As described in the general definition of "concentration camp" they are indeed concentration camps. And the phrase "never again" is also a warning against complacency to future generations. What would be grossly ignorant and dishonorable of history would be to overlook the fact that places of horror like Dachau and Auschwitz were the ultimate result of an ideological campaign of a steady incremental persecution and dehumanization of groups of people deemed inferior and labeled as being criminals, traitors, thieves, vermin, etc. over several years that eventually made it easier to make the jump from persecution to genocide. Like another poster pointed out in here, The holocaust didn't begin overnight. There were a series of smaller steps of escalation along the way.
First, closely read what I wrote. I stated that by SOME DEFINTIONS (MEANINGS) in some contexts you might refer to border detention facilities as a concentration camp. BUT there are "OTHER" definitions (meanings) and contexts using it is an absurd and disingenuous slander of the actual character of those border camps.
Absent the provision of your specific concentration camp definition, or explanation of how that is "the general definition" all you are providing is undefined terms as a soap box for bloviation.
Second, what we do know is that a word's "general meaning" is that meaning that most people attribute to a word. More specialized (academic and expert) meaning is that which those individuals attribute to a word in their work. Most people do not associate concentration camps with anything other than the holocaust, and they certainty don't associate it with the histography of the second Boar War. (its origins). Your unwillingness to acknowledge the common association with Nazi Germany is odd: "concentration camps are where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area... to provide forced labor or to await mass execution." They associate it
"with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1h933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.". (Bing Definition).
Perhaps you are unaware that Ms. AOC herself acknowledges that, as a defense, she was actually using "the academic requirement for what a concentration camp is.” In other words, intentionally let an audience believe she was using THEIR meaning, linking border camps with a Jewish motto regarding the death camps and the holocaust.
Third, your equally ignorant of history of the motto "never again". It's origins are debated BUT all sources agree that as a motto, its origins use are Jewish. It was the slogan of the JDL, founded in 1968. It was in the title of a book by JDL's founder who wrote
“We have seen,” referring to the Holocaust,"the mounds of corpses and visited the camps where they killed us. . . . By our sides were the ghosts of those who were no longer, whose blood was shed like water because Jewish blood is considered cheap. We saw their outstretched hands and looked into their burning and soul-searing eyes that peered into our very being and heard them say: Never again. Promise us. Never again." (Another possible source is Jewish-Swedish filmmaker's 1961 documentary Mein Kampf. The final words, over a general shot of Auschwitz, the narrator says simply, “It must never happen again—never again.”
Last, you're attacking a ghost. No one is overlooking "the fact that places of horror like Dachau and Auschwitz were the ultimate result of an ideological campaign to persecute a people" or deny that this persecution was fully intended to lead to genocide. Which, by the way, is the point: physical detention (jails, alien interment, refugee camps, etc.) doesn't cause Auschwitz's … ideology and absolute power does.
Therefore, as I said: "to use that term directed to a general audience, while also attempting to link border detention to the "never again" phrase for rejecting another holocaust (AOC). is grossly ignorant of (and dishonors) history. Border centers are NOT concentration camps as generally understood in common discourse. AOC knew that, but addressed a general audience using a loaded term with a Jewish holocaust motto..."
So I know it. She inadvertently admits to it. And long before now you should known it.
Period.
