Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is urging Black Americans to pay close attention to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Chicago, saying the tactics used against immigrant communities could eventually target U.S. citizens.

Speaking in an interview with independent media platform Here’s Why, Crockett addressed reports that ICE agents raided an apartment complex in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. In this predominantly Black community, families were allegedly zip-tied and children separated from their parents.

Crockett pushed back against the idea that immigration enforcement only impacts non-citizens.

“They are rounding up U.S. citizens. But if you allow them to do illegal things to non-citizens, at some point in time, they are going to actually round us up too,” she said. “We are all in the same sinking ship right now. And if we don’t work together, we are all going to end up drowning.”

The Congresswoman compared ICE’s aggressive tactics to historic “slave patrols,” warning that normalizing raids erodes rights for everyone.

She noted that immigrants contribute billions to the U.S. economy through taxes and labor, yet are being “disappeared off the streets” in a manner she described as “inhumane.”

Crockett also criticized what she described as the current administration’s “othering” tactics, noting the irony that both the president and vice president are white men married to immigrants while pushing harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric.

She explained that Black Americans cannot afford to view immigration as someone else’s issue:

“I need us to stop allowing them to divide us and make it seem like this ain’t my problem. This ain’t my business. Because all of it is all of our business.”

Her remarks come amid broader concerns about government shutdown impacts, ongoing immigration crackdowns, and political messaging battles between Democrats and Republicans.