When a tragic event like the Holocaust is mentioned, many think, “never again.” However, when we take a look, history such as this is already beginning to repeat itself as we speak. 

The Holocaust, or Shoah, stands today as one of, if not the most, horrific and detrimental events in history. Nazi Germany systematically and deliberately organized the genocide of over 6 million European Jews and various other minorities from 1941 to 1945 across German-occupied Europe, annihilating about two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. The foundation of this tragic event in history is rooted in antisemitism, which is hatred for Jews, or in other words, modern racism. 

As a pursuant of the 2002 Homeland Security Act, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003. Following the tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the act that created ICE reorganized pre-existing policies and merged the US Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to create this new agency. 

ICE has over 20,000 personnel, all working to enforce and protect national and public security– this includes investigating and persecuting offenses such as human trafficking and shoplifting, but mainly handling ‘suspected’ immigrants. 

Agents require a judicial warrant or consent to enter private property; however, they can legally arrest, detain and remove individuals they suspect of violating immigration laws. Recent events, however, show ICE has gotten out of hand.

Now you may be wondering how these two seemingly worldly different things could even remotely be similar, and that I will explain.

Undeniably, genocide and immigration enforcement are extremely different; however, in today’s time, it is worth noting and examining the similarities between the two, and taking it as an early warning sign. The potential of what ICE could become in the very near future is terrifying, even for documented citizens.

One parallel between the two is the deliberate use of detention/concentration camps. During the Holocaust, Jews were taken and transported to concentration camps that were functioning as detention camps at first, before they quickly evolved into the very place where detainees would be murdered. Scarily similar, ICE detention centers also involved below-minimum treatment and tight confinement of detainees. One camp in particular, ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in South Florida, had especially inhumane and unsanitary treatment and conditions, with detainees reporting extreme temperatures, limited access to clean water and poor food quality. Not to mention it was conveniently built in a remote, heavily alligator-infested area. 

Some detainees even report being chained down or being put in a 2-by-2-foot box, in which they would remain restrained to the ground in extreme heat for hours at a time. Detainees experience a lack of privacy, sleep and basic human necessities. This treatment, though not death, is extremely inhumane and dangerous, and is strikingly similar to that of the Jewish concentration camps.

With that, it is easy to say dehumanization and inhumane treatment are parallel. During the Holocaust, Jews were seen as criminals, invaders and just in general lesser people. Correspondingly, the way ICE agents view, speak to and even treat those ‘suspected immigrants’ is exactly the same. Every day, clips of ICE agents spewing derogatory slurs and insults at ‘suspected immigrants’ are revealed, even though a good chunk of these people are documented US citizens. Based on a last name, an accent or the color of one’s skin, agents make the assumption of crime and go out of their way to roughly ‘handle’ innocent people with lives and families. These acts have a name: racial profiling. 

Even if you aren’t brown or accented, they still have the right to ‘handle’ you. However, this too has gone far beyond the range of your average police activities; it has gotten to murder. Two protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were shot and killed in broad daylight less than three weeks apart. ICE is now violating the First Amendment rights of Americans (the right to protest), and will continue to do so or worse if these patterns aren’t recognized. 

Comparatively, during the Holocaust, the Nazi party engaged in widespread censorship of Jews, with the intent to extinguish news and ideas deemed as “threatening” to their project. This included the forced suppression of Jewish culture, literature, ideologies and communication by banning access to radios, films, books or any other form of media. Jewish writers and readers would find their books and other similar belongings in burning piles, destroyed by Nazi Germans. Protesters of these actions or others from Nazis would face severe punishment, such as persecution, torture, incarceration or even execution. 

All things considered, ICE and the Holocaust can be carefully compared through the similarities of the officer-detainee relationships, and though, of course, they are not the same, the actions, events and attitude can be deemed as similar. History often repeats itself, and it clearly shows that it is doing so in today’s time, less than a century later.