A Princeton University professor and MSNBC contributor compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting deportation operations in Los Angeles to “slave catchers.”
Dr. Eddie Glaude, appearing on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on Monday, criticized the recent immigration enforcement actions and President Donald Trump’s remarks that “LA is on fire.” Glaude rejected the president’s claim as false and accused the administration of staging a spectacle for supporters.
“Folk have their red meat, now that they’re going to see the spectacle of quote, unquote ‘L.A. on fire,’ which is not right. What will happen? Will that activate the ugliness that got him in office in the first place? Will folks now declare why they love him?” Glaude said. “Because we know that he’s always good on the immigration question.”
Glaude went further, mentioning the Fugitive Slave Act and drawing a comparison between modern deportation enforcement and 19th-century laws that required citizens to return runaway slaves.
“This reminds me historically of – it’s not a clear analogy – but when the nation, when these political factions divided the nation between slaveholders and slave catchers, when they made everybody with the Fugitive Slave Law, all of us had to, if someone escaped all of us had to return that particular piece of property to these folks, with ICE running around LA, forcing people to make choices,” he said.
“Will they protect their friends, their neighbors, their family members? Will they take, will they confront these folks?” Glaude asked.
The professor also said that residents of Los Angeles are being “terrorized” by ICE’s presence in the city and appeared to defend the rioting.
“You see people crying, you see babies crying, and these people come in here and do this s***! What are they supposed to do?” he said.
“We know that the country is about to pop. So I’m sitting here trying to figure out – excuse the cuss word – I’m sitting here trying to figure out, right, what will the country stomach; are they going to allow this man to do this?” Glaude continued. “And the answer that I keep coming to is yes.”
“Here’s the thing: Donald Trump, as a political charlatan of sorts, gives Americans license to be who they really are. They don’t have to pretend and when you see what they really are, who they really are, these people who support him. Right? It’s dark,” he concluded.
