Since President Donald Trump’s return to power, more than 60 people have died at the hands of or in the custody of immigration authorities, most recently two Latino immigrants in one week: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. Many Latinos have come to feel that their brown skin makes them targets, and they are not wrong.

But there is another dimension of this story that we often fail to consider: Many of those in charge of anti-immigrant operations also have brown skin, Hispanic names and links to the communities they terrorize. When the identities of the Customs and Border Protection agents who killed Alex Pretti in January were revealed as those of two Hispanic men, many people reacted with shock. The irony seemed obvious, but it reflected a mistaken assumption: that Latinos are naturally opposed to restrictionist policies. History suggests otherwise.

Latinos have been not only frequent targets of nativism and xenophobic violence but also supporters — regularly enforcers — of it. For decades, Latinos have joined the Border Patrol (and since it was established in 2003, ICE) in significant numbers. Latinos now make up a majority of Border Patrol officers and constitute about 20 to 30% of ICE agents. More broadly, Latino voters have often supported restrictionist policies and politicians who would tighten U.S. borders and target immigrant families and communities. Reactionary politics in the United States are not simply imposed on Latinos; they have repeatedly found traction within Latino communities themselves.

Why? Latinos have often........

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