Racial Profiling Betrays What It Means to Be American
The US Constitution does not permit government agents to detain people because of how they look, the language they speak, or the jobs they hold.
Earlier this month, a member of my staff—a person of color—was aggressively stopped by three Customs and Border Protection officers near Union Station on his commute home from the Capitol. He had done nothing wrong but was targeted because he fit a profile. The questioning ended only when he produced his congressional identification.
This is the daily reality for countless Americans who cannot end such encounters by showing their staff badge: If your skin is darker, your English is accented, or your job low wage, you may be forced to prove your right to exist in public spaces.
In a 6-3 decision in Vásquez Perdomo v. Noem, the US Supreme Court permitted federal agents in Los Angeles to carry out “roving” immigration stops based on factors like appearance, language, workplace, or location. This marks a departure from the 1975 ruling in Brignoni-Ponce, which held that ethnicity could be considered but not be the sole basis for suspicion. By setting aside lower court rulings that regarded the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stops as racial profiling, the court has now paved the way for agents to target individuals even when race or ethnicity is the primary factor driving their suspicion.
The order is not the Supreme Court’s final word, but it signals that the majority may not uphold strict limits on immigration stops. For millions, that is chilling. Back home in Illinois, community leaders are already sounding the alarm on residents skipping public celebrations like Mexican Independence Day and even the workday, rather than risk being stopped and potentially detained, even if they have legal status or are American citizens.
No one’s freedom should hinge on the color of their skin, the cadence of their speech, the work they do, or the number of letters in their name.
Such consequences are not theoretical. The Trump administration has pushed for 3,000 arrests per day, redirected agents from criminal work into sweeping dragnets, and ramped up employer audits often used to stage raids. Under such pressure, mistakes and abuses multiply. Law enforcement is moving quickly to meet Trump’s demands, and profiling the public to do it, due process and civil liberties be damned.
In Georgia, a South Korean engineer with a valid visa was swept up in a factory raid and coerced into “voluntary” departure. In Florida, a US citizen was jailed on an ICE detainer despite clear proof of his citizenship. These are not isolated errors but evidence of how quotas and racial shortcuts endanger all of us.
The US Constitution does not permit government agents to detain people because of how they look, the language they speak, or the jobs they hold. That safeguard, rooted in centuries of American law, is not a privilege reserved for the well-connected, but a constitutional right held by us all. When officers detain first and question later, they invert the burden of proof, forcing individuals to justify their own freedom. That is not order; it is the slow normalization of a society where those who don’t match preconceived notions of what it means to look like an American must constantly prove they belong.
The fiercest advocates for mass immigration raids often draw on the Great Replacement Theory, an antisemitic and racist belief that nonwhite immigrants are being brought into the country, with the help of the Jewish community, to “replace” white Americans and shift political power. Once confined to the fringes of the far-right, this lie has caught fire in recent years, even inspiring national tragedies such as the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered for the imagined crime of aiding “replacement.” Variations of this conspiracy theory have since been invoked by US President Donald Trump and echoed by members of his administration to justify mass, militarized immigration raids amid a new wave of xenophobia.
Beyond its hateful consequences, the Great Replacement Theory denies a fundamental truth: We are not a nation defined by race or ancestry, nor by narrow ideas of what an American looks like. If we were, a child born in India who spent time living in public housing and on food stamps would not go on to serve in the halls of Congress. But that story of the American Dream, which is not unique to me, illustrates the beauty of this country and the promise of that dream. It was President Ronald Reagan who reminded us in his last speech as president that Americans are defined by principles, not bloodlines: “Anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
We must insist that liberty and equality are inseparable: No one’s freedom should hinge on the color of their skin, the cadence of their speech, the work they do, or the number of letters in their name. We must reject policies that turn people into targets—whether through arrest quotas, sweeping dragnets, or the politics of fear. And we must remember that our freedoms are never self-executing; they endure only so long as we defend them, together.
The Fourth Amendment’s promise is simple: Power must knock, explain itself, and answer to law. That promise belongs not only to the fortunate few but to every worker heading to a factory, every parent walking a child to school, every neighbor waiting at a bus stop. It belongs to those who may never carry congressional identification, yet who carry something far greater: the unshakable right to live with dignity and security in the country they call home—a country bound by our Constitution.
