“White people are trapped in a history they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are not a new invention of law and order. They are the evolution of slave patrols — by another name, in another uniform, in another century, but with the same mission: “Make America White Again.”
President Trump is stripping all references to slavery from national parks and the Smithsonian Institution in an effort to erase American history. He claims exhibits like the “Scourged Back” promote “corrosive ideology” and “unfairly disparages Americans.” He embraces a long American tradition of reshaping history to obscure injustice, clearing a path to revive America’s ugliest machinery of racial control.
Slave patrols, or paddy rollers, hunted and captured Black people in the antebellum South, enforcing terror under the guise of “law and order.” Established in 1704 in South Carolina, they were formally abolished after the Civil War but evolved into the Ku Klux Klan, lynch mobs, and modern policing. Today ICE uses the same logic — state-sanctioned violence to intimidate and abuse communities of color.
The ruins of segregation remain visible. Redlining denied Black and Brown families opportunities to build wealth and shaped political maps, weakening political power. In neighborhoods once marked “hazardous,” police presence remains pervasive, trapping generations in cycles of poverty.
ICE raids, detention, and deportation rely on surveillance programs like ImmigrationOS to track undocumented people, residents, and citizens alike. Families are torn apart during marriage, citizenship, and naturalization processes. These practices are not about safety, but domination and whitening America.
History warns us where this leads. In 1989, five Black and Latino teenagers, the Central Park Five, were wrongfully accused of rape. Donald Trump inflamed hysteria with full-page ads demanding, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” Decades later, similar narratives persist. President Trump calls Black and Brown children “roving bands of youth,” justifying militarized policing and invasive operations in communities like Washington D.C. Minor infractions, from jaywalking to fare-dodging, become criminalized, devastating lives.
“Slave patrols criminalized Blackness; ICE criminalizes racialized migration.”
The consequences are deadly. On Sept. 8, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ICE may use race and language as proxies for citizenship, legalizing racial profiling at the federal level. This mirrors slave patrols’ mandate and Arizona’s SB1070 law. Racialized communities are now legally hunted, harassed, and criminalized under the guise of public safety.
Facing recruitment challenges, ICE has lowered standards to expand its force. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that the agency will waive age limits for applicants, echoing historical tactics where Black and Brown individuals were coerced into policing their own communities. ICE continues that legacy, perpetuating fear and control.
On Sept. 30, 2025, federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid in a predominantly Black Chicago neighborhood, arresting 37 people, most of whom were U.S. citizens. These raids are not about public safety; they are about intimidation, control, and maintaining racial hierarchy.
Yet resistance persists. Across the country, volunteers, lawyers, organizers, and churches act as a modern-day Underground Railroad, providing sanctuary and protection from detention and deportation. Every act of care is resistance, proving that love, courage, and community can foster freedom even under oppression.
As George Santayana warned, “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” From mass incarceration to mass deportation, ICE raids, police surveillance, and detention centers are modern “slave patrols,” proof that “Making America White Again” remains business as usual.
This article first appeared in New York Amsterdam News. It has been edited for length. For more information, visit www.amsterdamnews.com.