Upon initial inspection, the social media content as part of the ongoing recruitment campaign by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may not seem out of the ordinary.
The posts, aimed at encouraging Americans to join ICE, feature the familiar aggressively patriotic imagery synonymous with the Trump administration’s online messaging style.
However, to those on the far-right spectrum and individuals within far-right groups, there is a distinct familiarity in the tone and language of these posts.
Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization that monitors right-wing extremism, expressed unease at the resemblance of ICE’s messaging to that of white nationalist and neo-Nazi movements she has studied over the years.
She remarked, “It’s unsettling to witness such rhetoric coming from a government entity.”
Gais is part of a group of U.S. experts who have noted subtle references in ICE’s recruitment posts that appear to resonate with extremists, though these references may go unnoticed by the general public.
This observation raises the question: Who is ICE targeting with its recruitment efforts?
Referencing Controversial Materials
Since returning to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has spearheaded a significant expansion of ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws within the United States under the Department of Homeland Security.
Pursuing a goal of deporting one million individuals annually, ICE has faced accusations of racial profiling and excessive force in its enforcement activities as it has intensified arrests.
Backed by the “Big Beautiful Bill” that allocated $8 billion US for additional staffing, ICE embarked on a recruitment drive that included leveraging social media platforms.
On August 11, 2025, ICE shared an image featuring Uncle Sam at a crossroads on its social media channels, posing the question “Which way, American man?”
This post mirrored a meme popular among right-wing influencers who often use the phrase “Which way, Western man?” to present a dichotomy between liberal values and their own ideological preferences.
Interestingly, the phrase is derived from a 700-page antisemitic nonfiction book authored by William Gayley Simpson and published by a neo-Nazi press in the late 1970s, a book commonly embraced by white supremacists.
Adopting White Supremacist Ideologies
Although such language could be dismissed as coincidental, subsequent posts by DHS have sparked further concerns.
In October, the Department of Homeland Security shared an image of George Washington riding a horse, linking to the ICE recruitment page with the tagline “America for Americans.”
This slogan was originally employed in a xenophobic speech by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1916 and later associated with the Ku Klux Klan, as detailed in America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Harvard history professor Erika Lee.