Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a first-term Democrat from Texas, lit up the Sunday shows by likening Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “slave patrols,” a charged comparison that ricocheted across social media and cable news within hours.
The comments came during an interview on MSNBC’s Velshi, where Crockett argued that aggressive immigration sweeps echo a brutal chapter of American history. “As somebody who understands history, when I see ICE, I see slave patrols,” she said, touching off an immediate backlash from conservatives and cheers from some progressive activists.
🚨 WTF?! REP. JASMINE CROCKETT: “When I see ICE, I see slave patrols.”
“If you know the history of policing, you understand they were born out of slave patrols.”
Jasmine Crockett is ENCOURAGING violence against ICE. She must be expelled from Congress. pic.twitter.com/533hjK5PZk
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 14, 2025
Crockett couched her remarks as a data-driven critique, contending that political leaders should “follow facts” to make communities safer and insisting that immigrants are routinely scapegoated.
In the same interview, she claimed White supremacists commit murders at higher rates than undocumented immigrants, a line that critics seized on as downplaying crimes committed by noncitizens. Her comments arrived as news outlets highlighted a stepped-up focus on immigration enforcement and a recent court decision that cleared the way for wider ICE actions in Los Angeles.
Conservative media pounced, framing Crockett’s analogy as reckless and inflammatory. Clips of the segment were replayed repeatedly, with commentators arguing that comparing federal agents to antebellum era patrols smeared law enforcement and trivialized history. The sound bite, packaged into short video posts and shareable captions, quickly became a weekend lightning rod.
Jasmine Crockett: First of all, black people ain’t had nothing to do with this. It’s always some white supremacy kind of thing that’s going on. Thoughts 💭 ⁉️ pic.twitter.com/aUS8mgJUhE
— BLACK FLAG 💨🏴🔺🔱🔻 (@FlagBlack007) September 14, 2025
Her supporters, meanwhile, said the reaction proved her point about selective outrage, noting that the idea of historical through lines between slave patrols in the South and later policing traditions has been discussed in civil rights literature for years.
Organizations like the NAACP have explicitly described slave patrols as a root of American policing, while some scholars argue the relationship is more complicated, and not a direct lineage, which is partly why Crockett’s phrasing touches such a raw nerve.
Y’all are cutting HBCU funding, dismantling civil rights offices, slashing Medicaid and SNAP, over-policing Black communities—yet want us to believe you’re helping poor Black people? pic.twitter.com/xYJYjUa9u6
— Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (@RepJasmine) September 15, 2025
Crockett is no stranger to viral moments, and her Sunday remarks slot neatly into a pattern of bare-knuckle rhetoric that delights her base and infuriates her detractors. Right-leaning outlets resurfaced recent controversies, including her tense clashes in House hearings and her sharp barbs for Republicans, to cast the ICE comparison as part of a broader posture rather than a one-off. Liberal leaning media, for their part, framed the debate around the limits of immigration enforcement and whether sweeping raids actually make communities safer.
The political timing is impossible to ignore. Immigration remains a top tier issue for both parties heading into the next legislative fights over border funding and interior enforcement, and Crockett’s “slave patrols” line gives Republicans an easy attack while energizing progressives who want Democrats to draw sharper contrasts.
It also puts pressure on party leaders and the White House to navigate the rhetoric without alienating swing voters who support stricter border policies but dislike overheated language. Expect Republicans to demand condemnations, expect Democrats to pivot to policy arguments, and expect the clip to live on in campaign ads and fundraising blasts.
What comes next is a familiar Washington loop. ICE will keep doing its job under current laws, activists will escalate their messaging, and members on both sides will test lines that trend online.
