US President Donald Trump’s decision to use masked, armed federal officials to arrest parishioners, is one of the most terrifying aspects of his second term.
“Secret Police” as a sarcastic brand name
The brutal repression campaign of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against undocumented migrants across the country has caused many activists, members of the public and democratic politicians to describe the authority as a new secret police. Trump’s ICE carries out raids in immigration courts, jobs and farms. The officials regularly dress civilians, carry masks and facial lights on the veiling of their identity and refrain from identifying marks such as badges, names or other references to their belonging to the law enforcement authorities. “This is an authoritarian, militarized secret police; you don’t see something like this in a democratic government,” said MP Dan Goldman (DN.Y.) at the end of June.
The New York city treasurer Brad Lander-the last month was arrested by masked civil servants when he accompanied a man to his immigration hearing-criticized Trump’s “ICE official without searching for searches, in civilian hidden” on Thursday, and added that he was proud to support a state law “to terminate the ICE operations in the shade”.
The X-account of the Ministry of Homeland Protection was indignant that Lander compare ICE officials with a “secret police”. It called this rhetoric “hideous”. It was claimed that the officials “identify verbally” and have name tags. On the same day, the White House published a press release with the claim that “Democrats inspire malignant, escalating attacks on ICE”. It insisted that the “attacks have become brazen in the past few days”. In the communication, the White House Goldman and Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson criticized for the use of the term “secret police”.
Memes, T-shirts, trolling
The government publicly contradicts the accusation that ICE operates like a “secret police”, but it is politics behind closed doors. And a funny meme.
In the past few weeks-according to two government officials and two other Republicans with proximity to the Trump-White House-part of the extreme Maga faction within the government, mostly in private, has adopted the term “secret police”. Simply to counter the criticism of the left of Trump’s ICE inserts in a sarcastic way.
A government official told Rolling Stone that he had “definitely proposed” to have “secret police” printed on T-shirts and merch in loose discussions with other Trump employees and consultants. “To make it look badass”. But that is “not as easy to get through as the president’s search photo or ‘proud scum’.”
Another government official told about a recurring “joke” that he put on colleagues when he inquires about the status of the federal immigration missions. “What does the secret police do today?” He emphasized: “We just have a little fun. I don’t really think ICE is a secret police.”
You will definitely make fun of it. A source with closeness to the White House shared a screenshot of a group chat that Rolling Stone was able to confirm-with at least two Trump-called-in which a Maga loyalist-made a homemade meme with MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), sent the words “Trump’s secret police” and a picture of Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd.
Official memes for ICE raids
Three of these MAGA sources report that, along with other people in the area of Trump and the government, they regularly exchange their favorite-pro-iece and pro “secret police” memes, which they can find in extreme right internet forums. Some would have suggested internally to have Trump’s “horny” pictures on Truth on Truth. Or to be promoted by the White House or the Ministry of Homeland. So far, however, without success.
However, this does not mean that the White House or the Ministry of Homeland does not post its own memes to the brutalization of people.
MP Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) Reacted to a video on Thursday that ICE shows in a raid on California Farmland, with the question of how many alleged gang members “get up at 3 a.m. to pick strawberries? Oh, zero!”
“Trump said he would hunt ‘bad guys’. But he aims at immigrant field workers who feed America. He either lied. Or he can’t distinguish,” wrote Gomez.
The White House replied with an edited picture of Gomez with an open mouth. Sobbing. “They are just strawberry pickers,” was the caption. “This is not a fruit, buddy. That is a product,” wrote the white house. And claimed that marijuana would be grown in the searched fields.
On Friday, the White House posted a picture of a posterboard on the lawn of the White House with a similar font. As well as the text: “OMG, did the White House really post it?” The accompanying caption was: “Nowhere in the constitution it says that we are not allowed to post any blatant memes.”
Online rights cheered: “I chose for that”
The White House has been pursuing the meme strategy to apply for their hard anti-immigration policy for months. In February, the White House posted a social media video entitled “ASMR: Deportation flight of illegal foreigners”, which made fun of tied migrants who were chained together with chains into a plane. And in March, official accounts spread cartoons that were generated by AI and show a crying migrant when arrested by ICE. In the style of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki by Studio Ghibli. And in June, the Ministry of Homeland Property published a video of ICE arrest with the song “ICE, ICE, Baby”.
Despite the broad criticism, the White House, especially its social media team, remains determined to continue its hyperdigital, meme-heavy PR strategy in order to sell its immigration policy to the public.
The online rights are enthusiastic. Variants of the sentence “I chose” have become a triumphant saying. The standard response to any outrage about the behavior of ICE officials. Videos of masked civil servants in raids that roughly arrest migrants are exactly the reason why Trump’s supporter chose him back to the White House. In an X-Post with over half a million, the right commentator Chaya Raichik (“Libs of Tiktok”) rejected a statement by a FOX news moderator. He said that many Republicans had “not chosen to show people at Home Depot or before immigration courts.”
“Wrong,” wrote Raichik. “This is exactly what I chose! I voted for mass deportations of every illegal foreigner.”
When the men’s fashion author Derek Guy admitted to X last month to have come to the USA without papers from Canada, Vice President JD Vance replied with a meme from Jack Nicholson, who nods in agreement when a user suggested that Vance should “take the opportunity to do the funnyest ever”. Namely to have Guy deported.
Activists criminalized, politicians threatened
Of course, the president’s advisors want to have fun both within and outside of the government. At the same time, however, they try to blame the left and elected Democrats of any violence that ICE often counteracts Trumps with lawless repression.
“This is the bed wet party. Today’s Democratic Party is hysterical and belongs. But it is also dangerous,” says conservative lawyer Mike Davis. A close Trump confidant and a key figure in the legal Maga scene. “Your rhetoric [über ‚Geheimpolizei‘ und andere Dinge] leads to backers against federal officials on duty. “
Trump’s government throws activists and organizers who provide information about ICE activities in communities or advise migrants to hinder the judiciary. Like the makers of the app ICE. Block Trump played with the thought of having California’s governor Gavin Newsom arrested in Los Angeles during the raid. Trump’s “Grenzzar” Tom Homan threatened Member of Ocasio Cortez with criminal prosecution after giving tips in an Instagram live stream and co-documented migrants.
Democratic MP Lamonica Mciver (Dn.J.) was accused of attacking, hindering and intimating the arrest of Newark’s mayor Ras Baraka during a congress examination in a New Jersey Habilight Center.
Mciver did not guilty. “You won’t intimidate me,” she said before the court. “You won’t prevent me from doing my job.”