The Department of Homeland Security pictured immigration law enforcement agents adorned in holiday decorations in a social media post, using a Santa Claus-inspired pun to promote the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
In its latest attempt to make mass deportations more appealing to the public, DHS posted what appeared to be two artificial intelligence-generated images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outfitted in Santa Claus hats and surrounded by twinkling lights.
The images are part of its campaign titled, “YOU’RE GOING HO HO HOME.”
In the image, one agent is depicted wearing a Santa hat while armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Another agent, dressed in a Santa hat, is holding up a ballistic shield covered in colorful lights. In the second photo, the ballistic shield bears the words “Merry Christmas.”
Both images depict armored vehicles decorated with colorful, twinkling lights and wreaths, as well as Christmas trees and presents.
DHS followed up the post with a GIF of President Donald Trump doing his signature dance move, but superimposed onto Santa’s sleigh.
Friday’s X post had garnered more than nine million views by Monday.
DHS’s holiday-themed post is just the latest in a long string of social media content that beautifies the aggressive immigration operations and tries to put a positive spin on deportation efforts that have largely garnered negative media attention.
Throughout the year, DHS and other immigration enforcement agencies have used memes, popular social media trends, songs from well-known artists and invoked nostalgia to try to make the president’s desire for millions of undocumented immigrants to be deported likable.
But largely, the posts have raised concern among experts who fear it’s normalizing, if not glamorizing, aggressive tactics.
“I don’t think that this messaging is bad because it’s mean, or because it’s sloppy, or because it’s unbecoming of the Office of the President, although all these things I do believe are true,” Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor at American University who studies persuasive strategies used by violent extremist groups, told WIRED earlier this year.
“My biggest problem with it is that it normalizes aggression. With the normalization of aggression and the normalization of the dehumanization of others, immigrants or otherwise, it’s not much of a jump to actual violence,” Braddock said.
Immigration raids have led to the arrest of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, most of whom do not possess any violent criminal record, despite the White House’s rhetoric claiming otherwise
In response to DHS’s post, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s office re-posted it with a quote from the Bible verse Matthew 25:35, which emphasizes acts of empathy toward those in need.
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” Newsom’s office wrote.
Meanwhile, Trump administration official Corey Lewandowski, who works alongside Secretary Kristi Noem, re-posted an article from The Mirror about the holiday-themed social media deportation campaign.
Lewandowski did not offer any further comment on it.
