A model of this story appeared in NCS’s What Matters publication. To get it in your inbox, enroll for free here.
On the one hand, the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities are suing to cease “a federal invasion” of immigration brokers.
On the opposite hand, federal immigration authorities are adopting Uncle Sam to muster the inner nationwide police for a sort of reverse invasion, by which a home military is required to reclaim the nation.
“America has been invaded by criminals and predators,” in accordance to the recruiting poster pinned to the highest of the Department of Homeland Security account on X. “We need YOU to get them out.”
Another social media recruiting poster is in the identical nostalgic vein as Uncle Sam, but it surely relied as a substitute on a phrase with ties to proper wing extremism.
A cowboy on horseback, just like the Marlboro Man seen from afar, streaks throughout a mountain valley with a Stealth bomber flying above.
“We’ll have our home again,” is the one textual content, together with “join.ice.gov,” a web site the place individuals can study a little bit about working at ICE. It repeats the language from the recruiting poster and provides that no school diploma is required.
The wistful phrase “We’ll have our home again” seems seemingly to enchantment to the far proper, because it seems to counsel the alternative idea promoted by individuals comparable to former DOGE chief Elon Musk and likewise by White supremacist teams.
Even earlier than the DHS publish, that phrase was cited as having ties to White nationalist teams within the US and Canada in a database of symbols maintained by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
Wendy Via, the CEO and co-founder of GPAHE, despatched a number of examples from the social media platform Telegram of accounts related to the Proud Boys utilizing that wording. They steadily cite a folks music by the identical identify. Now that DHS is utilizing the time period, the accounts of right-wing teams are amplifying the official US government posts.
The Washington Post just lately reported on a DHS plan to turbocharge its recruitment efforts with a $100 million taxpayer-funded “wartime recruitment” effort. The plan, described in a 30-page doc obtained by the Post, included geotargeting individuals who attend sure sporting occasions, together with NASCAR, UFC and rodeos, in addition to hiring on-line influencers to unfold the phrase.
DHS didn’t reply to requests for touch upon the recruitment effort or the content material of recruitment adverts, however one may think about a protection that a phrase like “We’ll have our home again” is descriptive, plain English.
“The thing with coded language is that it creates one plausible deniability, and so you don’t really know for sure if it’s intentional,” Cynthia Mills-Idriss advised me. She’s the director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University.
“And even if it’s intentional, the majority of people who look at it aren’t going to know the code,” Mills-Idriss stated.
But those that do know can be seemingly to really feel extra snug and welcome within the government, and maybe extra seemingly to apply for jobs at ICE.
Replacement idea — the concept White individuals are being changed within the US (and different international locations) — has been pushed in conservative media in addition to by figures comparable to Musk.
When The New York Times identified to Trump that the one refugees at present being allowed within the US are White Afrikaners from South Africa and requested if he was making an attempt to make the nation “whiter,” Trump said this:
But when Trump talks about stripping citizenship from Somali Americans or rescinds temporary protected standing for migrants from different non-White majority international locations, it’s music to the ears of alternative idea adherents.
So is the official adoption by the US government of the time period “remigration.”
The time period is descriptive, since sending migrants away from the US is clearly the coverage of Trump’s White House because it pursues mass deportations and encourages immigrants to self-deport. But the time period additionally borrows from white nationalists in Europe. It has roots in Nazi ideology and refers to ethnic cleaning, as NCS’s Chelsea Bailey wrote last year when DHS used the time period on social media.
The US State Department is creating an “Office of Remigration” for immigration points.
Via stated it’s essential to monitor how these concepts unfold not solely throughout the US, but in addition throughout different international locations. That’s notably the case with a idea like remigration, which originated in Europe, however has been adopted by the Trump administration.
“It has become normalized, it’s commonplace, and it is a plan for ethnic cleansing,” she stated.
There are loads of examples of posts sure to enchantment to Wwhite nationalists from different government businesses, just like the Department of Labor, which posted a video with a statue of George Washington and inspiring Americans to “Remember who you are,” with the tagline: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage.” Other historic photographs within the video don’t precisely commemorate the Civil Rights period.
Not precisely delicate. The “one heritage” being pushed by the Trump administration, critics say, isn’t that of immigrants from the previous 100 years or these from non-European backgrounds.
“People who care are able to see the pattern. It’s not a one-off. It is a concerted effort to create these type of recruitment ads,” Via advised me.