ICE nodding to far-right extremists in recruitment posts, experts say

At first glance, there may not appear to be anything unusual about the social media posts that are part of the ongoing recruitment drive by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The posts, which encourage Americans to join ICE, use the same aggressively patriotic imagery that’s become a hallmark of the Trump administration’s online communications. 

But to observers of the far-right, and to members of the far-right themselves, there is something else that is recognizable in the language of the posts. 

"I would describe it as oddly very familiar as someone who has been looking at the white nationalist and neo-Nazi movement for nearly a decade now," said Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a non-profit that monitors right-wing extremism. 

"It's disturbing to see that coming from a government agency."

Gais is among several U.S. experts tracking a series of references in the ICE recruitment posts that, while obscure to most, seem to be winking to extremists. 

That’s raised the question: Who, exactly, ICE is trying to recruit? 

In the year since returning to power, U.S. President Donald Trump has overseen a dramatic expansion to ICE, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing immigration within the country.

Trump has set a goal of deporting one million people per year. But as ICE has ramped up arrests, it has been repeatedly accused of racially profiling suspected immigrants and using excessive force in its operations. 

Under the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed last summer, ICE was given $8 billion US to hire thousands more agents. The ensuing recruitment drive included social media outreach.

On Aug 11, 2025, ICE posted an image on its socials of Uncle Sam at a crossroads. It included the tag line "Which way, American man?"

The post echoed a meme popular among right-wing influencers, who use the phrase "Which way, Western man?" to illustrate a choice between an image meant to represent liberal values and an image representing their own preferred option. 

But the phrase itself is taken from the title of a 700-page antisemetic nonfiction book written by William Gayley Simpson and published by a neo-Nazi press in the late 1970s. 

The book has long been a favourite among white supremacists.