Communities must stand firm amid raids and dehumanizing propaganda.
During the summer, I did not dare to step outside my home. The few times I did, each step was doused in fear. Many who knew my situation checked up on me, reassuring me that things would be alright.
CSUDH did the same. The university promised changes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement used a campus parking lot as a staging site in July. If federal agents had felt bold enough to gather there once, what’s to say they wouldn’t try doing so again?
Truth be told, I don’t think things are going to be “alright”—not with ICE snatching people off the streets. We watch how these federal agents terrorize the communities they step foot in. We see them on social media, brutalizing people on the streets because they have “reasonable suspicion.”
Back in September, the Supreme Court voted 6–3 in favor of lifting a temporary order barring ICE from detaining people based on their appearance, the language they speak, their place of residence, or the work they do.
In essence, the high court gave the green light for ICE to racially profile people. This isn’t about upholding the law, but an excuse to round up anyone they want. We can talk about such flagrant disregard for civil liberties, but we have to look at what led us to this moment: the dehumanization of the “other” by people in power.
In April 2024, while running for a second presidential term, Donald Trump stated that we shouldn’t refer to undocumented immigrants as humans but rather as “animals.” These comments followed the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed by an undocumented immigrant while jogging near the University of Georgia.
The claim that undocumented immigrants increase crime has been disproven on multiple occasions. In 2019, Christian Gunadi, an instructor and researcher at UC Riverside, found that overall property and violent crime rates across the U.S. are not “statistically significantly” increased by undocumented immigration.
What happened to Laken Riley was a tragedy, but to use her death to perpetuate the idea that all immigrants are criminals is abhorrent. The actions of a few do not represent the whole.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric often suggests that undocumented immigrants leech off the system, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Undocumented immigrants paid $97 billion in federal taxes in 2022, according to research published by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy.
It’s worth noting that Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers are not exclusive to American citizens. Further, ICE requested this information from the IRS, effectively admitting that undocumented immigrants still pay their fair share to a system that so often attempts to sideline them—or worse.
Unfortunately, even when disproving the lies spread toward immigrants, many are stubbornly firm in their anti-immigrant belief. This is most often apparent on social media, especially given the prevalence of AI-driven “bot” accounts on some platforms. Posts showing children crying for their parents or federal agents assaulting protesters receive some of the most demeaning and heartless responses.
We live in a “post-truth” world now, where facts are not a priority for some people, especially when it comes to politics. People no longer have to engage media that challenges their worldview; they can now be content to sit in their silo and have their biases confirmed, despite whatever facts or information to the contrary.
Some of these people may feel the system—one they feel is meant to serve them only—has somehow wronged them by serving everyone. For others, it’s purely jingoism and the feeling that the identity of “their” country is being lost.
What they seem to forget, apparently, is that the U.S. has always been a nation of immigrants. Immigrants give the U.S. its flavor and its most vital strength. Immigration has shaped this nation throughout its history and will continue to do so.
At the end of the day, anti-immigrant sentiment can only go so far. Hate burns hot, but it burns out, too.
What endures is the determination of immigrant communities who continue showing up, speaking out, and refusing to disappear. As long as we keep pushing back and insisting on our humanity, this latest surge of rhetoric will fade just like every wave before it—loud for a moment, then shrinking back to the fringe where it has always belonged.