Besides water hoses, German Shepherds, Billy clubs and racial epithets, what truly makes today’s ICE agents — dressed like militarized Klansmen and women — any different from yesterday’s state-sanctioned terror?
The Ice Age, the one taught in science class, ended thousands of years ago. But a new American ICE Age is fully here — cold, cruel, color-coded and legally protected. Fueled by racism, greed, envy, corruption, political theater and “normal Americanisms,” ICE has been re-weaponized with benefits, budgets and breathtaking lawlessness.
Edmond W. Davis
What does it say about this nation that every time organized terror gets legalized, it arrives wrapped in badges, masks, uniforms and overwhelmingly white male authority?
Across American history — formal or informal, legal or illegal — more than 70% of racialized violence against civilians has been carried out by the same demographic. From slave patrols to the Klan, from lynch mobs to “stand your ground” vigilantes, from COINTELPRO raids to modern-day paramilitary policing — the through-line is undeniable. And now ICE agents stand atop that lineage, operating with impunity and federal blessing.
This isn’t patriotism. It’s a perverted performance of power — an epic, generational failure of morality. ICE agents now receive benefits packages like police departments, but without the thousands of reforms forced onto policing after decades of protests, lawsuits and federal oversight.
“This isn’t patriotism. It’s a perverted performance of power.”
So where is the moral compass? Who holds ICE accountable?
The Bible offers a clear warning in Isaiah 10:1-2: “Woe to those who make unjust laws … to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.”
If America is to claim moral high ground, it must first obey the ancient instruction to stop weaponizing law against the vulnerable.
In this moment — ironically — crime is down. Not up. Not surging. Not exploding.
In cities repeatedly used as political punching bags — Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Little Rock — crime has dropped 20%, 30%, even 40% since the COVID-era spikes of 2021 and 2022. What changed? Community investment. Hiring. New youth programs. Mental health zones. Healing spaces. Nutrition hubs. Neighborhood planning efforts, not more militarized raids.
This country did not reduce crime by adding more cops and certainly not by unleashing federally funded stormtroopers on immigrant communities.
Yet ICE is expanding its reach while states send in the National Guard for “clerical” duties that somehow involve intimidation, street presence and armored vehicles. Missouri’s governor dispatched 15 guardsmen to assist ICE in “data processing” — an innocuous phrase that, in practice, signals surveillance, raids, and fear.
This is not new. It is a historical repetition.
Freed slaves were legally considered “Americans” yet still forced to carry Freedom Papers proving they were not property. Today, Black U.S. citizens are facing ICE agents demanding documentation to “look them up.”
“It is the resurrection of a racist mechanism originally designed to police Black freedom itself.”
So the question must be asked plainly: Are African Americans in 2025 being re-subjected to a 160-year-old system of permission to exist? When ICE agents detain Black U.S. citizens because they “look foreign,” that is not enforcement — it is the resurrection of a racist mechanism originally designed to police Black freedom itself.
The Bible again speaks clearly in Proverbs 22:22: “Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate.”
ICE’s gatekeeping isn’t about law. It is about domination.
In St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago and cities across America, ICE activity mirrors the intimidation tactics of Jim Crow policing. Black residents, immigrants and citizens alike fear harassment. Donny Walters, president of the Ethical Society of Police in St. Louis, said it clearly: This aggressive federal presence pushes communities backward, undoing hard-won trust.
As Walters noted, when the troops leave, “We are left with the fallout.” The police — especially Black officers — must then rebuild community relations shredded by federal overreach. The moral cost is immeasurable.
Renee Hall, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, draws a straight line from these tactics to Jim Crow. She reminds America that Black communities have been historically over-policed and ICE’s modern-day militarization sends a message: Your rights are conditional, your safety negotiable, your citizenship questionable.
That message is deadly.
Because ICE is not just targeting undocumented immigrants. They are targeting neighborhoods. They are targeting demographics. They are targeting psychological safety.
In Chicago, a terrifying October raid saw children dragged from their apartments before dawn. Thirty-seven undocumented immigrants were arrested. But Black American citizens were detained too. One man, 67-year-old Rodrick Johnson, was held despite repeatedly stating he was a U.S. citizen. Agents dismissed him until they “looked him up.” No warrant. No lawyer. No due process.
“This is terrorism backed by policy, budget lines and federal authority.”
This is terrorism backed by policy, budget lines and federal authority.
ICE’s weapons budget has skyrocketed 700%, including purchases of “guided missile warheads.” For whom? For what? What enemy on American streets requires missile warheads? These are not tools of domestic safety; they are mechanisms of psychological warfare intended to control, not protect.
Communities see it clearly. Immigrants feel it deeply. Black Americans recognize the pattern immediately.
And Scripture again demands moral clarity in Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
Government power without justice, mercy and humility becomes tyranny.
The new ICE Age is not about safety. It is about supremacy. It is about creating classes of people whose existence can be interrupted at any moment. It is about political theater masquerading as law enforcement.
And the question for America is no longer, “What is ICE doing?” The question is, “What are we becoming?”
Because if American terrorism is legal, funded, uniformed and applauded, history shows us exactly where that road ends.
Edmond W. Davis is an American social historian, international speaker and Amazon No. 1 author. He is a nationally recognized authority on the Tuskegee Airmen and serves as founder and executive director of America’s only National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest, based in Little Rock, Ark. A Philadelphia native and former homeless youth, he has dedicated his career to education, social impact and the empowerment of underrepresented communities.