President Donald Trump‘s White House pressured Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to quickly produce social media videos — all in a push to try and score viral hits, a report claimed Tuesday.
The Washington Post revealed a series of internal chats, leaked to the outlet, that suggested ICE’s media relations office was urged by the president’s officials to pump out videos while immigration raids ramped up across the U.S.
“For years, this ICE team had run like a routine government communications shop, dispensing public service announcements and news releases few Americans would see. But during President Donald Trump’s second term, ICE’s public affairs arm has rapidly transformed into an influencer-style media machine, churning out flashy videos of tactical operations and immigration raids,” The Post reported.
ICE’s public affairs team started recording more in the field day and night, joining officers during raids and actions to remove people from their homes, work and public spaces.
“Any video producer who witnessed a particularly cinematic scene was expected to alert their supervisors, so the agency and the White House could promote it on their social media channels,” according to The Post. “Employees on ICE’s ‘digital engagement’ team then raced to edit and post the footage on social media in hopes of securing a viral win.”
The agency’s team of video content creators contracted other influencers — often questioning if the administration knew they were a small squad given the demand for output.
“In pursuit of more viral video, DHS brought in new public affairs staff members with atypical backgrounds and authorized them to ‘go out and capture content,’ as a chat message said. A MAGA women’s lifestyle influencer, an L.A.-based wedding videographer and a Canadian-born actor who played a ‘mountain man’ in a cable-TV show joined the team,” according to The Post.
David Lapan, who was DHS press secretary during the first Trump administration and a retired Marine Corps colonel, has argued that the agency has abandoned its “professional and buttoned-up” image.
“We were supposed to present the facts, not hype things up. But this veers into propaganda, into creating fear,” Lapan said. “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.”
ICE has also used music from artists — without licensing the songs or getting permission — which has come under fire from several artists, including Sabrina Carpenter and even Pokémon.
“Some officials said in the chat that they were indifferent to the potential perils. When one employee raised concerns about copyright violations, another wrote back, dismissing them,” The Post reported.
The strategy has stemmed from the White House’s eagerness to show off its “immigrant arrests and confrontations to portray its push for mass deportation as critical to protecting the American way of life.”
Videos have shown these moments to try and drum up support for the aggressive policies, the report stated.
“The internal communications reviewed by The Post show how the ICE team has coordinated with the White House, working to satisfy Trump aides’ demands to ‘flood the airwaves,’ as one official urged in the messages, with brash content showing immigrants being chased, grabbed and detained,” the outlet reported.
“They also show federal officials mocking immigrants in crass terms and discussing video edits that might help legitimize the administration’s aggressive stance. The team also knowingly used copyright-protected music without permission from the rights holders, among other techniques designed to boost their online attention,” according to The Post.
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