If you were to base your entire knowledge of American current events solely on the social media feeds of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), you could easily conclude that the U.S. is at war. Earlier this month, a recruitment video featured on the agency's social media platforms urged viewers to join ICE, stating: "under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, we've reclaimed our border, secured our nation, and have begun to deport these foreign invaders. Equally important as the task of securing our borders is the task of defending our culture - and what it means to be an American." The video is part of a social media and advertising blitz to build public support for the current crackdown, and recruit new immigration agents. Homeland Security's stated mission is law enforcement, immigration, travel security and cybersecurity. Its campaign calling for the protection of American culture from invaders has raised eyebrows, and prompted accusations by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch Project, of promoting a White, Christian nationalist agenda.
Consider the agency's Instagram, which has nearly half a million followers: it's a potpourri of pop culture memes, action film quality videos of ICE raids, and paintings of white settlers expanding West as Native Americans flee into the shadows. There's also a lot of re-imagined vintage World War II style posters, often featuring Uncle Sam calling on Americans to join ICE.
Julio Anta, a graphic novelist, says the vintage quality evokes "the good old days of America, back when America was great." The World War II themes, he says, are a call to arms, "trying to inspire this newer generation to see this fight against immigrants as something in line with the greatest generation [who fought in the second World War]."
There's a long history of illustrations demonizing immigrants in America. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, editorial cartoons regularly attacked Irish, Italian, Chinese and Jewish immigrants. There's an infamous 19th century newspaper cartoon of Uncle Sam hovering angrily over a melting pot, the caption reads: "we can't digest the scum." In another illustration from 1911, a burly immigrant shines a shoe, the caption is a racial slur for Italians and how much garlic they eat.
Anta notes that DHS's social media artwork today almost entirely features White Americans and a romanticized past. "When I look at these images, I see predominantly white people in it. This is all about a time when society was great for white people, and trying to bring it back to that time again."
NPR reached out multiple times to DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin with detailed questions about their social media campaign. She did not respond.
Anta, the son of Cuban and Colombian immigrants, says he's disheartened by the images. He says the rhetoric, combined with the mass arrests of undocumented immigrants, at times with little or no due process, has made him feel unsafe right now as a Latino man. He carries a picture of his passport with him in case he gets stopped. He's taken aback by the recent DHS's recruitment ad which affirms that "we know what it means to be an American. Everyone knows what an American is."
"I think when I was growing up I might have felt included by that statement," says Anta. "I was raised to see America as this place that was made up of immigrants, and that the cultures that we all brought made this country a better place. And now we don't even get that."
42 percent of Latino voters elected Trump, a historic number for a Republican presidential candidate. But about a year into his presidency, polls show a changing picture: a recent New York Times/Sienna poll show 69% of Hispanics disapprove of the President.
The same poll shows 26 percent of Latinos do support Trump.
Among them, Peter Gonzalez, a 66 year old who lives in Tallahassee, Florida. He says he voted for President Trump in large part because he says he wanted illegal immigration controlled. His own parents are Cuban immigrants, but he emphasizes - they came to the U.S. legally.
"I have no problem with immigrants coming into this country," Gonzalez says. "We are all immigrants. But there's a process, there's procedures, there's background checks. All that stuff needs to be done."
Gonzalez, a retired Coast Guardsman, supports the ongoing immigration enforcement campaign. Gonzalez identifies as Hispanic and white, but says he's no stranger to anti-Latino racism—he faced it growing up. Still, he insists the DHS rhetoric isn't about race. It's about enforcing immigration law. "I don't feel targeted. I mean, everybody knows my last name. They know that I'm bilingual. I don't feel that the administration is targeting Latinos."
Gonzalez rarely uses social media. In fact, our interview marked the first time he'd seen DHS's Instagram recruitment posts. Scrolling through them, his discomfort becomes evident. "Protect your homeland, defend your culture," he repeats aloud. "Why? I'm ok with 'protect your homeland', meaning illegal criminals coming in. But the second part…" He stops. "'Defend your culture'? I don't agree with that. American culture is all cultures."
Gonzalez says he still supports President Trump's immigration crackdown.
But, as with many Latinos, this kind of messaging he says just doesn't sit right, and he finds it confusing. Julio Anta says, there's no question about it, he doesn't feel included in the recent DHS assertion that "everyone knows what an American is." "I think when the majority of people see me or my family, it's not that white mono culture they're trying to portray." But Anta wonders, what if the statement was flipped on its head? "We know an American when we see them, that could be an extremely empowering statement: that an American can be anyone, of any race, of any culture, of any generation in migration." But the way it's written now, he says, "it puts a target on our backs".
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