Minneapolis is hurting right now. There’s no doubt about that. Our great Metropolis of the North is resilient, but heartbroken. ICE has infiltrated our streets, killing two of our neighbors while illegally detaining thousands of others.
Current events have brought to mind the age-old argument that tends to affect us comic book nerds: What would Superman do? Alright, I admit that this question is tailored specifically for this publication, but fill in Superman’s name with any other comic book icon, and it can apply to your own life pretty well.
When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman in 1938, they gave the world something remarkable: an immigrant story wrapped in a red cape. The last son of Krypton, sent to Earth by desperate parents seeking to save his life, found refuge in the heartland of America with the Kent family of Smallville, Kansas.
It’s impossible to ignore the parallels. Superman is, fundamentally, an undocumented immigrant—an alien in the most literal sense, arriving without papers, without permission, raised by Americans who chose compassion over law. The Kents didn’t call the authorities. They saw a child who needed help, and they helped.
So what would Superman do about ICE?
The question isn’t hypothetical. Throughout his publication history, Superman has consistently stood against government overreach, corruption, and the abuse of power. He has faced down presidents, challenged military operations, and repeatedly chosen individual human dignity over institutional authority when the two come into conflict.
ICE, as an institution, operates with troubling opacity. Reports of family separations, detention facilities with inadequate medical care, death in the streets, and enforcement actions that have swept up American citizens alongside innocent legal and undocumented immigrants have raised serious concerns among civil rights advocates. The agency operates with broad discretionary power and limited oversight, precisely the kind of unchecked authority Superman has traditionally opposed.
Lois Lane would be in the thick of it, naturally. The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter has built her career exposing government malfeasance and giving voice to the voiceless. She would be at detention facilities, interviewing separated families, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and holding officials accountable with the kind of dogged reporting that has defined her character since her first appearance in “Action Comics” No. 1.
Together, Superman and Lois represent two paths to justice: one through direct action, one through transparency and truth. Both would recognize that an overarching dishonest government, one that claims to protect while causing harm, that operates in shadows while demanding trust, represents everything they’ve spent decades fighting against.
Superman wouldn’t be rounding up immigrants. He would be ensuring that children aren’t sleeping on concrete floors, that families aren’t separated indefinitely, horrendous abuse wouldn’t be occurring, and due process isn’t sacrificed in the name of “efficiency.” He would be using his voice, both as Superman and as Clark Kent, to demand accountability from systems designed to avoid it.
Some might argue that Superman would simply say, “follow the law.” But Superman has never been a blind enforcer of legal codes. He has operated outside governmental approval throughout his existence. He’s an undocumented alien who regularly violates airspace restrictions, property laws, and jurisdictional boundaries. His loyalty has always been to a higher principle: protecting the vulnerable from those who would harm them. All life matters to Superman.
The Kents taught him that. When Jonathan and Martha Kent found that spacecraft in a Kansas field, they didn’t see an immigration problem. They saw a possibility. They saw a child. They saw the best of what America claims to be: a place of second chances, a refuge of hope and love.
That vision of America as a place where the desperate can find safety, where families can build new lives, where children can grow up without fear, is what Superman has always fought to protect. It’s what Lois Lane has always fought to expose when the reality falls short of that promise.
An honest government can withstand scrutiny. It welcomes transparency, embraces oversight, and trusts its citizens with truth. A dishonest government fears questions, punishes whistleblowers, and hides behind claims of national security while violating human dignity.
Superman would choose truth over fear. He always has.
The question for the rest of us is whether we’ll do the same.
