When I read headlines about Immigration and Customs Enforcement and National Guard deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, – and now possibly Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans – childhood trauma resurfaces. As a Black, first-generation citizen born in the United States, who grew up in an overpoliced immigrant community, I feel echoes of painful memories.
I lived in a mixed-immigration status household in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, a melting pot of Caribbean ethnicities including St. Lucian, Jamaican, Haitian, Dominican and Guyanese. I was always struck by how normal the militarization of our neighborhood seemed to some locals, even though it was anything but. When I visited Manhattan or somewhere more racially diverse, I noticed people there didn’t face constant police checkpoints, frequent stops or fear of armed officers – conditions proven to traumatize those repeatedly exposed to them.
I’m extremely disappointed when I hear some Black Americans say this war on immigrants doesn’t affect them or isn’t their fight – when our communities have frequently been overpoliced, too.
Let’s remember alliances between immigrant and Black communities have historically advanced all civil rights movements. Additionally, Black communities are being terrorized right before our eyes as well.
In early October, federal agents raided an apartment complex in Chicago’s predominantly Black South Side with the stated intention of arresting undocumented residents who might have warrants. The Department of Homeland Security called it “Operation Midway Blitz.” They ultimately arrested many Black residents, according to a witness, with four U.S.-citizen children among those taken.
Those children weren’t criminals, but they witnessed ICE agents without warrants break down doors and zip-tie neighbors for hours, a trauma likely to last a lifetime.
When immigrants lose rights, we all do
According to the Pew Research Center, 1 in 5 Black people in the United States is either an immigrant or the child of one. And, unfortunately, Black immigrants tend to face disproportionate enforcement compared with their peers.
Analysis of federal data by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration shows that Black immigrants with a criminal conviction have a 76% chance of being deported compared with 45% of the overall immigrant population with criminal convictions. If you’re Caribbean, that chance is 83%.
If there ever was a time for solidarity, the time is now. The end of due process for immigrants is the end of due process for everyone.
But I must admit, I have particularly deep concern for the psychological and emotional well-being of youth who experience ICE and Border Patrol raids in their neighborhoods. Those experiences can shape a young person’s sense of belonging and cause them to associate their own home or community with danger or punishment. It can even create lasting fear, confusion or distrust in law enforcement.
At Children’s Defense Fund-New York, where I work, we are intentional about ensuring that young people are equipped with the knowledge they need to vote, volunteer and engage in civics later in life. The situation facing America’s immigrants now serves as an opportunity for Black children to see their parents be good leaders and speak out against injustice. Once children see what their parents are capable of, they learn they can do the same.
Leaders raise leaders.
Being citizens won’t save Black Americans
So, speak up for the African vendors swept up in October’s immigration raid in New York City’s Chinatown, people who are clear victims of the racialized criminalization that often disproportionately impacts Black immigrants.
Do not think that if we fight for immigrant rights, Black communities cannot still advocate for change on other important issues, like economic inequality and mass incarceration. We can.
Further, Black residents should know racial profiling carried out by ICE agents will not decipher whether they were born here or not. As my hometown experiences even more pressure from the federal government to submit to a takeover, it becomes likelier more federal agents will come and terrorize our neighborhoods while mistakenly detaining Black U.S. citizens they claim are immigrants.
As I write this, I come to grips with a sad reality: I never feared a family member being deported or our home being raided like I do today. My grandparents migrated to Brooklyn, with my mother, from Curaçao. Despite them paying taxes, owning their home and obtaining their citizenship, I now think, “Is my elderly grandmother going to be taken from her home in the middle of the night?”
Marginalized groups share overlapping struggles against systemic racism and discrimination. Whatever happens, I find comfort in knowing I’m using my voice and work to stand up for what’s right for everyone who calls America home.
Jonathan Jean-Baptiste is operation’s administrator for the New York office of the youth advocacy organization Children’s Defense Fund. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
