First They Came for the Immigrants: Why We Can’t Just Look Away From Today's Detention Crisis
I was sixteen years old, hair frizzing in the crispness of fall temperatures I'd never known before, when I first glanced at Manhattan's silver spires from a plane window. It was a far cry from my Caribbean island, where the tallest things were palm trees and my crazy uncle Luis’ tales of his adventures in “The Big Apple”. Oh, how ready I thought I was to make my American Dream come true! Little did I know I was one of the lucky ones, armed as I was with legal papers, my mom's watchful eye, and the kind of guileless optimism only a teenage girl can muster.
See, no one ever tells you how cumbersome life can get before you finally nail code-switching, or how even the warmest coat can't thaw the frost of living in perennial “otherness.” While time has taught me to wear both worlds like body armor, I’ve never forgotten how many end up in detention centers for the crime of dreaming the same dreams as me. As I watch our current immigration crisis unfold, I’m reminded that today’s “other” is just the latest iteration of a long-rooted, racist American tradition.
They won’t teach you this in most schools, but did you know that before the N*zi regime architects enacted their horrifying policies, they found inspiration in none other than our very own institutionalized hatred? They studied our Jim Crow laws with delight and admiration, borrowed concepts from our “repatriation” campaigns and mass detention camps, and praised our leadership in eugenics. Like eager students of oppression, they took America’s blueprint and ran with it, eventually pushing it to unimaginable extremes. As Mark Twain famously said, “history doesn't repeat itself… but it does rhyme.”
Today, the song may have a different beat, but the melody is hauntingly familiar. We’re witnessing the same calculated categorization of humans into "desirable" and "undesirable" being wrapped in hastily-drawn executive orders, crisp official memoranda, and shiny red tape. The country’s detention industrial system is run by private contractors who build facilities overnight, multiply their profits in half that time, and are set to cash it in during the current administration. Who knew human captivity could be so profitable? For the captives, though, the story is not as rosy: abused detainees, overcrowded facilities, understaffed medical units, and overworked lawyers trying to reach clients held hundreds of miles from civilization. Each statistic a human being, each data point a dream deferred. Each suspiciously missing from the mainstream conversation.
Equally missing — though easy to spot to those paying attention — is this administration’s mad dash towards totalitarianism. Yes, friends, yesterday’s student has become the teacher. Not surprisingly, the current White House occupant’s dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, expansion of enforcement powers, attempts at overriding the constitution, and systematic dismantling of legal protections would make any banana republic dictator blush.
I mean, this administration is even looking to legalize the wholesale slaughter (!) of undocumented people without due process. Don’t believe me? Go read the Attorney General’s memo, especially the footnotes. If only I was exaggerating! Every one of these insane measures sound like they’ve been pulled from the dystopian novel of our nightmares. Except this isn't fiction - this is policy they’re hell bent on implementing.
The bittersweet paradox is, while the regime and its loyalists play out their autocratic wet dreams, immigrants are quite literally the ones who keep this country's gears turning. Who scales the cranes to build the skyscrapers I once gawked at through airplane windows? Who harvests our food in fields under the unforgiving sun? Who cares for our children and elderly for wages most consider to be beneath them? Who was fighting the recent California's wildfires, some while wearing ICE ankle monitors? You guessed it: America’s immigrants.
Immigrants generate hundreds of billions in tax revenue while being denied the most basic rights those taxes supposedly guarantee. In fact, according to the American Immigration Council, households led by undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $75.6 BILLION in state and local taxes in 2022 alone. In Social Security, they contribute over $20 billion annually — funds they'll never be allowed to access. How dare anyone call these hardworking people “a drain on the system”?
Yet this vital segment of our workforce is forced to live in constant fear. A routine traffic stop may end with children returning to an empty home. Dreamers may get sent back to countries they left as babies, with nothing but an American accent and a deportation order. Refugees may end up in the hellish nightmare that is Guantanamo Bay, as in the case of Luis Alberto Castillo Rivera, a Venezuelan native who entered the U.S. legally via an immigration parole program dismantled by the current administration.
But you know what the most disheartening part of it all is? The complicity of those who choose not to see. Just as German citizens once adapted to the presence of camps in their neighborhoods, too many Americans scroll past detention headlines while sipping their morning coffee - coffee that was most likely harvested by the same kinds of hands being held behind chain link fences. The irony would be delicious if it weren't so freaking bitter.
Here's what I’ve learned between my first wide-eyed glimpse of Manhattan and today: evil can only expand in the space between what we choose to notice and what we choose to turn a blind eye to. Each dismissed transgression, each overlooked sign of abuse, each ignored report of yet another family ripped apart by the merciless claws of ICE adds another brick to the dangerous fascist wall that now threatens to imprison us all. And unlike the WWII generation, we don’t have a single excuse to claim we didn't know.
Although what is happening to undocumented immigrants is a relatively small piece of the much larger “dismantling of our democracy” story, it is one we must act upon before we reach the proverbial “point of no return.” Because yes, bestie, they are coming for the rest of us — and you too! — next. So what do we do? What can we do? Although many of the protections set by previous administrations are being wiped or challenged as we speak, there are still plenty of ways we can fight back:
Support organizations working to protect immigrant rights, such as the National Immigration Forum, the ACLU, Detention Watch Network and United We Dream. You can find a growing list of organizations working on this and many other issues in my Now What Community Resource Directory.
Keep the pressure on lawmakers to pass protective legislation like the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, and to block funding for harmful immigration enforcement measures like the recently-passed Laken Riley Act, which mandates the detention of any immigrant accused, not convicted, of commiting crimes (anyone else see the potential for discrimination/political retaliation here?) Our homework is to contact our Senators and Representatives and remind them they still work for us!
Join economic boycotts and blackouts targeting corporations that support the regime and its anti-immigrant stances, like the Latino Freeze Movement. Consider spending your money at local farmer markets and immigrant-owned stores, or participate in community swaps instead.
Many immigrants don’t speak the language or understand the U.S. legal system. Print out and distribute valuable “Know Your Rights” information in your local area. The immigrant Defense Project has great infographics in English and Spanish. NAKASEK also published a Know Your Rights app for IOS and Android.
Stay up to date on policy. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project is a joint effort between Professor Lucas Guttentag, Stanford and Yale law students, and leading immigration experts. The project has a searchable website dedicated to cataloging every piece of legislation aimed at immigrants.
Start an ICE Neighborhood Watch. Teen Vogue magazine published a thorough guide for keeping tabs on its agents and protecting neighbors who may be at risk. Community is where it’s at!
Support local candidates who prioritize immigrant rights through voter registration drives and turnout efforts in immigrant communities. Believe it or not, we have a chance to flip the 119th Congress as soon as April 2025!