Are We the Nazis Now?

How do we meet this moment?

It’s hard to watch. People being treated like they are less than human because of their perceived immigration status. [This column originally had a photo of what was purportedly a 6-year-old girl who was zip-tied here, but because there were conflicting reports about its accuracy and confusion over the incident, I’ve removed it.]

In early October, federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI, and ATF arrested 37 people in a raid on a Chicago apartment building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive. They banged on residents’ doors overnight, according to a report in the Chicago Sun Times, “pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said.” A witness said she saw “agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans,” and that “kids were separated from their mothers.” DHS claimed the neighborhood was “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates,” but offered no evidence in support and didn’t confirm that any of those arrested were members of the Venezuelan gang.

Earlier this month, at West Loop Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, ICE was forced to release two sisters it pulled out of their car at a school pick up, because they have legal status under DACA. But that didn’t stop the masked agents, captured on video by a quick-thinking teacher, from surrounding the car and smashing its windows before dragging the two out. One of the sisters cried out her name and where she lived to bystanders, an apparent effort to prevent being “disappeared” into ICE custody.

It is already horrible enough. But we read The Diary of Anne Frank in school. Among the book’s important lessons is that where things start is not where they end up. Bad can become worse in the blink of an eye. The propaganda used to dehumanize people, combined with fear, social pressure, and denial, can have devastating results. People who think it’s too dangerous to speak out may decide to take the path of least resistance and turn a blind eye, hoping it will stop. But a government that is already willing to commit the outrages we are observing is unlikely to do so. Fascism, as it did in Europe during World War II, takes its toll.

To be clear, we are already past the point where it’s only people in the U.S. without legal immigration status who are at risk.

In Portland, Oregon, on October 5, ICE agents threatened to arrest and kill an ambulance driver. The incident is documented by witness reports filed with the ambulance crew’s employer and its union by different individuals, as well as 911 calls, dispatch reports, and emergency communications. The ambulance was called to the ICE office to treat an injured protester, but agents refused to let the ambulance leave once the patient was loaded. When the driver put the vehicle into park, it rocked forward, and an agent responded angrily, saying the ambulance driver tried to hit him. The driver reported that “they were not only accusing me of such a thing, but crowding and cornering me in the seat, pointing and screaming at me, threatening to shoot and arrest me, and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene. This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped.”

A video filmed in September that recently went viral shows ICE firing on protestors and hitting Presbyterian minister David Black in the head with a pepper ball. The minister, who was injured, is now suing. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin tweeted that the shooting was justified because “What this clipped video doesn’t show is that these agitators were blocking an ICE vehicle from leaving the federal facility—impeding operations.” Apparently, the new standard operating protocol is that if an ICE agent decides you’re in the way, they can shoot you. “If you are obstructing law enforcement, you can expect to be met with force,” she concluded her tweet, complaining that the minister had “flipped the bird” at Secretary Noem the previous week.

There are now so many of these stories flooding the country, and they come with such rapidity, that it’s impossible to keep up with all of them. In other words, these incidents aren’t the exceptions. They aren’t unusual. And there’s every indication that they are tolerated, even encouraged, by Trump’s machine.

Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals. Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too.

A PBS Newsletter story titled “Immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago” reported on actions that include: “Storming an apartment complex by helicopter as families slept. Deploying chemical agents near a public school. Handcuffing a Chicago City Council member at a hospital … ‘They are the ones that are making it a war zone,’ Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday on CNN. ‘They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.’”

The Bulwark’s Tim Miller interviewed George Retes, another U.S. citizen. Retes was detained by ICE for three days, two of which he says he spent in solitary confinement. Retes said the conditions he was kept in were dehumanizing. He was given only a hospital dress to wear, the lights remained on 24 hours a day, and he was under constant observation through a glass door.

One of the most chilling comments following that raid on the Chicago apartment building came from a woman named Pertissue Fisher, an American citizen who lives in the building. She said the agents rounded up people, including her, and only asked questions later. “They just treated us like we were nothing,” Fisher said. That’s how federal agents, who took oaths to uphold the law, are behaving under this administration. And no one in the administration seems in the least bit concerned about it.

We aren’t even better off in the ways Trump promised. Deporting school kids doesn’t make us safer. Americans don’t want the jobs that aren’t being done in immigrants’ absence. The Labor Department warned in “an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens” is threatening “the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.” But beyond the absence of benefits from this administration’s mass deportations, it’s the absence of humanity we see around us that threatens us the most. People who aren’t criminals are thrown to the ground. People are treated with a lack of respect for their basic human dignity. Many of them are hard-working folks who want to be able to love this country and give back because of the opportunity it gives them and their families. Instead, a president who is the son of immigrants and has been married twice to immigrants has become the face of nationalism, using hate and horror to expand his control over people, both American citizens and immigrants, on American soil. Are we the Nazis now?

What’s certain is this: No matter where Donald Trump wants to take this country, you and I are not going along for the ride. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the No Kings rally on Saturday was a “hate-America” rally. He said the people attending would be “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” He’s wrong. We are, in the best tradition of America’s Greatest Generation, truly anti-fascist. And in 2025, anti-fascism begins at home, because we love this country and we believe in democracy. We’re ready.

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We’re in this together,

Joyce