President Donald Trump has endorsed a cringeworthy attempt to rebrand his divisive Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
A day after another attempt on his life, Trump, 79, shared a post by a MAGA supporter that followed a poll this month that found over half the country thought his immigration agenda was “too aggressive.”
The president has weathered a public backlash to brutal ICE raids after the fatal shooting of citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti during protests in Minnesota in January.
The president shared a month-old X post by Alyssa Dehen, seemingly designed to troll the media, that read, “I want Trump to change ICE to NICE (National Immigration and Customs Enforcement) so the media has to say NICE agents all day everyday.”
After sharing the feel-good spin on the acronym of the toxic agency, Trump added on Truth Social, “GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT. President DJT.”
The Daily Beast has contacted ICE for comment.
A delighted Dehen, whose feed is filled with pro-MAGA and anti-immigration sentiment, dutifully shared Trump’s Truth Social post on her X account, boasting, “I am more MAGA now than ever.”
She has previously spoken at Turning Point USA events and prior to appearing in Trump’s feed spent her Sunday rage-posting on X after the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, including “If you’re wondering what side I’m on, it’s the one that doesn’t try to kill our president” and also, “WHO ELSE IS SICK AND TIRED OF SEEING OUR PRESIDENT GET SHOT AT?!”
The reaction to the president’s ICE-to-NICE post saw Democratic TikTok influencer Harry Sisson reply on X, “Trump is awake and he’s now demanding that ICE be renamed to NICE so the media has to say ‘NICE agents’ everyday. This is what the president is focused on. Very weird stuff.” Another X user pondered, “Wonder how that would lower my fuel prices.”
Conservative influencer Nick Sortor shared Trump’s post, and added, “100% agree! Make it happen, @SecMullinDHS," tagging new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
A Politico poll this month found that while the White House had tried to soften the image of ICE after the backlash to the deaths of Good and Pretti, voters still viewed the agency in a negative light.
The poll, which was conducted between April 11 and 14, found that 51 percent of Americans and a quarter of people who voted for Trump in 2024 found his mass deportation campaign and the behavior of ICE agents too aggressive.
After the Trump administration ended its anti-immigration surge in Minneapolis that led to national protests, it has since avoided similar deployments in other major cities.
ICE itself has had to cope with the firing in March of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, replaced by Mullin, the pugnacious Oklahoma senator.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan saw first-hand how young Republicans had an issue with ICE’s heavy-handed actions during an interview with right-wing broadcaster Benny Johnson last week.
A Baylor University student asked Homan about the fatal shooting of Pretty, a 37-year-old VA ICU nurse, by federal agents in January.
“That is extremely concerning to someone who believes in limited government and who believes in civil liberties,” the student said to Homan.
“And the biggest concern of that was, that day, they didn’t even try to investigate what happened. Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller put out tweets saying that this guy was a ‘domestic terrorist’—I believe it was Stephen Miller who said ‘he was trying to do maximum harm to law enforcement.’”
The student added, “We all saw the video. We all saw what happened. And the administration’s gut response by top officials was to immediately deny any accountability for what happened.”
“I can tell you that the deaths that occurred up there are tragedies and unfortunate. But they’re being investigated. I can assure you that,” Homan added.
Despite Homan’s references to an investigation, DHS told NPR earlier this month that the Justice Department was spearheading the investigation into Pretti’s death, while the DOJ declined to comment to the outlet.
In the case of Renee Good, DHS said that “the matter remains under investigation.” Authorities in Minnesota noted their federal counterparts have done little to indicate that the investigations are progressing.
