(Editor’s note: Sixth in a series)
After attacking general human rights, Germany’s “he who must not be named” began a shift to targeting minority rights, using the ideological construction of “us vs. them” with ethnic contours. The German state apparatus mobilized for large-scale violence under ideological justification.
In the U.S. today, immigration debates and enforcement often frame undocumented (and sometimes legal) immigrants as a separate category: a threat to public safety, a burden, potentially an “enemy” or outsider. For example:Critics of ICE point out that enforcement is increasingly aggressive and publicly politicized.
Public opinion shows ICE’s popularity dropping significantly: by mid-2025, ICE’s net favorability was negative, with a substantial share of Americans supporting its abolition.
The rhetoric of “invasion,” “illegal aliens” and “dangerous criminals” used by some officials creates an “us vs. them” tone.
This is not to suggest that at present the U.S. context mirrors the genocidal intent, breadth of violence or totalitarian state of the German 1930s and 1940s. The comparison is about mindset and mechanisms, not scale or moral equivalence.
One can observe certain parallels, with important caveats, in today’s U.S. political climate around immigration enforcement and ICE. Germany’s regime mobilized security units, eliminated resistance and institutionalized repression. Today, with legal U.S. citizens being detained, ICE has increased its enforcement reach, use of force and opaque operations. Plans for giant “detention building facilities” are being finalized.
Local law enforcement cooperation programs, such as here in Hamilton County, allow broader identification and immigrant arrests through local institutions. This trend of escalating state enforcement, blurring lines between civil and criminal law, increases pressure on immigrant communities.
Immigrant communities report heightened fear, reduced school attendance and community disruption due to raids and enforcement actions.
The U.S. system still has significant legal checks, constitutional protections, public accountability and open democratic debate — unlike the historic German regime which dismantled dissent and legal safeguards wholesale.
It is important to remember normalcy can shift; what once seemed extreme becomes everyday. The German regime gradually made mass violence computational and bureaucratized it.
In the U.S. today, the massive expansion of ICE’s budget, increased resources for enforcement and recruitment drives for ICE agents suggests normalization of large-scale interior enforcement. Some tactics formerly considered extraordinary, such as unmarked vans and courthouse arrests, are now common daily.
The public’s tolerance, or acquiescence, to large enforcement actions may shift over time.
The warning here is about how states may gradually scale enforcement and shift norms, making more extreme actions seem acceptable.
For those concerned about civil liberties, immigrant rights or democratic norms, these analogies offer a lens for vigilance — how easily rights erode when a state defines “outsiders,” grants extraordinary powers to enforcement agencies and suppresses or criminalizes dissent and resistance.
For policymakers and the public, the implication is to ask: Are enforcement powers proportionate? Are oversight, accountability and legal safeguards maintained? Is the framing of immigrants as the “enemy within” being used to justify broad powers? What do you think?
Fred Gault, a local business owner, is a former radio, television and newspaper journalist. He worked at the Chattanooga Times in the 1960s.