What’s Drawing Recruits to ICE?

Nostalgia, nationalism, and an astonishing ad campaign

In September, the Department of Homeland Security began posting recruitment ads for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on social media. The images evoked warm nostalgia for an idyllic America — Norman Rockwell’s 1946 Working on the Statue of Liberty, paired with slogans like “Protect Your Homeland. Defend Your Culture” and Calvin Coolidge’s remark that “those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit ought not to settle in America.”

Each post included a link: join.ice.gov. There, a Civil War–era Uncle Sam points at the viewer, intoning: “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”

The homepage of ICE’s recruitment website

Another post, from December, depicted a pristine beach scene with a vintage Cadillac and no people, overlaid with “AMERICA AFTER 100 MILLION DEPORTATIONS.” The caption described this as “the peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world.”

It was the public face of what ICE officials internally call “wartime recruitment” — a $100 million campaign to hire 10,000 employees and reshape how Americans understand immigration enforcement.

Flooding the market

According to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post, ICE planned to “flood the market” with advertising across television, streaming platforms, social media, and influencer partnerships. The strategy targets people interested in “conservative news and politics,” “patriotic” lifestyles, “gun rights organizations,” and “tactical gear brands.”

The campaign uses geofencing technology to pinpoint these potential recruits — sending messages to anyone whose phone enters military bases, NASCAR races, gun shows, or college campuses. ICE allocated $8 million for deals with online influencers — “former agents, veterans and pro-ICE creators” — expected to host live streams, attend events, and post content to Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, X, and YouTube.

The result: over 220,000 applications and 12,000 new hires — a 120% increase to the workforce, according to a DHS announcement in January.

Norman Rockwell’s family objected to the use of his work in the campaign. Between August and November, DHS posted at least four different Rockwell paintings to its social media accounts, each paired with nationalist slogans. In a USA Today op-ed, the family wrote that Rockwell would be “devastated” to see his art “marshalled for the cause of persecution toward immigrant communities and people of color,” given his personal commitment to civil rights. They asked federal agencies to stop using his work.

1967 painting by Norman Rockwell, titled “New Kids in the Neighborhood (Negro in the Suburbs)”

DHS ignored the request. The posts remain online, as the recruitment campaign grows increasingly explicit about its vision for America.

Echoes of white nationalism

Beneath the administration’s language lies imagery linked to extreme right-wing ideologies and some of the darkest chapters of 20th-century propaganda.

In August, DHS put the caption “Which way, American man?” alongside an image of Uncle Sam standing next to a group of street signs pointing in different directions. Observers immediately recognized the reference to William Gayley Simpson’s 1978 manifesto Which Way Western Man. The book, published by the neo-Nazi National Alliance, includes passages like: “Let me preface what I am about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews’ hold on our throat is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip.”

Earlier this month, the Department of Labor posted a video montage of idealized American scenes with the caption: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.” The phrase echoes “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” — “One People, One Country, One Leader” — which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum identifies as “one of the central slogans used by Hitler and the Nazi Party.”

ICE had previously posted an ad featuring masked agents storming buildings, training attack dogs, and brandishing assault rifles — all set to gothic lettering reminiscent of Fraktur, the typeface used by Nazis in publications and on the cover of Mein Kampf. The caption: “Hunt Cartels. Save America.”

Another post, also from earlier this month, featured an image of a cowboy on horseback beneath a B-2 bomber, captioned “We’ll Have Our Home Again.” To most Americans scrolling past, the imagery might register as patriotic nostalgia. But to those steeped in white nationalist communities online, the references were recognizable. “We’ll Have Our Home Again” is the title of a song by the a capella group Pine Tree Riots. Its members are affiliated with the Mannerbund, which describes itself as a “fraternity for right-wing men” and is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist organization.

These posts come as the nation grapples with the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. When ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Good — an incident captured on video showing that Ross had positioned himself in front of Good’s car and that Good was turning away from him as she attempted to leave — the administration’s response was to double down. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended Ross, saying he “did follow his training.” Two days later, DHS posted the “We’ll Have Our Home Again” recruitment video.

The song has become an anthem for the right-wing extremist and self-described “Western chauvinist” group Proud Boys. As journalist Gabe Stutman documented, Proud Boys sang the song at a November 2020 rally in Sacramento. The lyrics also opened the manifesto of Ryan Christopher Palmeter, a 21-year-old white supremacist who killed three Black people in a Jacksonville Dollar General in 2023. Open Measures, which monitors extremist social media activity, found over 450 posts sharing the song on Telegram since 2020 — nearly all from white supremacist channels.

Emma Connolly, a research fellow at University College London, explained the psychology of the ICE recruitment campaign: “Social media algorithms thrive on anger and fear. Simplified forms of storytelling that rely on moral binaries —- good versus evil, us versus them —- are especially effective at capturing attention and encouraging sharing.”

