THOUGHT POLICE

ICE Vows to Stop Illegal ‘Ideas’ Crossing the Border in Deleted Post

The agency faced major backlash after the post went up Thursday.

President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rushed to delete a social media post on Thursday that said authorities would stop illegal ideas from crossing the U.S. border.

Officials, organizations, and social media users tore into ICE after it shared a graphic on X that vowed to stop “people,” “money,” “products,” and “ideas” from crossing the border illegally.

“If it crosses the U.S. border illegally, it’s our job to STOP IT,” the graphic read. “ICE enforces 400+ federal laws to ensure public safety and national security.”

The post was shared as Trump has pledged to deport “millions” of immigrants. Last month, ICE told Newsweek it had carried out 28,000 deportations in the first seven weeks of Trump’s second term in office, from Jan. 20 to March 11.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security for comment by email.

The agency faced a major backlash on social media after the initial post went up Thursday.

“ICE now policing ‘ideas’ that ‘cross the border illegally,′” Democratic Rep. Don Beyer wrote on X.

“OOPS. Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and ICE just made a huge confession,” added The X account for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. “They openly shared that they’re deeming certain *ideas* ‘illegal.’ Luckily, the Internet is forever.”

“No idea is illegal. It is breathtakingly absurd and outrageous to even suggest that ideas need to be policed,” said the National Coalition Against Censorship, an alliance of 50 American non-profit organizations.

DREAM TEAM

‘ICE Barbie’ Kristi Noem Picks Her New Deporter-in-Chief

“And that the promise of the First Amendment—the freedom to think freely—is the bedrock of American values,” the non-profit organization said. “This post subverts everything our constitution stands for.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, asked if someone at ICE public affairs mistakenly used a stock photo and didn’t “look at it carefully enough?”

ICE told Politico that the post was mistakenly published and shouldn’t have been shared. A new post was then shared that replaced “ideas” with “intellectual property.”

“We regret any confusion that this error may have caused,” ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez told the publication. “Our number one goal is to provide accurate information to the public.”

“Incredible: ICE deleted the graphic saying that they were going to stop ideas from ‘illegally crossing the border,′” Reichlin-Melnick wrote on X.

Digital media company the Tennessee Holler wrote: “UPDATE: ICE deleted their openly fascist post about stopping ‘ideas’ from coming into [the U.S.].”

Meanwhile, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said that he hopes to see his agency one day round up immigrants for deportation with a system similar to how Amazon delivers packages around the country.

“We need to get better at treating this like a business,” Lyons told the 2025 Border Security Expo, held at the Phoenix Convention Center from April 8 to 9, the Arizona Mirror first reported.

He added that he wanted to see a deportation process “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings”.

Play Video

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Isabel van BrugenFreelance Writer

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.