The Blind Leading the Color Blind

Immigration and Customs Enforcement loves to insist it’s just following the law, blind to race, treating everyone equally under the red, white, and blue. But if ICE isn’t looking at skin color to decide who to stop, detain, and deport, then what exactly are they using—astrology?

Immigration enforcement in this country is inseparable from racial profiling. Ask yourself: how many blond-haired, blue-eyed Canadians are being dragged out of their cars in traffic stops? How many ICE raids have rounded up Australians on expired visas? You can guess the number.

The fiction that ICE “doesn’t see color” would be funny if it weren’t so destructive. Because in practice, the agency has turned melanin into probable cause. Brown skin? Spanish accent? Welcome to the interrogation line. Forget actual immigration status—appearance alone is enough to land someone in a detention center.

It’s absurd for ICE to claim colorblindness while operating like this. Race isn’t incidental to their work—it’s the shortcut, the cheat code, the whole operating system. Pretending otherwise is insulting.

What’s worse is that the people targeted are often U.S. citizens or legal residents who just happen to “look” undocumented. That’s the price of a system where suspicion is painted directly onto your skin.

So let’s drop the charade. ICE sees color just fine. In fact, color is the first thing they see. And until that truth is confronted, any talk of “equal enforcement” is just another punchline—delivered at the expense of people’s freedom and dignity.