The Cold Truth
Nearly a year has passed since I wrote Ten Stages of Genocide, and the warning signs have not faded. In several areas, they have become easier to see, especially in how government authority is being exercised and who is most likely to be affected by it.
Immigration enforcement is one of the clearest examples.
Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expanded the speed and scope of its operations. Civil rights groups and federal courts have raised repeated concerns about due process, which the Constitution guarantees to all persons, not only citizens. That includes the right to notice, legal counsel, and a fair hearing before liberty is taken away. Expedited removal programs and fast-track deportations continue to limit access to lawyers and meaningful court review, even for people with pending asylum claims or legal status questions.
Federal judges have intervened in multiple cases, ruling that ICE must meet constitutional standards for arrests and cannot detain people without probable cause. Courts have also ruled that immigration enforcement cannot interfere with First Amendment rights when people are participating in protests or public gatherings. When courts must repeatedly remind federal agencies that constitutional protections still apply, that should give all of us pause.
Training and accountability are also part of the picture. ICE agents generally receive far less training time than local police officers, yet they are authorized to conduct armed operations in residential neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. When mistakes occur, families can lose jobs, housing, and access to their children, long before any investigation or legal remedy occurs.
Language matters too. Public officials continue to describe migrants as criminals or threats as a group instead of addressing individual behavior. That framing lowers public concern when harsh enforcement tactics are used. It shifts the conversation from how to enforce laws fairly to how quickly people can be removed.
This pattern is not new in history.
In Germany during the early 1930s, most citizens were not targeted first. Civil servants, teachers, shop owners, factory workers, and farmers continued their daily lives while new rules were introduced for specific groups. Identification papers became more critical. Travel became more restricted. Employers were required to check documents. Neighbors were encouraged to report suspicious behavior. People adjusted because each change seemed small and limited to someone else.
Only later did average Germans feel the impact directly. Rationing, forced labor assignments, loss of property, bombing of cities, and compulsory military service followed. By then, independent courts were gone, dissent was dangerous, and most people had little ability to object even when policies harmed their own families.
The early stages were not marked by mass violence. They were marked by paperwork, regulations, loyalty tests, and fear of being noticed.
In the United States, some familiar patterns are visible. Increased surveillance. Expanded databases. Broad law enforcement authority with limited oversight. Public officials encouraging citizens to report one another. Pressure on schools, libraries, and journalists. Court systems strained by political attacks on judges and prosecutors who rule against government actions.
For average Americans, this could translate into everyday consequences long before anything dramatic appears in the headlines. Losing a job after a workplace raid closes a business. Being detained because of a paperwork error. Being questioned for attending a protest. Being afraid to speak openly at school, work, or online. Watching neighbors disappear from communities with no explanation. Learning that legal protections exist on paper but are harder to access in practice.
This is how systems shift. Not through one sweeping announcement, but through slow erosion of accountability and normalizing exceptions to rights.
Several of the conditions described in the early stages of genocide and authoritarian systems are present in policy, enforcement, and public discourse.
History shows that once due process becomes selective, it rarely stays that way.
The greatest risk is not sudden collapse. It is gradual acceptance. People adapt to new limits, new rules, and new fears until those limits feel normal.
This is why remembering history is not about assigning blame. It is about recognizing patterns early enough to change them.
Democracy does not disappear overnight. It weakens when people decide that protecting other people’s rights is optional.
And that is why this conversation still matters now, not later.
