Undocumented people need Jewish allies. Why can’t they find them?

Last month, in a Jewish community group chat that I’ve been part of for years, someone wrote “I’ll show up for immigrants when they show up for antisemitism.”

I stared at the screen, stunned. As a Latin Jewish woman who migrated to the United States as a child and was undocumented for 15 years, I’ve carried the pain of that sentence with me since. It was more than a personal hurt, a suggestion that Jews must inevitably prioritize our own safety over those we might perceive as different from us. It was a warning — a glimpse of what happens when our compassion becomes conditional.

The unprecedented assault on migrants in the U.S. right now is not only about immigration enforcement. It is about fear, control, and power. It is about who we become when we allow terror to dictate whose lives are worth defending. In recent weeks, I’ve seen too many messages from people buying into that premise, and suggesting that I should feel grateful for policies they believe protect Jews — like the suspension of refugee resettlement programs — even if those same policies have a history of harming Jews.

I know many Jews care deeply about immigrants. I also know that fear, even when it’s real and justified, can cloud our instincts for solidarity.

Our collective Jewish memory carries the trauma of closed borders. We have often been the ones labeled as illegal, dangerous and unwanted. Within the last century alone, Jews were turned away from the U.S., Canada, much of Latin America, and even the Yishuv in pre-state Israel. In 1939, the MS St. Louis was infamously denied entry to Cuba, the U.S. and Canada while carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Close to a third of those passengers went on to be murdered in the Holocaust.

We remember that. Or at least, we should.

When official paths were closed, we found other ways, often relying on the courage of those who risked their own safety to help us. We crossed borders at night. We forged papers, bribed officials and paid smugglers. We adopted new names and learned new languages. We boarded ships under false identities, walked for weeks with resistance networks, and hid wherever someone could take us in.

In the aftermath of World War II, tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors sought to reach Mandatory Palestine despite British restrictions on Jewish immigration. Through the clandestine Bricha and Aliyah Bet movements, they traveled on foot across war-torn Europe to ports in Italy and France. There, they boarded overcrowded ships without official documentation.

In Latin America, during the early 20th century, Jewish immigration was often a story of unofficial routes and bureaucratic navigation. Countries like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico welcomed Jewish immigrants at times, but also introduced restrictions and quotas in the 1930s and 1940s. Some Jews overstayed tourist visas, entered through secondary ports, or declared false destinations.

In Shanghai, a rare haven for Jews escaping Nazi-occupied Europe, entry was possible only because the city required no visa at the time. That loophole saved thousands.

Again and again, Jews have moved where they were not supposed to be. What is now called “illegal immigration” was, for many of our ancestors, the only option. And, in many places and for many peoples, it still is.

Some of them are Jews, like me. This is not just a story of the past.

Undocumented Jews live in the U.S. today, many from Latin America — again, like me — and others from across the globe. I know this because I have shared Shabbat meals with them, sat beside them at the Seder table, heard their stories of struggle and survival, and held space for their persistent hope.

It should be obvious to all of us that their immigration status does not make them less worthy of our community’s care. And if that’s true for Jewish migrants, it should be true for all migrants.

The expansion of efforts targeting immigrants under President Donald Trump’s administration is not theoretical; the spending bill Trump signed recently allocates $45 billion to efforts to detain immigrants over the next four years. This means even sharper escalations in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and militarized action targeting immigrants, including families we know and neighbors we love.

School districts across Southern California, where I lived after coming to the U.S. from Peru, have reported students missing after news of ICE activity. Some high school seniors have even skipped graduation to protect their family members from possible detention, fearing ICE presence outside school celebrations. Many families are relying on neighbors for errands and only leaving home when absolutely necessary.

As a Jew with lived experience as an undocumented immigrant, I cannot see these actions as abstract. They shaped my childhood and my understanding of community.

It is time for the Jewish community — a community who has these quiet choices, born of fear, etched into its memory — to step up in support. Nearly every family has a story of someone who once stayed hidden or silent to survive. To respond with indifference today — or worse, with strategic calculation — is a moral failure.

I understand that some feel conflicted. I, too, have been deeply unsettled and angered by the antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that has appeared at some immigrant rights marches. Recent protests have included signs equating Israel with ICE, calls for violent resistance, and the use of symbols associated with Hamas. These moments are painful and difficult to witness for many Jews, myself included. We must acknowledge that infiltrators and extremist elements sometimes deliberately target these movements to sow division and undermine solidarity — a tactic we need to recognize, and actively counter.

But we cannot allow these deliberate provocations to cloud our ethical compass or be used as a reason to remain silent. We can sit with our discomfort while still acknowledging the urgent realities unfolding around us. We can feel triggered and still choose to show up and help in the ways available to us. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

The targeting of immigrants, including undocumented Jews, is not a distant or hypothetical issue. It is happening now. This is precisely why it is so important not to confuse symbols with people. While protest spaces can at times feel uncomfortable or complicated, the vast majority of individuals being targeted by immigration crackdowns are not showing up to anti-ICE protests to chant slogans about Israel or Palestinians. They are laying low, staying home, and doing everything they can to survive, hoping simply to remain with their loved ones and make it through another day with dignity.

This is not about agreeing on every political issue. It is about recognizing that the machinery being used today to hunt down immigrants is part of a broader erosion of democracy and human rights. History shows us that when governments normalize cruelty against one group, others are never far behind.

Jewish history offers countless warnings of this very phenomenon.We have lived this. We know what it means to be turned away. We know what it means to fear that a knock at the door might change everything.

Our tradition commands us to pursue justice, not only when it is easy or popular, but precisely when it is not. We are reminded that every human being is created “b’tzelem Elohim” — in the image of the Divine. These are not poetic gestures. They are foundational truths. They require us to show up, especially when it is difficult. Especially when our own safety tempts us toward silence. Now more than ever, we must remember who we are, and what we owe one another.