FUCK ICE

Colonization, Migration, and Enforcement Culture

For the next graphic, Colonialism looks at the history surrounding the earliest forms of colonial enforcement beginning when European empires first arrived on Indigenous lands and built systems of control that restricted movement, removed people from their homelands, and justified violence through racialized narratives. This history stretches back to first contact, when Europeans began imposing structures that still shape the present. Long before ICE, long before borders, long before the idea of “illegal” people, colonial governments were already deciding who belonged and who didn’t. Historians such as Andrés Reséndez (2016) have shown that Indigenous enslavement and policing were not side stories but central pillars of colonization across North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, early enforcement systems designed to control land, bodies, and movement.

Indigenous nations across Turtle Island welcomed newcomers with protocols of visiting, trade, kinship, and diplomacy. Indigenous scholars have documented how movement across the continent was relational, unrestricted, restricted at times, and grounded in responsibilities to land, territories, and community (Simpson, 2017; Alfred, 2009; Anderson, 2011). Europeans did not enter an empty land; they entered land full of sovereign nations with their own laws, governance, traditions, systems, and teachings.

Meanwhile, European powers were already creating hierarchies of belonging among themselves. British colonial officials frequently described incoming Irish migrants as dangerous, undesirable, or “unfit,” using fear based rhetoric to justify exclusion and control (Kenny, 2014). Spanish colonial administrations used similar narratives to manage movement and maintain power in their territories (Reséndez, 2016). These early patterns of racialized migration control laid the groundwork for the enforcement systems that would later emerge in Turtle Island (North America).

Modern journalism has documented how these colonial logics continue today. Reporting from The Guardian, Reuters, The New York Times, and the Associated Press has shown how ICE’s detention practices, raids, and family separations disproportionately impact migrant and Indigenous descendant communities, especially in regions where ancestral homelands cross the U.S.- Mexico border (Davis, 2018; Dickerson, 2019; Associated Press, 2020; Reuters, 2021).

How can people be “illegal” on stolen land, and on lands their ancestors have lived on since time immemorial? Indigenous scholars have long argued that the concept of “illegal” people is a colonial invention. It’s a tool used to control land, restrict movement, and justify violence (Coulthard, 2014; Simpson, 2017; Alfred, 2009). Many communities targeted by modern enforcement systems have ancestral ties to these lands that go back thousands of years. The border itself is a colonial line drawn across Indigenous homelands, dividing families, nations, and trade routes (Grande, 2015).

This graphic connects to the long history of colonial enforcement from the Pass System, the Reserve Reservation system, Residential Schools, the Sixties Scoop, and CFS to modern immigration policing and uses Billy Jack, the 1970s mixed heritage counterculture icon, to highlight how resistance to violent authority has always been part of Indigenous and allied struggles. Billy Jack’s role in American cinema has been widely discussed in film circles throughout Turtle Island, where he is recognized as a figure who confronted racism and corruption in our systems, like the corruption we see in law enforcement (Aleiss, 2005; Slotkin, 1998).

The documentary Reel Injun (Diamond, 2009) reinforces this legacy: Ojibway critic Jesse Wente explains that Billy Jack symbolized the era’s collective anger and refusal to accept systemic injustice, while director Neil Diamond recalls how Native youth “all wanted to be Billy Jack.” The film also connects Billy Jack’s on screen defiance to real-world activism, including the rise of AIM and the occupation of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee. News outlets at the time documented how Billy Jack became a symbol of resistance during a politically tense era. In this graphic, Billy Jack drop kicks an ICE agent wearing a red hat, drawing a direct line between historical colonial policing and contemporary immigration enforcement. It’s a reminder that Indigenous peoples have always been here and that resistance to colonial enforcement is generations deep.

Aho Shamay!

References

Alfred, T. (2009). Wasáse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom. University of Toronto Press.

Anderson, K. (2011). Life stages and Native women: Memory, teachings, and story medicine. University of Manitoba Press.

Associated Press. (2020). US immigration agency criticized for treatment of detainees. Associated Press News.

Coulthard, G. S. (2014). Red skin, white masks: Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. University of Minnesota Press.

David Rumsey Map Center. (n.d.). Native Tribes of North America, Central America and the Caribbean [Map]. David Rumsey Map Collection. https:// ww w.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~273022~90046772

Davis, A. (2018). ICE’s actions raise concerns about racial profiling and migrant rights. The Guardian.

Diamond, N. (2009). Reel Injun [Film]. National Film Board of Canada.

Dickerson, C. (2019). The impact of family separation on migrant communities. The New York Times.

Grande, S. (2015). Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought (10th anniversary ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Kenny, K. (2014). The Irish in the Atlantic world. Cambridge University Press.

Reuters. (2021). US immigration enforcement faces scrutiny over detention conditions. Reuters.

Reséndez, A. (2016). The other slavery: The uncovered story of Indian enslavement in America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Simpson, L. B. (2017). As we have always done: Indigenous freedom through radical resistance. University of Minnesota Press.

Slotkin, R. (1998). Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth century America. University of Oklahoma Press.