If you’ve recently exited the domains of your bedroom or opened any social media app, it’s likely you’re familiar with the rising tensions between ICE and immigrant activists. Every time I open TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter these days, I feel a deep and heavy sense of dread.
But — as many people have pointed out — these tensions are much larger than mere disagreements between immigration enforcement and immigrant communities. In January 2026 alone, the United States federal government kidnapped the president of Venezuela, American citizens are being shot at, interrogated, and threatened by masked men, and people are disappearing in immigration custody, several of them reappearing with broken ribs, dark bruises, and a loss of respect for our nation. People I’ve grown up with, admired as mentors, or thought to be “good people” are cheering on these legislative and social changes.
As I witness families torn apart, people coming forward with horror stories involving immigration officers, and our country’s leaders declaring undocumented immigrants as subhuman, I don’t recognize my home.
ice is a financial investment
In the town of Hudson, Colorado, just a handful of miles from my hometown, a new ICE facility is set to open, ran by private prison company GEO Group. The facility, called Big Horn Correctional Facility, has an approved budget of $39 million.
As U.S. prisons continue to become financial investments for corporations and the prison labor system remains a form of modern-day slavery, how could I call this place home? So much blood has been spilled throughout our history, from the banks of New England to the edges of Texas plains. How can people believe there’s a need for DHS, ICE, and immigration officers to be so violent and legally unstoppable?
The Trump administration continues to deny any wrongdoing or unwarranted violence by ICE officers and insists citizens should be concerned for immigration officers, who willingly place themselves in these roles. Seeing ICE officers who are Hispanic and Latine brings so much shame to my heart.
As more stories come out and older ones are brought back to light, such as women held in immigrant detention centers being forcibly sterilized, agents using their status to sexually assault detainees, and agents reselling stolen detainee’s items for personal profit, how can this be seen as logical or necessary? These issues feel increasingly helpless, with our nation’s leaders often reluctant to make lasting and meaningful change. Even politicians who established themselves as progressive, like Bernie Sanders, have praised President Trump on his immigration policies.
Immigrants deserve better
It’s true that there’s an immigration problem in this country, and both the Democratic and Republican parties have failed massively in properly addressing it. But the answer to immigration according to the United States, an answer that is not original but still terrifying, is to dehumanize migrants coming into this country. Citizens are told time and again that these migrants are drug dealers, rapists, criminals, lazy. We are told that these migrants, who have survived an impossible journey to get here, are set on milking American tax dollars for their own benefit. And yet the highest-funded American law enforcement agency today is ICE, with a hefty annual budget of $85 billion.
I’ve known undocumented immigrants my entire life, some by relation and others by community. What I’ve learned most about them is that they desire to live a life where they’re free to make their own choices, provide comfort for their families, and not to replace their old homes but to build a new one full of opportunity.
This does not match the rhetoric that the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, or Donald Trump have long been pushing. I see families ripped apart, children used to lure their parents, and people violently arrested at their immigration hearings, and I refuse to reject the truth. The real danger here is the United States’ unchecked and highly lucrative immigration system. Today, ICE has contributed to a confirmed 34 casualties (now including Renee Good and Alex Pretti), the abduction of 170 American citizens, and the deportation of three American children.
As a nation, we have a long history of failing our immigrants and their communities. But the difference here is that the Trump administration has set an unattainable quota of mass deportation. President Trump and his administration have placed American citizens into the crossfire, all to meet numbers they’ve set for themselves. Our federal government has allowed humanitarian concerns for migrants to remain unchallenged while our nation’s leaders structurally, socially, and physically violate them.
we need to keep fighting
I’ve always believed that what can happen to someone else can just as easily happen to me. I’ve seen this come to fruition in how the country has treated Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Renee Good, Arnoldo Bazan, and now Alex Pretti. At a time where tensions are continuing to rise, we must stand our ground as a community and let our nation’s leaders know we are not going away.
As I see communities in Minnesota, California, and even here in Colorado rally behind our immigrants and demand the withdrawal of ICE from their communities, I’m filled with hope. We must continue to push for due process, fair treatment, and the unalienable rights of all human beings. America is not built up of one race, nationality, or identity, and we must not accept otherwise.
These horrific times will pass, and when they do, we must pick up the pieces, assist those seeking justice, and demand change. Until then, do not look away. Do not let yourself feel intimidated. Contact our representatives to let them know not a penny more of our tax dollars will fund these atrocities. I refuse to be convinced that this brutality, inhumanity, and dangerous rhetoric that has long dug its claws into the immigrant experience should decide if these people are “deserving” of our concern or our help.