Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, criticized the Trump administration’s plan to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Democratic-led cities, comparing the strategy to antebellum slave patrols.
Crockett likens the Trump administration’s ICE raids to ‘slave patrols’
Crockett candidly discussed the issue with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Sunday, stating that sending federal agents into these cities does not improve public safety. She also drew parallels between Trump’s deployment of militarized police and the Southern “slave patrol” tactic, where white men would hunt down escaped enslaved people, Black Enterprise reported.
“As somebody who understands history, when I see ICE, I see slave patrols,” Crockett told Velshi during the interview.
She continued, “But as somebody who understands history, when I see slave patrols — now, I never lived through the slave patrol period — but if you know the history of policing in this country, then you understand that they were born out of slave patrols. And now with the Supreme Court saying this, it’s almost like you can just go grab them up.”
Crimes by white supremacists vs. crimes by undocumented immigrants
The administration has focused on cracking down on migrant crime nationwide. The recent death of 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton, who was sexually assaulted and strangled by an undocumented immigrant, drew renewed attention from conservative leaders. But Crockett said white supremacists commit murders at far higher rates than undocumented immigrants.
“None of us want to be unsafe. Yeah, but we’re not looking at the facts,” Crockett said. “We’re not look at the fact that immigrants, regardless of how many times you’re going to cherry-pick and say, ‘Well, there was this one immigrant that was here illegally, and they ended up killing this one person.’ Well, for every immigrant that you have an example of, I’ll raise you at least two to five white supremacists, if not more, right?”
The congressperson also criticized a recent Supreme Court decision that permits federal agents to broadly target immigrants in Los Angeles, warning it could allow people to be questioned simply for speaking Spanish, per Black Enterprise. She said the ruling highlights the importance of Americans understanding Black history and how these acts have been done before.
“It’s almost like you can just go grab them up — that is what they’re saying. And that is a problem,” Crockett said. “We all should have a problem with that. But when you don’t want to teach American history, that includes Black history, then you lose out on the benefit of understanding that we have been down this road before, and it was not good, and we fixed it once, and it is a shame that we are relitigating this and we are going to have to fix it again.”
Crockett has been very vocal in criticizing Trump and his administration on immigration, the economy and the financial strain on the American people, as well as safety for lawmakers and other issues.
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