It’s easy to notice in photos or videos circulating on social media: there are very few Black federal ICE agents.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not specifically disclose the demographic data of its agency, but numerous sources place the number of agents identified as Black or African American between 11% and 15%. Around 20% are Latino, and approximately 60% are White.
For example, in comparison, in the LAPD approximately 19% of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sworn officers were Black. This figure is based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (.gov) and reflects the composition of local police departments nationwide.
This is important given the ongoing immigration conflict in the country, where many point to a kind of ethnic cleansing hidden beneath the rhetoric of legality or illegality often used by anti-immigrant politicians.
“The same thoughts that fueled slavery are alive today,” said Dauda Sesay, National Network Director of African Communities Together, at a June 25 press conference. “President Donald Trump is turning back the clock on justice and belonging. He is trying to keep the US as a White majority country.”
The Black community at large is over-policed. Therefore, African migrants are more likely to be stopped, arrested, and eventually detained for immigration issues, said Sharon Njie, Communication and Strategic Partnership Director for the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants. “Casual profiling” is so prevalent in the South, she said.
Despite making up only about 7% of the non-citizen population, Black immigrants represent over 20% of those in deportation proceedings on criminal grounds. Local jails and police often act as feeders for ICE, and in areas where local ordinances prohibit that kind of cooperation, ICE agents have been known to comb through court dockets in order to make arrests inside courthouses.
Yet nearly 30% of ICE agents and about 50% of Border Patrol agents in the U.S. are Latino. According to data Univision received from ICE in 2017, Latino ICE agents outnumber Black agents 2 to 1 and Asian agents 4 to 1. White agents outnumber Latino agents by nearly 3 to 1.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has around 15,000 employees and plans to hire many more. But the resentment felt by many people in the Black community highlights the oppression they’ve endured for a long time, along with the displacement and abuse they’ve suffered, leading to a crisis of identity when it comes to being part of an enforcement agency that seeks to oppress residents of the country.
This sentiment is not expected to go away anytime soon. Many organizations complain that they have been racially profiled in raids or neighborhood sweeps. This community has fought for its rights for centuries, and witnessing an operation that seeks to racially expel certain residents is not well received.
The question hanging over the protests for Black Angelenos quickly moved beyond just immigration policy to: Who belongs in these neighborhoods and in this city, where the very concept of belonging has been contested for decades.
Across social media and in homes throughout the country’s largest county, Black residents sparked heated debate about solidarity, displacement, and the complex racial dynamics that have reshaped one of America’s most powerful cities over decades.
The protests marked the first military deployment against American citizens since 1992, when riots erupted in LA after the White police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted, and the first time in 60 years that a president had federalized a state’s National Guard without the governor’s consent. But some people pointed out that the crowds of protesters lacked the Black activists who had led similar resistance movements just years earlier.
Unity among different demographic groups will be more effective, acknowledging the racial mosaic that exists in the U.S. and the rights that have been won throughout its history.
