Migration is older than borders. It is written into the flight of birds, the movement of tides and the paths people have followed for as long as humanity has existed. Long before passports and policies, movement meant survival. Today, this instinct is treated as a crime. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have intensified, accompanied by violence, mass detentions and widespread fear in communities, migration is no longer seen as a natural process, but instead as a threat with devastating consequences for families and communities.
Recent reports have documented large-scale ICE raids resulting in thousands of detainees nationwide, including American citizens who were wrongfully detained due to racial profiling. In light of recent tragedies, many schools have staged walkout demonstrations. Activists, unions and various groups called for a nationwide walkout on Friday, Jan. 30, at 11:00 a.m. PST. More than 1,000 Pali students participated, walking out from their fourth-period classes in order to protest the actions of ICE and their mass deportation agenda. Students lined Temescal Canyon and the Pacific Coast Highway, holding signs and chanting.
In several of these incidents across the country, individuals attempting to intervene or document arrests have been injured or killed by ICE agents. In Minneapolis, a local man named Alex Pretti was documenting and attempting to aid a detainee that had been injured and was tragically shot and killed by ICE. In 2026 alone, eight people have reportedly been killed at the hands of ICE. Detention centers managed by ICE, including a facility that critics have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” have been exposed for overcrowding, inadequate medical care and inhumane living conditions.
Executive Order 14159, also known as “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” issued by President Donald Trump on Jan. 25, 2025, permits ICE agents to enter schools, hospitals and even places of worship, previously considered protected and recognized as sensitive areas. These places have increasingly become sites of surveillance rather than safety. These actions do not merely affect undocumented immigrants; they represent a broader infringement on civil and human rights that should concern every person living in the United States.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
While ICE may seemingly only be affecting certain parts of the population, it is a threat to American liberties across the country for all demographics.
ICE operates with sweeping authority and limited accountability, receiving direction from the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Unlike local law enforcement, federal immigration agents are often shielded from civil lawsuits and criminal charges, even when constitutional violations occur. Many of the detainees report being arrested without warrants or denied due process, rights explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution, not only to citizens but to all people on U.S soil.
The Bill of Rights does not begin with “citizens only.” The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee due process and equal protection to “persons,” not citizens. Voting and jury service are civic responsibilities reserved for citizens, but fundamental rights, including freedom from unlawful detention, the right to legal counsel and protection against unreasonable searches, extend far beyond immigration status.
And yet, brown and Latino communities continue to face open racial profiling. Federal courts, like in Noem v. Vasquez-Perdomo (2025), have permitted immigration enforcement practices based on language, appearance and accent–effectively warranting detainments based on the act of speaking Spanish or “appearing foreign” in public. This is not law enforcement; it is discrimination sanctioned by policy.
Migration itself is not a crime. It is a recurring process in nature. To exist beyond invisible political lines is not illegal; it is human.
Acclaimed poet Warsan Shire wrote, “no one leaves home unless home is in the mouth of a shark.”
People who risk violence, detention and death to reach the U.S. are not doing so casually. They are driven by desperation (war, political instability, climate disasters and economic collapse). Many flee conditions in regions such as Central America, the Middle East and Afghanistan, places shaped in part by U.S. foreign policy decisions.
Immigrants are not burdens. They are the backbones of industries many Americans rely on but refuse to sustain: agriculture, construction, domestic labor, food service and caregiving. They contribute billions in tax dollars, support local economies and strengthen communities. In just 2023, it was reported that immigrants generated over $1.7 trillion in economic activity. Without immigrant labor, entire sectors of the U.S. economy would falter.
Yet the loudest voices calling for mass deportations often come from politicians who invoke religion, ideologies that typically preach kindness, to justify cruelty. Vice President J.D Vance even stated on CBS’s Face the Nation how as a “practicing Catholic, [he] was heartbroken about the [bishops’ condemnation of Trump’s immigration policy].”
This selective morality against immigration ignores the key principle of the separation of church and state and cherrypicks which Biblical teachings they preach.
The Bible clearly instructs, “You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as yourself,” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
Pope Francis himself said, “Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or who are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being, more.”
Historically, U.S. immigration policy has always evolved, often in moments of fear and exclusion. But desperation does not emerge without cause. People do not endure deserts, detention camps and family separation unless the alternative is worse.
Former President George Washington once wrote that “the bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respected stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.”
That vision of America feels increasingly distant to today’s reality.
Privilege shapes who writes policy and who enforces it. Those born into wealth, whiteness or national citizenship often fail to see the humanity in those risking everything to survive. This disconnect has moral consequences, because as survivor of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, wrote, “no human being is illegal.”
This is not a matter of global politics, partisan debate, economic strife or ideology. Simply put, this is a matter of humanity. Mankind is deeply interconnected and must remember our shared responsibility to one another.
Maya Angelou reminds us, “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
Carl Sagan’s perspective echoes this urgency: “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you will not find another.”
In our world, every human life is irreplaceable. To harm, dehumanize, or criminalize others is to diminish ourselves.
ICE raids, mass detentions and the erosion of sanctuary spaces do not reflect strength. They reflect a nation struggling to reconcile power with compassion.
As the Dalai Lama said, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
Mahatma Gandhi corroborates this truth: “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.”
America is inextricably tied to migration. To deny that reality is to deny our own history.
Founding father Thomas Jefferson famously wrote the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that ALL men are created equal.”
So the question remains: if the American Dream was built by immigrants, sustained by their labor and defined by the promise of dignity and opportunity, what does it mean when we criminalize their existence?
Is this the American Dream?
