Leaked internal chats show President Donald Trump’s team ordering ICE officials to “flood the airwaves” with “propaganda” videos of migrants being chased, shackled, and mocked—regardless of their veracity.
An investigation published Tuesday by The Washington Post details how the agency’s communications unit has morphed into an “influencer-style” propaganda shop during Trump’s second term. This involves churning out dramatic “Reddit”-esque raid videos en masse to appease White House aides, even when the visuals don’t match what was actually happening on the ground, according to the Post.
In one Los Angeles blitz, the paper found, the agency’s X feed jumped from three posts earlier in the day to 38 in 11 hours, pushing out mug shots and clips of “illegal aliens” being grabbed and hauled away.
The “overworked” public affairs team prioritized spectacle over accuracy at the behest of political appointees, according to the messages published by the Post. They show some officials were horrified by the new approach, while others appeared to revel in it.
Staff were reportedly told to brand arrestees as the “Worst of the Worst” even when they had no criminal record, hunting instead for something “newsworthy” like an “egregious immigration history.”
At the White House’s request, ICE’s assistant director for public affairs, Emily Covington, asked if a deportation-flight video from Texas could be recut so that it wouldn’t “feature tons of females.” A producer replied that they would re-edit the B-roll to remove the women.
One official admitted that footage was dropped if “the truth of the operation” did not fit the slogan.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, Covington said, “Under the prior administration, this team was told that they couldn’t say or post anything, likely because millions of illegal aliens were streaming into this country.”
She added, “Under President Trump, ICE is finally allowed to do its job. Of course we are going to be transparent and show the American public what the men and women of this agency do each day, including by providing details on the criminal illegal aliens they are removing.”
The Post also found that ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), repeatedly used copyrighted music and imagery without permission.
When one employee warned about violations, others waved the worries away—including, according to a senior DHS official, White House lawyers.
At least five government videos have been taken down from X after complaints from representatives for comedian Theo Von, the band MGMT, rappers Jay-Z, Joey Valence, and Chamillionaire, and rights holders for a Pokémon-style cartoon that riffed on the “Gotta Catch ’Em All” slogan.
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Post that the White House had given ICE and DHS “autonomy to create content that is effectively reaching the American public,” insisting that lawyers had pre-cleared posts leaning on copyrighted material.
The approach tracks previous reporting on the controversial public social-media operation overseen by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, under Trump, 79.
The new leaks also reveal the drastic lengths members of ICE’s visual communications unit went to in order to appease Trump officials. When professional producers were unavailable, public-affairs officers were dispatched with phones to act as what one DHS official called a “footage force multiplier,” shooting raids and courthouse arrests themselves.
One public-affairs specialist ended up in the emergency room with a bloodied hand after being hit by a rock outside a California marijuana farm. Another complained of being sent to volatile scenes in a T-shirt while agents around him wore body armor. ICE told the Post it now equips communications staff with protective gear, including vests and first-aid supplies.
As output ramped up, some staff became uncomfortable with the tone of the messaging. ICE’s X account posted a clip of a bound protester in Portland being wheeled face down on a cart, set to the lyric “they see me rollin’.” DHS’s main account called Illinois demonstrators “imbecilic morons,” and shared a Halloween montage of mug shots, warning there would be “no sanctuary for creatures & criminals of the night.”
A former DHS producer told The Post, “They just went nuts. It was no limit. It was like if someone from Reddit took over.”
Some federal prosecutors told colleagues they worried the brash posts could taint jury pools or raise allegations of bias, the Post reported. McLaughlin said she was unaware of such concerns and argued that if lawyers were worried, they should raise them with her rather than talking to journalists.
But other officials appeared to enjoy Trump’s hard-nosed approach to immigration enforcement, per the messages. One shared a “Hide Yo Wife. Hide Yo Kids” meme four days into the president’s term and mocked a migrant’s mug shot as an “MS13 heart throb.”
One staffer even joked in a chat about checking immigration paperwork for Los Angeles Dodgers’ Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, after the team restricted ICE access to its parking lots.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson blamed Trump’s predecessor for criticism of DHS featured in the Post report, claiming in a comment to the Daily Beast that “career DHS bureaucrats are complaining to the media about finally having to do their jobs.”
She said Trump and his team were “working at breakneck speed” to “keep our promises, deport criminal illegal aliens, and get information out to the public...no matter what the Washington Post or disgruntled employees try to say.”
