Let me simply say it plainly: Black people can’t sit this immigration struggle out. Not now. Not ever.
I do know we’re drained. Uninterested in carrying actions, of being the ethical compass of the nation, of combating for justice that by no means appears to swing our means. I get it. We’re bored with the headlines, the hashtags, the heartbreak. And perhaps you’re tempted to take a seat this one out—to let others carry the load, to take a seat on the rooftop along with your candy tea whereas immigration battles rage on beneath.
But when we expect we will watch from the sidelines whereas ICE raids snatch up our Brown neighbors, let me be clear: That very same system is already coming for us, too.
It’s coming within the type of racial profiling, flawed facial recognition algorithms and authorities databases riddled with errors. It’s coming with militarized raids that don’t ask about citizenship standing earlier than they knock down your door. It’s coming by the identical systemic pipeline that has at all times criminalized Black and Brown our bodies. Immigration enforcement stands out as the tip of the spear, however the entire sword is constructed on anti-Blackness.
In response to the Middle for Democracy and Civic Engagement, over 1 / 4 of Black grownup U.S. residents don’t have a driver’s license with their present identify or handle. Practically one in 5 don’t have a license in any respect. And in a rustic the place the road between “undocumented” and “unverified” is getting blurrier by the day, what do you suppose occurs when a Black individual can’t instantly show their citizenship?
They get detained. Deported. Disappeared.
There are documented circumstances—plural—of Black Americans being held in ICE detention facilities, some for weeks, some for months. Some had beginning certificates in hand. It didn’t matter. Their pores and skin, their names and their neighborhoods have been deemed “suspicious.” And if we expect that may’t occur to us or our family members, we’re already at risk.
This isn’t nearly immigrants. That is about state energy and who it decides to focus on. The identical ICE that terrorizes immigrant households would be the similar pressure that justifies increasing surveillance in Black communities. The drones over the border don’t cease on the border. The identical predictive policing that flags “high-risk” zip codes already patrols ours. And the normalization of kicking down doorways in Brown neighborhoods? That’s rehearsal for Black neighborhoods, too.
It’s all related.
So no, perhaps you don’t exit to the protests. Possibly you don’t chant within the streets or name your senator. However you don’t sit and sip tea both. Not whereas the smoke rises. Not whereas state violence turns into extra exact, extra data-driven and extra relentless.
We now have to point out up—not simply because it’s proper, however as a result of we’re already within the struggle whether or not we admit it or not. Citizenship doesn’t defend us. Birthright doesn’t protect us. And silence received’t save us.
If they will come for them, they will—and can—come for us.
