Don't normalize ICE terrorizing communities based on skin color |
In November, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided the restaurant that my brother owns in Oregon. With disgust, he told me, “I have to carry my passport because ICE is just looking for brown-colored skin.”
My brother, like myself, was born in the United States. We are Chicanos, Americans who identify with our Mexican ancestry, a lineage that traces back six generations to the Arizona territory.
Currently, in the United States, to be any shade of Brown or Black is to be potentially profiled as a criminal, illegal or “alien.”
ICE has arrested well over 200,000 individuals in 2025, who were overwhelmingly Black and Brown. Skin color has always played a role in ICE’s operations. Some may not realize that ICE was established in 2003, following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
One of ICE’s main responsibilities is to arrest and deport noncitizens with criminal convictions or who pose national security threats. In its origin, ICE stereotyped individuals based on the skin tones of Middle Eastern descent.
It still targets based on skin color; however, its mission has shifted. Records from 2024 to now show that 65% of detainees have no criminal convictions, and 93% have never........