DHS posted an image calling for help locating ‘all foreign invaders.’ It was previously circulated by far-right accounts

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line. The post — which DHS and the White House also posted to Instagram — prompted a flood of criticism, with some social media users comparing the post to authoritarian propaganda. On Thursday, at least two far-right X accounts claimed to have a hand in creating or disseminating the image before it was shared by DHS. A source within DHS told CNN the agency did not create the graphic. The DHS’s Uncle Sam post has more than 81,000 likes and comes as immigration protests roil Los Angeles and other cities around the country, amid a deportation crackdown by President Donald Trump and DHS. And it marks an escalation in the agency’s communication strategy, after weeks of using social media to attack or mock perceived enemies, promote ICE arrests and ridicule media reports it disagrees with. In another recent post, DHS responded to a comment appearing to question a popular X user’s immigration status with a meme of a character with magnifying glasses. In May, DHS also said it was reviewing a reality TV show pitch where immigrants would compete for US citizenship, which an agency spokesperson said at the time was in the early stages of vetting and had not yet been approved or denied. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem later told a Senate committee that she had “no knowledge” of a reality show plan. The Uncle Sam graphic is reminiscent of media used previously by other governments to provoke fear, especially of immigrants, said Elisabeth Fondren, a journalism professor at St. John’s University who has studied government propaganda and communications during war times. “This poster fits within a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and, yes, state propaganda,” Fondren said. “It evokes these remnants of Cold War, fake propaganda by the Russians, or, you know, authoritarian fear mongering messages … but what I think is so interesting is that this is a call to action in an environment where we’re not in a war.”