The article argues that comparing ICE to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo is misguided because the roots of systemic racism and state terror in the U.S. predate and influenced Nazi policies. Rather than looking to Nazi Germany as the primary example of evil, the author urges us to recognize America’s own long history of racial oppression, from Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears and the institution of slavery to Jim Crow laws and segregation. The U.S. legal and social systems have long enforced white supremacy, shaping a deeply entrenched caste system that continues to manifest in modern institutions like ICE.

The piece emphasizes that America’s history of racial terror is not a distant warning from abroad but a reflection of its own past and present realities. The ongoing targeting and terrorizing of marginalized communities by ICE is part of a familiar pattern of oppression rooted in centuries of systemic racism. To move forward, the author calls for honest recognition of this history and a commitment to uprooting the deep-seated racism embedded in American society, rather than deflecting by invoking foreign examples.