Echoes of Slave Patrols in ICE Raids: What Abolitionists Can Teach Us
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
The slave patrols of the American South leveraged domestic terror and racist legal tactics to deny the rights of targeted communities in a deeply prejudicial and inhumane system; Trump’s ICE follows an all-too-familiar historical playbook in 2025
Since President Donald Trump retook office in January 2025, raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have increased exponentially across the country, with a growing number of encounters appearing blatantly unconstitutional. Historical parallels to the 19th-century system of slave patrols in the Antebellum South paint a scary reality for modern-day America, from ICE’s strategy of widespread fearmongering to its overtly racist agenda. In the same way abolitionists protected Black Americans from slave catchers, today’s communities can work together to protect their immigrant neighbors, too.
History of Slave Patrols in the United States
Beginning in the Carolinas as early as 1704, slave patrols were established to systematically prevent and crush rebellions, instill fear, and make permanent escape impossible for enslaved persons. Based on Article 4 of the Constitution, which requires states to deliver fugitives from labor when requested by overseers, the Fugitive Slave Acts provided a legal framework in which these patrols operated.
The first of these statutes, passed by Congress in 1793, permitted enslavers and their “agents” to search for individuals fleeing enslavement within the borders of any state, including the free Northern states of the Union. Slave catchers could then capture these freedom seekers and bring them before a judge with proof that these people were, in fact, their property.
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