We Have Seen This Before and We Cannot Look Away
In late January, six Seattle public schools went into shelter-in-place after unconfirmed ICE sightings were reported nearby. There were no raids. But the fear and uncertainty inflicted upon children and their families are damaging nonetheless. When simply sending your child to school risks them being intimated or targeted by ICE agents, something is deeply wrong.
Jewish Family Service was founded 134 years ago to support refugees and immigrants. Jewish communities carry in our collective memory the knowledge of what happens when fear is normalized, when governments decide some people are disposable, when communities stay silent because they believe they are safe or are too fearful to speak up.
JFS understands all too well the danger of what we are seeing in Minnesota and communities across the country. People being grabbed off the street and detained without due process. Children left without their parents, not knowing when they’ll see them again. A family tear-gassed by immigration officers in their car while driving home from a child’s basketball game, sending three children to the hospital. An elderly man dragged from his home by ICE agents, in freezing weather, wearing nothing but his sandals and boxers.
For the last year, JFS has navigated the onslaught of anti-immigrant federal policies and the impact on our clients, staff, and community. We have watched the violence unfold across the country. Fear is growing.
This fear is not abstract for us. It is palpable in our offices, in the voices of our clients, and among our own staff. The question before us is not whether this will affect our community. It already has.
We have seen what happens when an entire community is targeted and scapegoated for the actions of one individual. Last November, when the unacceptable violence perpetrated by an Afghan national from Washington State became an excuse for renewed scrutiny of Afghan immigrants nationwide, we were alarmed. Many of these people are Afghan SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) holders — individuals who provided critical support to coalition forces and were promised support by the U.S. government. These are individuals JFS has helped resettle for years. They are a part of the fabric of our community. We feared that our clients, people who had followed every rule and rebuilt their lives here, would once again be placed at risk.
And we were right. Since then, a travel ban was instituted for Afghan SIVs, restricting entry to the United States. On January 1, 2026, the administration also issued a pause on all immigration applications and a re-review of approved applications for people coming from 75 countries. This removes the legal pathways for those who are being persecuted and desperately seeking safety in our country.
Even with all of this, we’ve been horrified by what is occurring now: doors battered down, families separated, people put on planes to Texas—sometimes even when they are U.S. citizens. The escalation has been breathtaking.
This is not “crying wolf.” It is naming reality. And if we are honest, what we are seeing now is only the beginning.
Jewish tradition commands us to welcome the stranger, because we were strangers. We have a responsibility to our clients, our staff, and our broader community to support, protect, and advocate for the safety of immigrants and refugees and Jewish individuals and families. We know what happens when warning signs are dismissed. We know what it costs when people say, “It can’t happen here.”
This moment demands more than concern. It demands involvement. Attend a Know Your Rights training. Support legislation that protects immigrant and refugee families. Stand with organizations like ours who are on the frontlines. Speak out when fear is being weaponized against your neighbors.
What we are witnessing now is the tip of the spear. Our tradition teaches us that silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality—it is complicity. We cannot wait for this to become even worse before we decide it matters.