuses, but tuning in from time to time, I noticed two things. One, he was a fiery Christian Nationalist and a ‘true believer’ in the 7 Mountains Mandate of the New Apostolic Reformation. Second, when he spoke about salvation in Jesus Christ, for the most part I agreed with what he said and I believe he was a saved man. But while he lived, Charlie had many, many people pulling him in a variety of different directions, all subtly angling for a ‘piece of the pie’ that is the $100+ million empire known as Turning Point USA. Not only is it fabulously wealthy, TPUSA holds tremendous sway and influence in the most coveted 18-35 age demographic. Anyone who could wrest control of TPUSA out of Charlies hands would have incredible riches and powers of persuasion in the palm of their hands. I believe that someone killed Charlie for that exact reason, and no, I am not talking about Tyler James Robinson. But that’s a story, and most likely a Podcast, for another day.

So now Charlie Kirk is dead, and the jackals are fighting each other to the death for his empire, and what we see bubbling up in the aftermath is not only disturbing, it is terrifying. After watching the Memorial Service that was held back in September, and AmFest that was held last week, one thing stands out above all the noise. TPUSA has gone from being a nominal Christian organization to a loud, out and proud Roman Catholic one. If there was any doubt in your mind, it’s taken away each and every time TPUSA executive Jack Posobiec raises the Rosary over ten of thousands of their followers, and claims them for the Vatican. If you ever read Foxes Book of Martyrs or the Alberto comic book series, then you know exactly what that all means.

Watch Jack Posobiec claim followers for Rome

Flashing lights designed to distract your attention, piercing shards of sound sent to deaden your hearing, and above it all the Roman Catholic Rosary lifted up high, an unspoken command for all to bow to Rome. If you have any spiritual discernment, this is what you see.

Catholics who “pray the Rosary” are practicing occultism from ancient Babylon. Not one person in the Bible prayed the Rosary, not one person prayed to Mary. What you are seeing in this video is the Revived Roman Empire, the iron mixed with miry clay from Daniel 2. pic.twitter.com/D56CLPBbxw

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) December 25, 2025

Erika Kirk remarked multiple times during AmFest 2025 that TPUSA is now embedded in over 8,000 American churches, churches that have agreed to bring the TPUSA brand of “Christianity” into their congregations, something that I am telling you here and now is fervent Roman Catholicism. Fox News reports “We have 8,000 churches in our network at TPUSA Faith. We’ve seen almost 1,000% growth across all social media platforms. And get this. We’ve had over 200,000 people sign up to become a part of TPUSA Faith.” What is TPUSA Faith? It’s the Roman Catholic Church wearing Laodicean Christian clothing. Pastors, listen to me now, bar the doors and don’t let them in. If they’re already there, kick them out.

EVERY PIN ON THIS MAP REPRESENTS A CHURCH WHERE TURNING POINT USA FAITH HAS BEEN EMBEDDED, IS YOUR CHURCH LISTED HERE?

Are there saved Christians in the Roman Catholic Church? I am quite sure there are. But Roman Catholicism is not Christian, does not teach Bible doctrine, and the vast majority of “good Catholics” die and go to Hell because they die unsaved. I was a born into the Roman Catholic church, baptized as a baby, confirmed in the 5th grade, made an altar boy for 3 years, and then spent 4 years under heavy Franciscan and Jesuit indoctrination before getting saved on my 30th birthday. This is not an “anti-Catholic” article, this is a warning to pastors all across America to reject the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing that is, now, Turning Point USA. Wake up, the wolf is at the door and he’s taking your sheep.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

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“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

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If You’ve Ever Wondered Why So Many Laodicean Churches Have The Same Holiday-Themed Messages It’s Because They’re Buying Prepackaged Sermons

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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There’s a reason why all the mega churches at Christmas time all seem to have the same messages, they’re buying prepackaged Laodicean ‘sermon kits’ from apostates

Have you ever wondered why so many of the ‘big churches’ all kind of look the same, the pastors all kind of dress the same, and their sermon series absolutely all look and sound the same? What if I told you that these Laodicean pulpit pretenders, far from being Bible preachers, are buying their sermons, outlines, stage decorations and everything else they need in prepackaged kits made available from people like Andy Stanley, Craig Rochelle, Rick Warren and a few others.

“For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” Acts 20:29 (KJB)

Whenever I go on YouTube, I see videos of church after church offering what looks like the exact same sermon series entitled ‘Christmas At The Movies’, where in a desperate attempt to stay relevant, they preach messages on Hollywood movies where they attempt to pull the gospel out of films like ‘Diehard’, ‘Elf’, and many others. These churches put on a lavish spectacle that draws them in by the hundreds of thousands, entertaining them with the world followed by a lukewarm ‘gospel invitation’ at the end. This is not a church service, this is worldly entertainment, and the worst part, it’s not even original, the pastors are purchasing premade sermon kits. So why do I write this on Christmas Eve? For a few reasons.

1). It trains people to want entertainment instead of sound doctrine

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Timothy 4:2-4 (KJB)

Paul says that in the last days before the Rapture of the Church, Bible preaching and doctrine would be missing from the pulpits, and that people would want to have their ears tickled instead. These Laodicean fake preachers are only too happy to step and fill the void with garish end times spectacles that look like the world and sound like the world.

