No One Is Safe When Justice Depends on Your Skin Tone

What this is like for immigrants like my wife, Marilyn, who followed all the rules

My wife, Marilyn, immigrated to the US from Mexico legally, is an accountant, has a Master’s Degree from Mizzou, and is everything we supposedly ask of an immigrant.

Today, she shares the pain, frustration, and anger of what’s going on from her point of view.

Marilyn and our two little boys on Harvey’s second birthday this week.

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What ICE is doing across the country should make every American furious—because this is not freedom.

I’ve been watching the protests spread, and I can’t stay quiet. Because what we’re witnessing right now isn’t just about immigration. It’s about who gets to be treated as a person in this country, and who gets thrown into the shadows.

If you missed one of my earlier pieces for Lucas’s Substack, I shared my own immigration story. You can read it here. I came the so-called “right way,” but even that path was steep. I told the truth about how hard it was, how arbitrary and punishing the system can be, and why I’ll never judge those who couldn’t wait in line, especially the young people who were brought here as children. The DACA recipients. The dreamers. I don’t blame them. I blame the people behind the institutions that built this maze and then dared to call it a dream.

Let’s name what’s happening right now. Across the country, ICE is targeting not just undocumented immigrants, but anyone who looks what they think an immigrant looks like. They’re stopping workers on their way to the fields. They’re showing up at bus stations, schools, and parking lots. They are targeting people like me and my family. They don’t need proof. They don’t even pretend anymore. Brown skin, an accent, the “wrong” last name, that’s all it takes.

This isn’t about border security. It’s racial profiling backed by state power.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Robert Kennedy (senior, obviously) “we know that if one man’s rights are denied, the rights of all are endangered”. So how can we stay silent as mothers are dragged from their children outside school drop-offs? As teenagers are thrown to the ground for speaking Spanish in public? As homes are raided without warrants and entire neighborhoods live in fear? And even worse, how can we stay silent as people are dying in detention, stripped of due process, with no video, no accountability, just the version ICE decides to tell?

As we learned from Senator Alex Padilla, if this is how they treat a US Senator in front of cameras, how do you think everyone else is being treated when no one is watching?

This isn’t law and order. This is fear as policy. Cruelty as the point.

It hurts to watch a country that once claimed to offer freedom and dignity lose its soul. The undocumented aren’t the only ones being hunted. A pregnant US citizen was hospitalized after being manhandled by ICE. Other US citizens were arrested by ICE for speaking Spanish. American-born children are going home to empty houses. High schoolers are afraid to go to class. Small business owners are being harassed in towns they helped build. Any brown-skinned American can be stopped, questioned, and searched without cause.

And let’s not pretend this is accidental. It’s happening under an administration that has made open hostility toward Latin Americans part of its brand. It’s happening in a system designed to criminalize poverty, exploit fear, and reward silence. And all the while, the corporations that rely on immigrant labor look the other way, profiting off the same people being rounded up, detained, and disappeared.

I’ve seen people yell at immigrant children while they cling to their parents in fear. I’ve seen toddlers alone in court, trying to defend themselves, because their parents were deported and no lawyer was assigned to their case. It is inhumane.

But who’s to blame?

The politicians who refuse to act. The lawmakers who campaign on immigration every election year but never pass a real solution. They use these families, these people, as talking points. Meanwhile, nothing changes. It’s a failure of leadership. It’s a failure of courage. Congress could fix this tomorrow. They just choose not to.

Why? Because fear is profitable. Chaos wins elections. Immigration, like poverty, like race, has been weaponized. It’s used to divide neighbors. To distract voters. To keep power in the hands of the few who benefit from keeping us at each other’s throats.

Let’s be clear: this cruelty isn’t a side effect. It’s the plan.

This is not just about immigration. This is about dignity. About what kind of nation we want to be. We can either keep playing this ugly game, where human beings are pawns and children are treated like criminals, or we can demand something better. We need laws that reflect reality, reform that prioritizes humanity, leadership that doesn’t look away.

And if Congress continues to refuse action, then it’s our responsibility to act. To hold them accountable. To vote for change and to stay engaged until this issue is no longer ignored.

Because in the end, the people being targeted are not the enemy. The vast majority aren’t criminals. They are families, workers, children, doing their best, just like all of us.

The enemy is the one who pits us against one other, and who profits every time we fall for it.

-Marilyn Kunce