The United States did not emerge accidentally as a global power. It was built through two foundational crimes: the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the system of chattel slavery. Both were morally indefensible, both were economically indispensable to the formation of the American state, and both were repeatedly justified—explicitly and implicitly—through appeals to Christian theology, racial hierarchy, and destiny.¹²

The founding of the United States did not mark the beginning of these crimes but their consolidation. Genocide and slavery were already well underway, embedded in colonial law, economic life, and social order long before independence was declared.³

European settlers arrived at Plymouth Colony in 1620 and initially relied on Native American assistance for survival.⁴ That period of cooperation was short-lived. As settler populations grew and European weaponry, disease, and military organization proved decisive, Indigenous peoples were systematically displaced, massacred, starved, or confined.⁵

From the earliest recorded massacres in the 17th century through the end of the so-called Indian Wars in the late 19th century, violence against Native Americans was not incidental—it was policy.⁶ Historians identify the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee as the end of organized Indigenous armed resistance, marking the completion of territorial conquest.⁷

Scholars estimate that hundreds of massacres occurred during this period.⁸ Far more devastating than direct violence, however, were starvation, forced displacement, and epidemic disease. Prior to European contact, the Indigenous population of North America is estimated to have ranged between 5 and 15 million people.⁹ By the end of the 19th century, that population had been reduced to fewer than 250,000.¹⁰

This was not an unfortunate byproduct of settlement—it was a prerequisite. The land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans could not be seized and developed without the elimination of its original inhabitants.¹¹

The second foundational crime was slavery. The transatlantic slave trade began in English North America in 1619, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia.¹² Slavery expanded steadily for nearly two and a half centuries and was not abolished until the end of the Civil War in 1865.¹³

At its peak in 1860, the enslaved population in the United States numbered approximately four million people.¹⁴ These men, women, and children were legally considered property. They possessed no rights, no bodily autonomy, and no legal protection against beating, rape, torture, or murder.¹⁵

The wealth of the young republic—particularly in the Southern states—was inseparable from enslaved labor. Cotton alone became the dominant American export, feeding textile mills in both the United States and Europe.¹⁶ Modern economic historians widely agree that slavery was not a backward or inefficient system, but a highly profitable one that accelerated American industrial and financial development.¹⁷

Like genocide, slavery was routinely justified by Christian institutions and theological arguments that framed racial domination as divinely ordained.¹⁸

Despite overwhelming historical evidence, these crimes have been consistently minimized, reframed, or erased from popular memory.¹⁹ That process of whitewashing continues today.

The current administration has openly promoted efforts to sanitize American history, including pressure on cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian to emphasize “patriotic” narratives and downplay historical injustices deemed “divisive” or “offensive.”²⁰ The implicit argument is clear: honest history reflects poorly on white America and therefore must be revised.

Today, the United States is engaged in what can best be described as state-sanctioned mass removal—a system that blends forced displacement, detention, and family destruction. Whether labeled deportation, enforcement, or border security, the underlying practice increasingly resembles collective punishment rather than lawful immigration control.²¹

The stated goal of the current administration is the removal of millions of non-white immigrants, often framed narrowly as the deportation of “criminals.” In reality, numerous reports and court filings show that many of those targeted have no violent criminal record, have lived in the United States for decades, and in some cases possess lawful status or pending legal claims.²²

The political motive is difficult to ignore: reducing future voters and reversing demographic changes perceived as threatening to white political dominance.²³

Historically, deportation in the United States involved a lengthy legal process, including notice, hearings before an immigration judge, and the opportunity to present evidence.²⁴ Supporters of the current administration frequently cite the high number of removals during the Obama presidency, but those figures obscure critical differences in due process, enforcement priorities, and the treatment of families and long-term residents.²⁵

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) now operates a sprawling detention system in which individuals are apprehended, transported, and confined—often without timely access to legal counsel. Reports from journalists, medical professionals, and human rights organizations describe unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, lack of medical care, and denial of basic necessities such as clean water.²⁶

Deaths in immigration custody have been documented, and while the United States has not engaged in systematic mass killing, history does not require identical outcomes to warrant comparison.²⁷ The use of a secretive enforcement apparatus to round up a targeted population, detain them indefinitely, and strip them of legal protections bears an uncomfortable resemblance to earlier authoritarian systems such as Nazi Germany.²⁸

Comparisons to Nazi Germany are often rejected out of hand, dismissed as inflammatory or inappropriate. But such reflexive dismissal serves less to protect historical accuracy than to prevent moral scrutiny. The Gestapo was not defined solely by mass extermination; it was defined by its function as a secretive enforcement arm of the state, empowered to identify, apprehend, detain, and disappear targeted populations outside ordinary legal protections.²⁹

Immigration and Customs Enforcement now performs a structurally similar role. It operates with broad discretion, limited transparency, and minimal accountability. Individuals are apprehended without warning, transferred across jurisdictions, denied timely access to counsel, and confined in detention facilities that function as de facto concentration camps—places where large groups of civilians are held indefinitely based on identity rather than individual guilt.³⁰

Historical analogies do not require identical outcomes to be instructive. They require comparable mechanisms of power. The early stages of authoritarian systems are rarely recognized in real time precisely because they are framed as temporary, legal, or necessary. To reject all comparison until the most extreme outcomes occur is not moral caution; it is moral abdication.³¹

If an individual citizen forcibly abducted another person and expelled them from their home, it would be a serious crime. Yet when the government does so at scale, it claims moral and legal immunity.

People who have lived in the United States for 20 years or more are now being detained and deported. Families are torn apart. Personal property is lost or confiscated. There are documented cases of abuse, including sexual assault, in detention facilities.³² Many of those removed were actively complying with immigration procedures when enforcement actions occurred.³³

These harms are justified by a culture that treats certain lives as disposable—and that culture remains driven by white privilege and racialized fear.

The United States cannot confront its present without naming it honestly. Genocide, slavery, and forced removal are not closed chapters of American history; they are recurring methods of state power. Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement represents the latest institutional expression of that power. Through raids, detention, and deportation, ICE enforces a system that disappears people from their homes, separates families, and strips individuals of legal and human dignity—often without meaningful due process.

These actions are not merely controversial policy choices; they are morally indefensible and criminal in nature. Were an individual or private organization to abduct people, confine them indefinitely, and expel them from their communities, the law would rightly call it kidnapping. That the same acts are carried out under the authority of the state does not cleanse them of their immorality—it magnifies it.

History shows that societies rarely recognize their crimes while they are committing them. They are justified as necessary, legal, and temporary. ICE operates under precisely these claims. But legality does not equal legitimacy, and enforcement does not equal justice. Until Americans are willing to recognize ICE’s practices as part of a long continuum of state violence—rather than an aberration—the cycle will continue. New victims will replace old ones, new language will mask familiar crimes, and the American state will persist in harming those it deems expendable.