2). It breeds shallow and selective teaching instead of giving you the whole counsel of God

“For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” Acts 20:27-30 (KJB)

While it makes for an occasionally interesting illustration, attempting to ‘find the gospel’ in the movies and in secular culture, it brings in not only Hollywood but with it a relative and humanist perspective creating something that is weak, deceptive and ultimately not the gospel once delivered to the saints. For example, there may be some unintentional gospel references in a movie like ‘Diehard’, which then leads people to go and watch ‘Diehard’, where they will be exposed to filthy language, a variety of sins and bad behavior, with the Name of the Lord constantly taken in vain.

3). It commercializes the pulpit

“And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” 2 Peter 2:3 (KJB)

Prepackaged series are usually a product—graphics kits, scripts, small-group material, merch, and licensing which turns the church into a brand. It crosses the line from ministry to marketing. If people applaud when the pastor comes out, that’s not preaching that’s a production.

In conclusion, think about the following. If you attend one of these churches, are you satisfied knowing that everything coming out of the preacher’s mouth he got, not from personal study time in his Bible, but from a marketing company? People who do that are not preachers in the biblical sense, they are actors following a script that they purchased with money to get a desired reaction from you. This is not finding the gospel in Hollywood, this is giving you Hollywood instead of the gospel.

Find yourself a small, old-fashioned church that believes the King James Bible, sings the old hymns of Zion from a handheld paper hymnal, and the pastor preaches doctrinal truth from a wooden pulpit. The Church was never meant to be the place for pizza parties and movie nights, it was never meant to provide programs to keep your kids busy. The Church was created by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, to preach and teach the words of God as He has preserved them, for the salvation of lost souls and the building up of the body of Christ. Find yourself a church like that.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

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ICE Documents Reveal Plans For Constructing ‘Human Warehouses’ In Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri To Hold Illegal Immigrants

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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The Trump administration is seeking contractors to help it overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system in a plan that includes renovating industrial warehouses to hold more than 80,000 immigrant detainees at a time

Question: if you wanted to construct concentration camps all across America, but didn’t want people to think you were building such camps, how could you do it openly and publicly without arousing undue suspicion? You would say that these camps were being built to hold illegal immigrants that were being deported, and the crowd goes wild. But after you’ve deported a finite number of people, what would then become with the camps you spent billions of dollars to build? You would have to use them for something. Hmm, let me think for a minute, don’t tell me, I’ll get it.

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJB)

Don’t get me wrong, like most of you, I am absolutely in favor of removing anyone and everyone who entered into our sovereign nation illegally, as long as it’s done as humanely as possible. That said, just about any student of 20th century history knows that when Adolf Hitler began using old military bases to house political dissidents, and that light bulb went off over his head, he knew right away he was onto something that could be easily sold to a gullible public. How about it, America, feeling gullible? If so, please applaud President Trump and his soon-coming ~~concentration camps~~ immigrant warehouses.

“First they came for the Communists, And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me.”

ANOTHER EXPLOSIVE NEW KING JAMES BIBLE STUDY FROM END TIMES AUTHOR AND BIBLE TEACHER JEFFREY MARDIS, CLICK TO ORDER!!

ICE documents reveal plan to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: Rather than shuttling detainees around the country to wherever detention space is available, as happens now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aims to speed up deportations by establishing a deliberate feeder system, the document says. Newly arrested detainees would be booked into processing sites for a few weeks before being funneled into one of seven large-scale warehouses holding 5,000 to 10,000 people each, where they would be staged for deportation.

The large warehouses would be located close to major logistics hubs in Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Arizona, Georgia and Missouri. Sixteen smaller warehouses would hold up to 1,500 people each.

The draft solicitation is not final and is subject to changes. ICE plans to share it with private detention companies this week to gauge interest and refine the plan, according to an internal email reviewed by The Post. A formal request for bids could follow soon after that.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said she “cannot confirm” The Post’s reporting and declined to answer questions about the warehouse plan.

NBC and Bloomberg News previously reported on ICE’s internal discussions about using warehouses as detention centers. The full scope of the project, the locations of the facilities and other details contained in the solicitation have not been previously disclosed or reported.

The warehouse plan would be the next step in President Donald Trump’s campaign to detain and deport millions of immigrants, which began with a scramble to expand the nation’s immigrant detention system, the largest in the world. Armed with $45 billion Congress set aside for locking up immigrants, his administration this year revived dormant prisons, repurposed sections of military bases and partnered with Republican governors to build immigrant tent encampments in remote regions.

The administration has deported more than 579,000 people this year, border czar Tom Homan said earlier this month on the social media platform X. The new facilities will “maximize efficiency, minimize costs, shorten processing times, limit lengths of stay, accelerate the removal process and promote the safety, dignity and respect for all in ICE custody,” the solicitation said.

“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” ICE acting director Todd M. Lyons said at a border security conference in April, according to the Arizona Mirror. The administration’s goal, he said, was to deport immigrants as efficiently as Amazon moves packages: “Like Prime, but with human beings.” READ MORE