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ICE recruitment ad showing only white Americans draws accusations of racist propaganda

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Summary

  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a recruitment advertisement on 12 November 2026: an Americana montage of midcentury footage in which every visible face is white.
  • The ad, set to Sierra Ferrell's 'American Dreaming,' touts 'The way it was' and directs viewers to the agency's hiring site, join.ice.gov.
  • The agency is recruiting aggressively under President Trump's mass deportation agenda, launched after he returned to office in 2025.
  • Stephen Miller became White House chief of staff days before the video appeared; he had long championed the ICE hiring drive.
  • Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security had publicly responded to the criticism as of 13 November.
  • The ad followed a 2025 Department of Homeland Security recruiting campaign whose nostalgic appeals critics said echoed white nationalist material.

Reactions

  • Democratic strategist Maria Cardona called the ad 'one of the most offensive, racist, xenophobic' pieces of propaganda from an official US government account.
  • Former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin wrote the ad was 'another reason the GOP lost big in the midterms.'
  • Commentator David French wrote, 'Oh I get it. It's the whiteness. That's what they want.'
  • Commentator Richard Hanania wrote that immigration enforcers keep 'fantasizing about an all-white depopulated country.'
  • Immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick called the ad 'nostalgiaslop for people who think the U.S. was great when Jim Crow was still around.'
  • X users likened the ad to Third Reich propaganda; a DHS spokesperson had said in 2025 that 'calling everything you dislike Nazi propaganda is tiresome.'

Timeline newest first

  1. The ICE advertisement, using footage appearing to span the 1930s to the 1960s, drew shocked and angry reactions from critics after its 12 November release.
  2. ICE posted the one-minute recruiting video on X on Thursday, 12 November 2026, with every visible face white and a link to join.ice.gov.
  3. Neither ICE nor its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, had publicly responded to the criticism as of Friday, 13 November.
  4. Stephen Miller took over as White House chief of staff on 9 November 2026; the video promotes an ICE hiring drive he championed.
  5. In July 2025, Stephen Miller urged Americans on X to join ICE, touting a $50,000 retention and signing bonus.
  6. A 2025 Department of Homeland Security recruiting campaign made similar nostalgic appeals, including 'Which way, American man?', that critics said echoed white nationalist material.

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