In trying to make sense of the relatively recent escalation of ICE raids and subsequent military response to civilian resistance, it is necessary to interrogate what fascism is, how ICE uses safety narratives to further its imperialist and capitalist goals, and their public health implications in order to recognize and mitigate fascist narratives in our own work.
Our understanding of fascism it that it is imperialism turned inwards; in other words, everything the U.S. does as an imperial power to gain and maintain that power globally, is now inflicted on its own citizens. More specifically, as Dallas Jokic defines it, fascism is “a nationalist political movement committed to extreme patriarchy, the valorization of violence, rejection of democracy, reliance on repressive mechanisms of the state, embrace of “natural” hierarchy, and persistent scapegoating of usually racialized others, both internal and external. Fascism is reactionary, in that it responds to real or perceived gains, especially when those gains threaten a supposedly natural hierarchy (usually understood in national, racial, and gendered terms).” By this working definition, ICE raids are fascist because they use an extreme form of nationalism and scapegoating to justify the inhumane treatment of predominantly Black and Brown migrants in the United States for the benefit of the capitalist class.
The narrative around immigration, similar to public health, almost always happens in the context of public safety. In order to construct a convincing argument of safety, there needs to be an identified threat, either real or manufactured, to keep “America” and its citizens safe from. In order for there to be a threat, there needs to be a division created between an “us” and a “them.” In the context of immigration, the threat or “them” has been made out to be immigrants from the Global South who have to be dehumanized (criminal, taking resources, less than, etc.) in order to be dealt with in the name of “public safety.” This “safety” is allegedly being pursued in the name of an ill-defined and ever-changing “us.”
Yet, we know from history that immigration in the U.S. has never solely been about immigration and contrived conceptions of safety. Citizenship has always changed to fit the needs of the U.S. at the time. For example, Indigenous peoples needed to be dehumanized and othered to justify mass murder and land theft for the benefit of the capitalist class through settler colonialism. Per their reference in the Declaration of Independence as “merciless Indian Savages,” Indigenous peoples were not considered human and therefore not citizens, stripped of any rights. Enslaved Africans were not considered citizens until 1868, justifying their continued dehumanization and subjugation for the benefit of the imperial powers via capitalism. Today, by and large, immigrants from the Global South are not granted citizenship because doing so would humanize them within the U.S.’s parameters of who is worthy of citizenship, and therefore human rights. Instead, they need to be dehumanized so that the U.S. can justify ongoing resource extraction from their origin countries. Moreover, this dehumanization justifies the exploitation of immigrant labor by keeping them in low-wage, physically demanding jobs and by way of slave labor in prisons, ICE detention centers, and internment camps, all of which serve to uphold capitalism.
Safety narratives, our modern understanding of homeland security, and the relationship between imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and fascism are best described in the Never Ending War on Terror by Alex Lubin. In this book, Lubin demonstrates that the modern framework of “national” or “public safety” derives from islamophobia and American exceptionalism. Notably, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in 2003 in response to 9/11, with the stated goal of fighting terrorism globally. Coincidentally (or not), we now see this administration referring to those resisting ICE violence as terrorists, deeming it necessary to weaponize the National Guard and Marines to protect “us.” Fortunately, these scare tactics are falling short and all across the U.S. we have seen many of “us” come together to lock ICE out of businesses, drive them out of cities, and through various other ways fight for the dignity and humanity of their neighbors.
The use of fear, excessive and/or lethal force, family separation, imprisonment, and surveillance as tools of state control—hallmarks of fascist regimes—constitutes a public health emergency. These tactics not only violate human rights but also compromise our ability to live a healthy and dignified life, undermining mental, physical, and community well-being in ways that extend far beyond the immediate moment of harm.
The persistent threat of ICE raids and subsequent kidnappings transform everyday spaces into zones of danger. Workplaces, schools, hospitals, and even places of worship have become sites of surveillance and potential violence. People living under threat may avoid hospitals or clinics altogether, fearing exposure to law enforcement or collaboration between public institutions and ICE. This avoidance disrupts continuity of care, delays treatment, and heightens the risk of preventable illnesses becoming chronic or deadly. Even where healthcare is technically accessible, it is functionally out of reach for many. Psychologically, the ever-present threat of state violence, through raids, detentions, and deportations, functions as a form of state-sanctioned trauma. The constant fear of abduction and separation creates a constant state of hypervigilance. Over time, this chronic stress and panic has demonstrably led to a wide range of negative health outcomes.
Structural violence also erodes trust in public institutions. When ICE raids occur in or around schools, churches, or hospitals, these spaces lose their function as sanctuaries. The fear that any institution could be complicit in one’s detention reinforces a broader mistrust in the state, including its public health systems. As a result, entire communities are effectively excluded from the very infrastructures that are meant to support human well-being. This atmosphere of fear disables entire communities: people feel forced to skip work entirely or leave early, limit their mobility, avoid public spaces, and live in constant psychological distress, all of which carry direct and indirect public health consequences. The mere threat of a raid is sufficient to destabilize entire households and communities.
When people are kidnapped and held in ICE custody, conditions deteriorate drastically. As of mid-2025, at least eight people have died in ICE detention since January. Reports by Physicians for Human Rights consistently document egregious neglect in these facilities, including delayed or denied medical care, overcrowding, lack of hygiene, poor nutrition, and denial of privacy—conditions that mirror the systemic neglect found in the broader U.S. prison and jail system. These environments actively exacerbate illness, accelerate the spread of disease, and encode poor health that will be found in generations to come.
The trauma inflicted by ICE and our nation’s government has and will continue to reverberate across generations. Families are torn apart, without warning or recourse; children as young as two years old have been deported. The emotional and psychological toll on children living under the threat of family separation is well-documented. Adults, too, suffer deeply, many haunted by the fear that they will be forcibly separated from their children and other loved ones, with no knowledge of where they are taken or how to reunite. Hundreds of thousands of migrant children have been disappeared while under the “care” of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. This is not just a failure of bureaucracy; it is a mass trauma event with lifelong implications.
ICE raids are not isolated incidents, they are structural mechanisms of fear and control that must be understood as part of a broader public health crisis. When policies deliberately undermine safety, trust, bodily autonomy, and family integrity, they erode the very conditions necessary for health. To fully grasp the public health consequences of state-sanctioned violence, we must continue to critically examine how narratives of “public safety” construct an imagined threat in order to manufacture consent for exclusion and domination. Public health is not immune from this logic. The field has deployed similar mechanisms of fear, surveillance, isolation, and control, often under the banner of serving the “greater good” (i.e., imprisoning people with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS). But “safety for whom?” and “at whose expense?” are questions we must ask relentlessly. Fascism is not just seen through ICE raids or military responses to protest, it is embedded in institutional practices that normalize dehumanization. As public health practitioners, scholars, and community members, it is our responsibility to expose and dismantle these narratives. Only by confronting how tools of surveillance, isolation, and exclusion have been justified in the name of public health can we begin to build a public health framework rooted in true safety.
Authored by Deionna Vigil and Shivani Nishar
Co Editors of Public Health is Political
