People are being disappeared off the streets, families are living in fear, and local communities are rising up to protect and support those being abducted by those operating under the color of law.
But this isn’t in Los Angeles, nor is it even in this century.
In 1851, a mob of abolitionists stormed a Boston courthouse and freed a Black man named Shadrach Minkins from federal custody. Minkins had escaped slavery, and under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, he could be captured legally and returned to a place he had fled in search of freedom.1
More than 170 years later, ICE agents are pulling immigrants from their homes, jobs, and communities. People with legal status are being swept up in the crackdown. Children are coming home to empty houses. U.S. military veterans are deporting themselves. And much like in 1851, communities are resisting. 2 3
This is not new. This is America.
The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 made it legal to capture people, many of them free, and force them back into slavery. Solomon Northup, the free-born Black musician whose story was told in 12 Years a Slave, was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and enslaved in Louisiana. He had committed no crime. He had been born free and lived freely. But the law, and those who enforced it, didn’t care.
Just like Green Card holders today.
Just like asylum seekers with pending applications.
Just like parents with no or minor criminal record who are taken at bus stops, job sites, hospitals, and schools under the ICE enforcement policies that were ramped up under the Trump administration.
Both systems relied on the letter of the law to cover the violence of state power. Both enabled kidnapping. Both terrorized entire communities into hiding. And in both cases, people resisted. Then, it was safe houses and personal liberty laws. Today, it’s sanctuary cities and legal defense funds.
But here’s the painful rub: in the 2024 election, an estimated 43% of Hispanic/Latino/Latinx voters supported Donald Trump, the highest share since George W. Bush.4 It is important to acknowledge the diversity of this group: white-identifying, Afro-Latino, Indigenous, and mixed. It is not monolithic. Still, many voters, particularly those who are new to the United States or disconnected from Black American history, believe it or not, may not have realized they were voting for their future marginalization.
This is because today’s Republican Party is not George W. Bush’s Republican Party.
Bush tried to construct a pathway, both symbolic and literal, to assimilation and the benefits of whiteness for Hispanic/Latinx folks, not just in terms of skin color, but in ethnic assimilation and political integration.5 Italians once had to become white. Irish people had to become white. The Brent Staples essay in The New York Times about how Italians became white is instructive in this context.6 So it was reasonable for some Hispanic/Latinx folks to think they were up next. What they weren’t counting on is the cycle of United States history and the deep hatred that one Stephen Miller has for them.
Yes, the Republican Party did have a project of inclusion. But that project is over. The Republican Party is now a party of exclusion, punishment, and terror. And I must say, there has never been a project to provide a pathway to “whiteness” for Black Americans, never.
So, this current movement is not offering assimilation. It is offering subjugation.
And so we come back to history.
And this is complex for many Black Americans, especially the 92% of Black Women who voted pragmatically to try and save us from all of this. Black Americans have lived this history. We have survived it. We have told it, written it, taught it, and bled through it. Yet we are still not heard.
We KNEW what was coming, but were met with hostility, belittling, or silence when we reminded the country: this is not new. Our ancestors were hunted under the Fugitive Slave Acts. Our children were taken. Our families were destroyed. Our legal status was ignored.
Black people have been the warning bell of American injustice since this country’s founding. The lack of knowledge of true American history and the overall devaluing of Black thought and intellect, by everyone, has left all of us vulnerable. We, survivors of a system that has always found new ways to repackage old violence, just might have some insight and the ability to help formulate a path forward.
The law is not always just. Legal does not mean moral.
We’ve been here before. Are we now ready to work together and to listen to Black voices?
https://www.history.com/articles/fugitive-slave-acts
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/24/ice-raids-healthcare-los-angeles-ohio
https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/ice-raids-causing-fear-uncertainty-among-las-vegas-valley-immigrant-community/
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-update-polls-hispanics-2075849
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/11/21/latino-vote-trump-election-249338
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/opinion/columbus-day-italian-american-racism.html
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