ICE nodding to far-right extremists in recruitment posts, experts say

 

U.S. immigration enforcement agency memes look familiar to far-right groups

At first glance, there may not appear to be anything unusual about the social media posts that are part of the ongoing recruitment drive by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The posts, which encourage Americans to join ICE, use the same aggressively patriotic imagery that’s become a hallmark of the Trump administration’s online communications. 

But to observers of the far-right, and to members of the far-right themselves, there is something else that is recognizable in the language of the posts. 

"I would describe it as oddly very familiar as someone who has been looking at the white nationalist and neo-Nazi movement for nearly a decade now," said Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a non-profit that monitors right-wing extremism. 

"It's disturbing to see that coming from a government agency."

Gais is among several U.S. experts tracking a series of references in the ICE recruitment posts that, while obscure to most, seem to be winking to extremists. 

That’s raised the question: Who, exactly, is ICE trying to recruit?  (more...)

ICE nodding to far-right extremists in recruitment posts, experts say