“When you look at this one [DHS] post in the context of all the others, it’s not an accident,” said Bill Braniff, executive director of American University’s Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab.

But when confronted on CNN about the recruitment post referencing the song, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin dismissed concerns as ”fake outrage.”

Targeting local police

Beyond social media, ICE has spent over $6.5 million on television advertising targeting police officers in cities that include Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and Seattle for recruitment. It has spent $853,745 in Seattle alone.

The 30-second spots open with familiar city skylines and a narrator announcing: “Attention, [city name] law enforcement.” The message continues: “You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe. But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free.”

The ads invite officers to “join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst. Drug traffickers. Gang members. Predators.” They promise signing bonuses up to $50,000, student loan repayment up to $60,000, and enhanced benefits.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell called the ads “insulting to the oath that officers took when they raised their hands and swore to uphold the Constitution.” The office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warned that the administration’s “desire to poach officers from [the Chicago Police Department’s] ranks has the potential to decrease the number of police officers serving on the streets of Chicago and would only undermine our public safety efforts.”

Defining narratives

The administration doesn’t make propaganda just to recruit agents — it also creates propaganda celebrating their actions. After ICE descended on a Chicago apartment building in December with a Black Hawk helicopter and flash-bang grenades to arrest 37 Venezuelan immigrants, DHS immediately released professionally filmed footage of the raid.

The video strategy mirrors tactics used by the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, which used social media videos mimicking video game aesthetics to recruit fighters before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. DHS’s social media channels feature fast-action shorts with energetic music, including one titled “Break the law. We regulate“ that shows masked officers pulling someone from a car and shoving him to the ground.

There is a blaring gap between the ICE immigration-enforcement tactics and the narrative the administration is trying to establish. The messaging frames ICE operations as targeting “the worst of the worst” — a phrase repeated in ads, posts, and official statements. But the data contradict the narrative.

Still image from a recruitment video targeting police officers in Utah

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which aggregates immigration detention information, more than 73% of people held by ICE nationwide have no criminal record. At the Northwest ICE Processing Center, that number is closer to 60%. Even many of the convictions are for minor offenses like traffic violations or for decades-old cases.

Videos showing ICE agents pinning a Target employee to the ground with a knee on the neck, hunting down a DoorDash driver as she hides terrified inside the home of the person who has hailed her, and threatening people who film them reveal a different reality from the administration’s heroic narrative.

The administration hasn’t left narrative control to official channels alone. It cultivates right-wing influencers by taking them on ICE ride-alongs and holding special briefings where they receive access to Cabinet members. The influencers then amplify DHS messaging and create content portraying ICE operations as righteous crusades.

When protests erupted in Minneapolis, DHS posted videos of DHS Secretary Noem filmed during ICE operations, content that conservative influencers amplified to their millions of followers. Pro-Trump influencers posted clips urging the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. Trump threatened to do exactly that unless Minnesota’s “corrupt politicians” stopped “the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.”

ICE’s target audience

The combination of white nationalist imagery, promises of sweeping enforcement power, and celebrations of violence raises an obvious question: Whom exactly is ICE trying to recruit?

Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about the agency’s vetting process, particularly whether ICE is hiring individuals with extremist ties, including January 6 rioters and Proud Boys members. The Minnesota ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging racial profiling by ICE agents in the state.

Sarah Saldaña, ICE director during the Obama administration, expressed concern that framing ICE jobs as part of a war tends to “inculcate in people a certain aggressiveness that may not be necessary in 85 percent of what you do.”

Former ICE agent Eric O’Denius sees that aggression on display. “Use of force in our district was very rare,” he told a Minneapolis TV station. “And now it seems to be happening almost daily.” He said the tactics he has observed “would not be professional, by any law enforcement agency.”

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary Noem “demanding records and information whether any individuals “connected to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol” have been hired by ICE.

Raskin also noted that ICE is “unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services” because its agents “conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms.” Raskin continued: “Why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers, and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all routinely work unmasked while ICE agents work masked?”

The Trump administration is building an enforcement apparatus with military-style tactics, recruited through appeals to racial resentment and imagery celebrating a nativist vision of an America that needs defending from foreign invaders. It’s creating both a propaganda system that defines immigrants as existential threats and recruiting a workforce with specific receptiveness to that worldview — people who will be entrusted with the lawful use of violence to accomplish government goals.

In Working on the Statue of Liberty, Norman Rockwell painted workers of all backgrounds together, a vision of America where immigrants contribute to the country’s promise. Uncle Sam called Americans to defend democracy against fascism. This iconography is now being hijacked to recruit Americans to pursue “100 million deportations” and create “a nation no longer besieged by the third world.” Under the Trump administration, these tactics are not likely to change. What’s uncertain is whether Americans still want Rockwell’s inclusive vision of the country — or will accept the warping of that vision to justify the abuse and removal of some of the very kinds of people Rockwell celebrated.