White Folks, If ICE Showed Up—What Would You Do?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how close so many of us are to things we still refuse to see.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

We’ve shared meals. We’ve sat on each other’s couches. We’ve celebrated birthdays, graduations, weddings—so many markers of life together.

We say we care about one another. And I believe many of us mean it.

And still, there are realities shaping my daily life—and the daily lives of many people who aren’t white, or who love people who aren’t white—that I don’t think most white folks I know have never truly imagined.

So I want to ask something that lives uncomfortably close to home.

White folks—especially those I know and care for—what would you do if ICE rolled up while you were with my brown kids? Or my black immigrant partner? What would you do if we were standing together and suddenly masked agents surrounded us?

What if ICE decided my kids and partner weren’t “real” U.S. citizens? What if they didn’t care about documents, explanations, or proof? What if ICE saw them and determined they were the “worst of the worst?”

What if, while you stood there stunned and helpless, the people I love were thrown to the ground, handcuffed, their heads pushed against the pavement—then taken away by men who refused to identify themselves or explain why?

Screenshot of the front page of The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper for Friday, January 23, 2026

I can imagine how this question might land for some. It might feel extreme. Unlikely. Like something that happens somewhere else—to other people.

And here’s why it feels this way. I see how some white folks respond when stories about ICE’s actions surface. There’s distance. Disbelief. A quick reassurance that this isn’t really about race.

And yet, this is precisely why I have to ask white people this question.

Because race is at the center of it—even when white folks insist it isn’t.

Citizenship in the U.S. has never been race-neutral. I’m not the one making it about race. History already did that.

From laws that defined citizenship through whiteness, to policies that made it easier for white European immigrants to belong while denying citizenship to people of color, to present-day enforcement practices that disproportionately target black and brown communities—race has always shaped who is presumed to belong and who is treated as outsider.

ICE made this about race when they chose who to target.

Maybe you’ve never had to imagine someone you love being treated as suspicious simply because of how they look. Maybe you assume the black and brown people in your life aren’t the kind of people ICE would go after.

But for my family, this isn’t theoretical.

It’s not a thought experiment. My brown kids fit the profile of the people ICE targets. My black immigrant husband—even though he’s a U.S. citizen—fits that profile too. This question lives in our bodies. It shows up in how we plan, how we move, how we stay alert.

Lately, my writing may seem scattered. One moment, I’m saying I still believe people can change—even now. And I do. Especially the people I love. Holding that belief doesn’t mean pretending things are fine. It means I stay honest about what hope actually costs.

The next moment, I’m questioning how the systems I was born into shape violence, division, and what we call “safety”—and how I learned my roles in those systems long before I understood I was playing them.

And now I’m here, asking white folks in my life to sit with this question.

It might seem disconnected. But for me, it all traces back to whiteness. This is what it looks like to work it out in real time—messy, nonlinear, and often uncomfortable. I’m noticing how automatic my reactions to race were trained into me, and how much effort it takes to loosen their grip.

When I raise this, I can already feel the pushback. The disbelief. The instinct to say, This isn’t something we need to worry about.

Based on years of trying to talk honestly about race and whiteness, denial has been the most common response from white folks. A turning away from a realities that don’t line up with your experience.

And that response matters. It’s part of why whiteness still holds on. Why inequity keeps growing. Why violence feels distant—until it doesn’t.

It’s also why my family doesn’t feel safe—not just in public spaces, but in relationships. It’s what drives distance between us. Because if you can’t imagine the state targeting the people I love, how can I trust you to recognize what’s happening if it does? How can I trust you to act?

Part of why I’m asking is because I haven’t given up on you. I still believe you can change. I still hope you can learn to see beyond your own vantage point and take in the world from the position of people who don’t get the benefit of being presumed innocent or belonging.

And I’m also asking because I need you to understand why things may feel strained right now. Why we may pull back. Why our relationships may not look the same—or may never look the same again.

Love that never asks anything of us can’t actually shield anyone.

Care that disappears when it gets uncomfortable was never safety to begin with.

So I’m asking you to do what I’m asking of myself.

Question the ways you may be contributing—knowingly or unknowingly—to the violence, division, and cruelty unfolding around us. Violence that isn’t abstract or political, but aimed at real people with names, histories, and futures.

People who look like my children. People who look and sound like my partner. People we love.

If ICE rolled up, who would you be in that moment?

I don’t ask this to shame you. I ask because the answers matter.

And because staying with the question—without turning away—might be one of the places real change begins. It might be where we can begin to find real safety, wholeness, and belonging.