PUBLIC ALERT — HISTORICAL MISREPRESENTATION NOTICE

The public is advised that comparing ICE enforcement to “slave catchers” is false, historically inaccurate, and disrespectful to the ancestors of Freedmen.

Enslavement in the United States was a hereditary, permanent, and legally codified system of chattel slavery imposed on the ancestors of Freedmen—specifically Freedmen as a people—who were treated as property under law, denied personhood, and subjected to generational capture, sale, and forced labor. Slave catchers existed to reclaim enslaved human property under statutes such as the Fugitive Slave Acts.

By contrast, modern immigration enforcement—however debated—does not constitute chattel slavery. Immigrants are not slaves, are not property, and are not subject to hereditary bondage. Conflating these realities collapses distinct histories, erases the unique harms suffered by the ancestors of Freedmen, and trivializes the legal and moral gravity of American slavery.

Using slavery language to frame contemporary immigration disputes:

• Misrepresents history

• Dilutes the meaning of chattel slavery

• Disrespects the ancestors of Freedmen

• Undermines serious public discourse

Advocacy must be precise, truthful, and historically responsible. Disagreement with immigration policy does not justify rewriting or appropriating the history of slavery.

We call on media, advocates, and public figures to cease false equivalencies, respect historical specificity, and honor ancestors whose suffering is not a metaphor.

Accuracy matters. History matters. Respect matters.