A new report reveals how Immigration and Customs Enforcement is pushing out videos of arrests across its social media platforms.
Over the past year, ICE and other federal agencies have used memes and popular social media trends to promote President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Now, The Washington Post reports that the public affairs team at ICE — which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, led by Secretary Kristi Noem — has worked closely with the White House to produce videos of agents confronting and arresting immigrants.
The Post reviewed thousands of internal messages between ICE officials for its report.
David Lapan, a retired Marine Corps colonel and former DHS press secretary under the first Trump administration, said the agency’s social media usage veers far from the more “professional and buttoned-up” strategies under past administrations.
“We were supposed to present the facts, not hype things up. But this veers into propaganda, into creating fear,” he told the Post. “We didn’t have this meme-ification of various serious operations, these things that are life or death. ... It’s not a joking matter. But that’s the way they’re treating it now.”
The White House directed the agency in June to start “flooding the airwaves,” according to a message from an ICE official published by the Post.
“We need all hands on deck to start ‘flooding the airwaves’ per White House direction on ALL ICE arrests nationwide today. The request is to flood social and traditional media with imagery of ICE arrests,” the official reportedly wrote.
One message exchange published by the Post appears to show an ICE video producer and an ICE official discussing how to frame videos of recent arrests.
“We made several dozen arrests today very quickly. Not sure if these all had criminal histories beyond being in the U.S. illegally,” an ICE video producer said.
“I’d like to try to put this out without focusing on the aliens or their crimes, but to demonstrate that we’re out working hard,” an ICE official responded.
Another exchange published by the Post appears to show a different ICE video producer and the ICE assistant director for public affairs discussing which song to put over a video.
“Think country songs... this is Houston after all,” the producer said.
“I feel like we need something a little more hard-core,” the assistant public affairs director responded.
Some of the recent pro-ICE videos have used popular songs, such as Sabrina Carpenter’s “Juno” and SZA’s “Big Boys,” prompting swift backlash from the artists. Carpenter called the video featuring her song “evil and disgusting,” while SZA accused the White House of “rage-baiting artists for free promo.”
ICE officials have also worked to prioritize the Trump administration’s message that officers are targeting the “worst of the worst,” the Post reports. ICE public affairs officers have even been asked to rewrite news releases and online posts to include more aggressive language, according to the outlet.
“If the truth of the operation does not match the narrative of the ‘worst of the worst,’ it’s going to be killed,” an unnamed ICE official told the Post.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Independent that President Donald Trump’s immigration policies “are saving lives, and we’re proud of it.”
“After four years of Sleepy Joe Biden’s Administration doing nothing except letting millions of criminal illegal aliens invade our country, it’s not surprising that career DHS bureaucrats are complaining to the media about finally having to do their jobs,” she said.
“President Trump and his entire team are working at breakneck speed to keep our promises, deport criminal illegal aliens, and get information out to the public – that’s a good thing and the American people deserve no less, no matter what the Washington Post or disgruntled employees try to say,” she added.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Post that the White House has granted DHS and ICE the “autonomy to create content that is effectively reaching the American public.” She also noted that social media posts using copyrighted material were pre-approved by the Trump administration’s lawyers.
The Independent has contacted the DHS for comment.
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