Aziz Ansari Jokes He Carries Passport in Fear of ICE Despite Being Born and Raised in S.C.

Aziz Ansari is using humor to address his fears about ICE raids.

The 42-year-old comedian — who was born and raised in South Carolina — admitted during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday, Oct. 7 that “I haven’t been in L.A. in a while.”

“I haven’t been here since all this ICE stuff started happening,” Ansari said, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ongoing immigration crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump. “I’m all nervous. I got friends, they’re like, ‘We’re hiding our nanny in the basement. We might have to raise our kids. We don’t know what we’re going to do.’ ”

“I’m on edge, man. I’m carrying my passport all the time just in case people haven’t seen the shows, you know?” he joked. “Although I do think it would be amazing if they did grab me ‘cause there’d be an incredible viral video where all these people are like, ‘Oh my god, that’s the guy from Parks and Rec… he made Master of None. Oh my god, they’re arresting Kumail Nanjiani.’ ”

Ansari’s comments come one week after ICE agents raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city by population. Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down doors, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from their apartments, residents and witnesses told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ansari has been an outspoken opponent of Trump, 79, since before he was first elected. In a June 2016 op-ed for the New York Times, the Master of None creator and star described how the anti-Muslim rhetoric from politicians has had a tangible effect on him and his family.

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He recalled texting his mother to tell her not to pray at her mosque in the days following the shooting at Orlando gay club. “As I sent that text,” he wrote, “I realized how awful it was to tell an American citizen to be careful about how she worshiped.”

Taking such precautions, however, is necessary in a world where, according to Ansari, the word “Muslim” makes people think not of “Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or the kid who left the boy band One Direction,” but of “a scary terrorist character from Homeland or some monster from the news.”

“Today, with the presidential candidate Donald Trump and others like him spewing hate speech, prejudice is reaching new levels. It’s visceral and scary and it affects how people live, work and pray,” he continued. “It makes me afraid for my family. It also makes no sense.”

He later noted that Islamophobic rhetoric is harmful and unhelpful. “[Trump] has said that people in the American Muslim community “know who the bad ones are,” implying that millions of innocent people are somehow complicit in awful attacks,” Ansari wrote.

The Good Fortune director explained, “Not only is this wrongheaded; but it also does nothing to address the real problems posed by terrorist attacks. By Mr. Trump’s logic, after the huge financial crisis of 2007-08, the best way to protect the American economy would have been to ban white males.”

In January 2017, the actor also made a plea to Trump to take on the “lower-case K.K.K. movement” — which he called “casual white supremacy” — during his monologue on Saturday Night Live, one day after Trump’s first inauguration. 

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“I think Trump should make a speech. A real speech denouncing the lower-case K.K.K. Don’t tweet about me being lame or the show,” he said. “Write a speech. A real speech. Because these people are out there, and it’s pissing a lot of people off.”

Ansari added that immigrants — including his own family — aren’t going anywhere, saying, “My parents moved from India to South Carolina in the early ’80s. They didn’t move until nine years ago. You know where they moved? North Carolina. They love it here. They’re not leaving.”