making materials, and increased surveillance measures.
The Attorney General provided on October 21st a listing to the Vice President of white nationalist groups that should gain special status as they had made major contributions to the intense surveillance efforts of the last several years. The Vice President sent to Congress a proposal for selected civilian organizations to be allowed to operate with law enforcement and military during the Martial Law period. Congress passed the bill and the President enacted it into law on October 23rd.
On October 28th, President Powers, after consulting with Congressional Conservative leaders, instituted a far-reaching Martial Law order across the nation. It required that all American citizens would be issued a national identification card. It suspended concealed carry permits by civilians, and authorized the suspension of habeas corpus. Certain civilian groups (almost all of whom had suspected connections to white nationalist groups) were now authorized certain law enforcement powers to supplement police in identifying suspected criminals. ICE increased its efforts to identify and detain all illegal immigrants.
During October 2036, Powers, Mitchell, Schmidt, Edward, and several aides sat down to figure out what to do with all the illegal immigrants being detained by ICE. The estimate was now that they would eventually detain almost 26 million people. Detention centers in existence were overcrowded with the 5 million detainees with criminal or suspected terrorism backgrounds. Guantanamo Bay now housed 1,500 of the most dangerous illegal immigrants. The construction of more detention centers would add a capability to house another 13 million. The doubling of immigration court judges was now beginning to produce almost 5,000 deportation orders a month. However, most countries were now refusing to receive anyone, despite the American policy to cut off foreign and military aid. Powers challenged his advisors to find a solution.
THE ELECTION OF 2036 (NOVEMBER 2036)
Due to the institution of federal martial law, the Powers Administration announced on October 29th that the voters would have to show their new national identification cards in order to vote on November 5th. Federal troops opened up processing centers with state officials on Friday, and through Monday, issued about 75 million identification cards to American citizens. Media reports were prevalent about discriminating against anyone without a birth certificate without a raised seal and birth in the United States, requiring naturalized citizens to have certified papers from a federal judge with inconsistent reviews and standards used throughout the processing centers, local law enforcement checking for criminal records and warrants for any minorities, and other practices. Interesting, little effort was made by the Powers Administration to issue national identification cards to citizens after the election.
On November 5th, 65 million Americans voted, the fewest who had voted in a presidential election since 1956. An estimated 25 million others tried to vote, and were denied by not having a national identification card. Legal challenges were ignored by most state and federal courts on Election Day, and little was accomplished over the following months.
President Powers was re-elected with 52% of the popular vote and 282 votes in the Electoral College. In 26 states, the margin of victory was less than 2%. The Progressive challenger decided not to challenge the election results. There was a massive election night party at the Powers campaign headquarters in Boston.
In November 2036, the Secretary of State engaged in secret negotiations with the Argentine Republic about the possible re-location of American illegal immigrants. The Argentines agreed for a payment of $75 billion, and with part of the money they would build infrastructure to host the estimated 10-12 million immigrants without criminal backgrounds in La Pampa province. The President agreed to this deal, though he reduced the payment down to $50 billion by offering to have the TAP Infrastructure Corporation build the facilities for free to the Argentines - few knew that a special appropriation authorized by Congress would pay his company for their work about $88 billion. The first “town” was completed three weeks later (mostly a tent city) and flights began between the United States and Santa Rosa on November 29th, with the United States Air Force flying ten flights of C-17s each week (about 1,000 passengers a week). A fleet of twenty older 747s were contracted by the TAP Infrastructure Corporation to expand the exodus to 11,000 per week. The Department of State then entered into negotiations with Indonesia and several African countries on the potential deportation of other minorities.
The post-election question now moved to what to do with the 4.7 million illegal immigrants with criminal or terrorist backgrounds. The solution chosen by unknown parties came from a New Mexican lab under contract with the CIA to develop a deadly communicative virus (codename Mortifero) with a known vaccine to protect security and administrative personnel at detention centers. A review of presidential papers reveal no documentation of any discussions in the White House or who made the decision to exterminate this population, we only know about the general events by the testimony of several detention center commanders at their war crime trials.
THE SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE (DECEMBER 2036 - JANUARY 2037)
On December 7, 2036, the Mexican Army attacked portions of the Powers Border Wall, mainly along the border with Arizona and New Mexico. There were 105 sections demolished, with gaps between 50 to 200 yards in the wall. 232 Border Patrol and military personnel were killed, and about 1,200 injured.
President Powers immediately ordered a counter- attack into Mexico, to clear out a zone of at least ten miles south from the border. The California National Guard was federalized and entered Mexico on December 8th, with five active duty Army brigades attacking across the Arizona and New Mexico borders the next two days. Six active duty Army brigades plus the federalized Texas and Oklahoma National Guards crossed bridges over the Rio Grande River at about a dozen places on the Texas border. A Marine Expeditionary Unit secured the rear for the California troops in the city of Tijuana. These forces pushed out into an exclusion zone that was from ten to twenty-five miles south of the United States – Mexican border, with all Mexican forces defeated or captured by December 28th.
At this point, President Powers announced that he was establishing the Southern Demilitarized Zone inside Mexico to protect the United States. He ordered out all American civilian citizens back into the United States, and the expulsion of all other people by January 15th. American forces and contractors began to remove people and personal belongings to outside the southern border of the SDMZ, an estimated 12.6 million Mexican citizens. This ended up taking until February 15th to complete.
Afterwards, the American military demolished all buildings in the zone except for those useful for observations and control, dug ditches, installed mines, barbed wire, and other barriers, put up warning signs, and other measures inside the zone. They also detonated seven nuclear weapons to irradiate areas that were deemed susceptible to illegal entry. The Powers Border Wall was rebuilt. Still, almost 15,000 military personnel were committed to securing the zone for the next two years. Most countries condemned these actions by the United States, and the American Ambassador vetoed five separate Security Council resolutions in the United Nations over a six month period.
In late January 2037, the Mortifero vaccine was administered to all security guards and administrators at the detention centers. Selected detainees were injected with the Mortifero virus and released into the general populations at the detention centers holding only criminal illegal immigrants. Within ten days, 80% of the population was dead. After three weeks there were only 14,000 illegal immigrants who survived. The government announced on February 19th that an unknown illness had infected the detention centers with criminal illegal immigrants, and that it was establishing a quarantine to prevent its spread to the nearby civilian populations. The bodies of the dead were burned and then buried in massive deep pits in the Southern Demilitarized Zone. About three hundred civilians or military personnel were unintentionally infected with Mortifero, and their
bodies were burned and buried with the dead criminal immigrants.
At Guantanamo Bay, the detention center military commander discovered the plot to infect illegal immigrants. He ordered everyone at the base be given the Mortifero vaccine, and the virus irradiated and then burned. He was killed in the process, and the newly appointed commander ordered trials by military commissions. Over the next three months, all detainees were tried, convicted, and executed.
On January 19, 2037, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond were hit by a blizzard. Again, the inauguration of President Powers was disrupted, similar to what happened in 2033. This time, the President issued a delay to hold all events on January 27th. Powers was officially sworn-in on the 20th in the Oval Office. On the night of January 26th, Washington received six inches of snow, and inauguration activities were cancelled.
ADIOS UNITED NATIONS (FEBRUARY - MAY 2037)
During the November 2036 and April 2037 period, a secret administration study completed in June 2037 documented 46 separate terrorist bombings, killing 243 and wounding another 1,200, of which 84 individuals were