I have been asking myself why a lot the past year. Wondering exactly what caused a surge in ICE presence across the country as if I did not know the reason. It was more of a denial as I watched and documented New Jersey. ICE has had a silent presence in Jersey since 1892. Most people do not know that. We have had Elizabeth Detention Center nearly three decades with brutality in the forms of broken bones and detainees forced to squalor in feces. None of this is new. The cameras are, though.

The world is documented billions of times a day, sometimes in the most minimal way, like a picture accidentally taken as you fumble your keys rushing out the door for work. The sun rises and is expected to for a few more billion years, but we won’t see even 1% of that. Whether it be fossil fuels in the 80s or low availability of water in 2026, we will always be polluted. ICE has been our PFAS. Slowly in our water, floating through streams and rivers into marginalized communities, polluting. As it weaved its way into mainstream media, taking different names over the years, people seeking a better life became the villain in rhetoric. The people who wanted a better life became the villain in rhetoric. 

As New Jersey houses over two million immigrants, ICE has found industry. Currently the availability of beds imprisoning community members does not reach over 2,500 unless prison systems historically established take them in. How could over two million people fit inside less than 300,000 sq. feet? The total area of two active detention centers in the Garden State. By all means, mathematically it is not possible. 

At the heart of ICE lies profit. The billions invested into software companies monitoring you, the AR-15s agents hold when attacking protesters, and even the printer ink used for bail bonds, which bankrupt families. 

Immigrants contribute over $650 billion in tax revenue a year. The cost to deport them all, is 9.34139e11. The U.S. government struck gold, and every business is seeing it but the American people. How many zeros at the end of a number will it take before those digits become your zip code? How many zeros at the end of a number that is now 16 characters, like a credit card, will it take to see you made it all possible by investing smart and eating your vegetables? You grew up on Got Milk campaigns and being told weed is a gateway drug when the real deficit and drug were the propaganda embedded in your core values. 

Families weep, people packaged and shipped like a two-day prime order. Somewhere they have do not recognize is now their home, separate from all the other family members with the same fate. Without resources, the government created a human landfill. Somehow you became the polluter, filling it with your own community members. Families weep. 

Children born in America are now orphaned as they cry, hanging on, connected with their parents for a second as the heroes who raised the children abducted them from men who often fought in war for their freedom. Children orphaned. 

Assets seized while insured by government agencies promising $250,000 in the loss of funds by the FDIC are now reinvested in sending bombs to Israel so the world can watch as Brown kids are blown up. 

Money was sent to a billionaire who controls 1.09% of all wealth in America. A fraction in digits but a control of 330,000,000 people feeding his algorithms selling you propaganda. Did you have enough money to pay rent? What’s the one thing you need to fix in your house but are unable to afford? Could you afford cancer or your spouse dying today?

Families weepin pain. 

You look into your communities as cameras look back, feeding the brave men and women who protect and serve, only if you’re white, though. You geotag your surroundings as you cross a toll booth. Likewise, you give free intelligence every time you answer an Instagram sticker, training your A.I. replacement. 

You watch as your friends are beaten and tear-gassed miles away while you hydrate with a Hydro Flask. You sit there scrolling TikToks as they become real. Uttering “Wow, that’s crazy,” within seconds you are watching a review of a magical skincare device zapping your face, promising eternal youth. You put your phone down, walking to the fridge for a snack while millions of your neighbors go hungry. 

The world changed a million times in the two minutes it required getting back to the couch while you didn’t warm up a leftover burrito about to be your dinner because you worked 11 hours and didn’t even have an opportunity to stop at a Whole Foods. You worked hard today and served capitalism as people were quietly taken on highways, ports of entry, and even the school pickup line. 

You get tired and go to bed, not even thinking the government wants 9.34139e11 dead. 

Families weep.