YEAH, BUT THEY'RE BROWN, NOT BLACK...:

The reports and images of ICE officers staking out homes and arresting people recall a parallel moment in history in apartheid South Africa, where the authorities regularly swept up black people under the "pass laws," a system that rigidly regulated the movement of black people from so-called homelands to the white urban centers.

The pass laws represented one of the most inhumane and hated aspects of the South African apartheid system. Under a system of racially based citizenship laws, the apartheid regime mandated that all black South Africans over the age of 16 carry a "pass" in the form of a small reference book--brown for men, blue for women--at all times. Without these passes it was virtually impossible to find work, obtain housing, register births, or obtain a range of labor rights. Failure to carry it was a crime.

This system of "influx control" entailed the constant policing of homes and other private spaces as well as public places like train stations and places of employment. Uniformed police squads would sweep communities in frequent pass raids and arrest "illegals," or anyone caught without a pass in a designated white neighborhood. Those caught in the pass raids were forcibly removed to "homelands," where they would be relegated to lives of starvation and deprivation. A system that clearly demarcated and labeled "others" based on their race and ethnicity, the pass laws wreaked havoc on black families by forcing the separation of spouses from spouses and children from their parents, consequently destabilizing communities.

The pass law raids subordinated the humanity of black individuals caught in the web of constant surveillance. Treated as mere numbers, they were stalked and hounded like prey. Between 1916 and 1984, approximately 17,745,000 black South Africans were arrested or prosecuted under the so-called influx control laws. The officials responsible had lost empathy for those whom they considered "illegals"--and they failed to see their humanity or care about their survival.

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