A slow-motion video of masked, camouflaged federal agents handcuffing and detaining people in Los Angeles. A noir-style reel of people burning cars and American flags, edited as if it were a trailer for a dystopian movie. A photo of soldiers holding assault rifles, standing guard as federal agents handcuff a man.
As President Trump has deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines in response to protests against immigration enforcement in California, his administration has also unleashed a parallel visual campaign intended to make clear it will not tolerate resistance to its aggressive goal of mass deportations.
Since demonstrations first erupted last week in response to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Los Angeles’s garment district, the federal government’s official media accounts have pumped out photos and videos, some originally shared by right-wing influencers, highlighting the arrests of migrants and showcasing U.S. military might.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is among those who have championed the crackdown, posting a photo of a line of National Guard soldiers staring down a masked demonstrator.
Images shared by government officials have been amplified across the conservative media ecosystem, creating a cascade of digital messaging casting the immigration standoff as a fight to defend the United States against an invasion.
It is the latest iteration of a dark, vivid public relations blitz that Trump officials started soon after he regained office, flooding online channels with mug shots of detained migrants, footage of chained deportees and stylized shots of federal law enforcement.
Now, a visual communications strategy meant to encourage immigrants without legal status to leave the United States has melded into a militarized pressure campaign that also appears devised to discourage dissent, experts said.
“It’s a classic authoritarian script,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor focusing on authoritarianism and propaganda, who noted that Mr. Trump’s top aides have used wartime language, including “insurrectionists” and “invasion,” to describe immigrants and protesters.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, is the architect behind much of the Trump administration’s approach to immigration.
Some of the demonstrations that have played out in cities across the country in recent days have been marked by serious violence, including episodes in which protesters have set self-driving cars on fire and thrown objects at law enforcement officials. In a statement on Monday, the Los Angeles Police Department said officers had encountered “significant acts of violence, vandalism and looting.”
But critics said the White House was inflaming an already tense situation by exaggerating the scope of the unrest and amplifying inflammatory footage, such as repeatedly focusing on people waving Mexican flags.
“The administration is constructing the visual spectacle to accompany its assertion of an ‘insurrection’ demanding a militarized response,” said Leti Volpp, a professor of immigration law at the University of California at Berkeley. “The administration wants the American public to take away from these videos the sense that immigrants are completely dehumanized ‘bad people’ who need to be removed from this country; their continued presence threatens law and order.”
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that “President Trump will always support the right of Americans to peacefully make their voices heard.”
“But when violent rioters attack law enforcement, set cars on fire and engage in lawless chaos,” she said, “President Trump won’t hesitate to step in.”
On Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, defended Mr. Trump’s immigration policies and response to the protests at a press briefing, flanked by images showing a protester waving a Mexican flag against a backdrop of police vehicles and a smoke-filled sky.
“Let this be an unequivocal message to left-wing radicals in other parts of the country who are thinking of copy-catting the violence in an effort to stop this administration’s mass deportation efforts: You will not succeed,” Ms. Leavitt said.
The administration has cast the purge of undocumented immigrants as a patriotic endeavor. On Wednesday, the Homeland Security Department posted a graphic designed in the style of a World War II poster asking the public to help “locate and arrest illegal aliens.”
The image was originally shared by C. Jay Engel, a podcaster who hosts a Christian nationalist show and calls himself a supporter of the “Old American Right.” He has highlighted the concept of “Heritage America, which he said on social media affirms “the domination and pre-eminence of the European derived peoples, their institutions, and their way of life.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, did not address a question about the origin of the image, but said in a statement that “every American citizen should support federal law enforcement in their just effort to deport criminal illegal alien invaders from our country.”
C. Jay Engel said this image, which is designed in the style of World War II war bond posters, was initially posted on his account.
From the start, the White House’s visual campaign has been aimed at two audiences: Mr. Trump’s base, which expects him to make good on his pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and the migrants themselves, whom officials hope to persuade to voluntarily leave the United States.
Taken together, the photos and videos posted by the administration since the start of the year suggest Mr. Trump is already well on his way to a historic number of deportations.
In fact, while ICE has stepped up its arrests amid intense pressure from Trump officials, the administration is lagging far behind its goal. Since Mr. Trump returned to office, more than 200,000 people in the United States without authorization have been sent back to their home country or a third country, a fraction of the 1.4 million people who faced final deportation orders by the end of last year, according to internal government data obtained by The New York Times.
The effort to persuade people to leave on their own has also not had a huge impact: Just over 10,000 immigrants have self-deported, according to the data.
As protests against stepped-up ICE operations have spread to multiple cities, the government’s public relations strategy has intensified.
On Tuesday, ICE posted on its official X account a video of its agents arresting people in Los Angeles, with the caption “We are on a mission in Los Angeles! Legally. Ethically. Morally.”
And Mr. Trump used a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina to describe what he said was mayhem in the streets, telling soldiers he would “liberate Los Angeles.”
A day later, the Homeland Security Department posted a video with scenes from the protests with the caption “RESTORE LAW AND ORDER NOW!”
Mr. Trump will have more visual fodder on Saturday, when the administration plans to send tanks and artillery systems into the streets of Washington for the 250th birthday celebration of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump has said protesters who assemble during the military parade will be met with “very big force.”
John Ismay contributed reporting.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
The post Trump’s Immigration P.R. Campaign Enters a New Militarized Phase appeared first on New York Times.
