Colorado law enforcement<\/span> officials warned their counterparts across the country that social media posts by the Department of Homeland Security recruiting for ICE contained so many white supremacist themes that they could endanger the public, according to internal records obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n The Colorado Information Analysis Center cautioned in a March bulletin<\/a> that \u201cviolent extremists\u201d might perceive \u201cWhite Supremacy Ideology in ICE Recruitment Materials, Leading to a Potentially Increased Threat Environment.\u201d<\/p>\n The bulletin from an agency tasked with preventing terrorism advised law enforcement offices throughout the United States that these posts could create a \u201cpermissive environment to engage in vigilante action and\/or violence against individuals perceived to be immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n These DHS posts, the analysts warned, could convince \u201cwhite supremacist violent extremists to attempt to join or infiltrate ICE and engage in bias motivated violence, endangering the public, other ICE personnel, and local law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n The bulletin circulated following months of inflammatory social media posts by the Department of Homeland Security intended to drive ICE recruitment and promote the Trump administration\u2019s agenda of violent mass deportation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Colorado officials singled out tweets mimicking memes popular in right-wing online subcultures, referencing the rhetoric, lyrics<\/a> and tropes commonly used by violent white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Third Reich. <\/strong>The social media campaign drew widespread criticism, with groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center alleging<\/a> that DHS \u201cis using white nationalist imagery and language to recruit new employees and arrest immigrants.\u201d DHS has defended<\/a> its online tactics as \u201cbold and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n The bulletin originated from a Colorado fusion center, part of a network of information clearinghouses for local, state and federal police that spread across the U.S. following 9\/11. Originally conceived as a counter-terror measure, fusion centers have evolved into a sprawling surveillance apparatus<\/a> tracking everything from drugs and shoplifting to student protests<\/a> despite little evidence of their efficacy as a terror-fighting tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reports from fusion centers are widely circulated among law enforcement agencies nationwide. The bulletin from the Colorado fusion center is notable in that it is the first indication that state officials in the U.S. counter-terrorism establishment are concerned about the messaging of DHS under Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that you have the fusion center putting out a warning for law enforcement offices based on DHS messaging is surprising, even if it seems appropriate,\u201d said Claire Trickler-McNulty, who spent eight years as an ICE official both under Obama and Biden and during Trump\u2019s first administration.<\/p>\n She described the evidence presented in the bulletin as \u201crather damning.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Do you have information about fusion centers? Contact the authors on Signal at sledge.41 and sambiddle.99.<\/em><\/p>\n The posts highlighted in the report were crafted under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired in March and replaced by Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin. Noem was preceded in her departure by combative DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who oversaw the agency\u2019s social media push.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe lyrics feature lines about reclaiming \u2018our home\u2019 by \u2018blood or sweat,\u2019 language often used in white supremacist rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The bulletin delved deep into DHS and social media posts, which the report noted have been eagerly reposted by White supremacists from Austria to the U.S.<\/p>\n A January 9 DHS post<\/a> on X, for instance, included an image of a lone man on horseback with the caption, \u201cWe\u2019ll have our home again.\u201d It might look like a piece of romanticized frontier nostalgia to many, but some would recognize the phrase \u201cis a lyric from a song popular within and adopted by white nationalist organizations,\u201d the memo reads. \u201cThe lyrics feature lines about reclaiming \u2018our home\u2019 by \u2018blood or sweat,\u2019 language often used in white supremacist rhetoric.\u201d The memo noted that \u201cMembers of the white nationalist group, Patriot Front, have been recorded chanting \u2018By God, we\u2019ll have our home,\u2019 the song\u2019s refrain,\u201d and that \u201cLyrics from the song opened the manifesto of a white supremacist who killed three people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida in 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n After The Intercept reported on DHS\u2019 use of the song <\/a>\u201cWe\u2019ll Have Our Home Again\u201d by Pine Tree Riots, lawmakers urged Meta<\/a>, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, to stop running the ad.<\/p>\n DHS\u2019 quotation of a song known to be popular among neo-Nazis is part of a pattern, the report says, of \u201crepeated use of visual or rhetorical elements that overlap with symbols historically referenced within extremist subcultures.\u201d The memo highlights the frequent use of the term \u201cremigration\u201d by the Department of Homeland Security, a term the Colorado law enforcement analysts explained \u201cdates back to 1930s Germany,\u201d where it was used to advocate for forced expulsion of Jews.<\/p>\n It points out Homeland Security\u2019s use of the \u201cMoon Man\u201d meme, a character from a 1980s McDonald\u2019s advertising campaign that has become popular among online racists for its resemblance to a Ku Klux Klansman. The bulletin highlighted one social media user who replied to a DHS post using the \u201cMoon Man\u201d character, stating \u201cit\u2019s TND time\u201d \u2014 an abbreviation for the phrase \u201ctotal n*****<\/strong> death,\u201d which has spread among white supremacists. This user attached his own version of the meme showing the character posing before a swastika flag with a rifle.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate them putting it together and so clearly laying out the dangers of using this white nationalist imagery,\u201d Trickler-McNulty said.<\/p>\n The report includes a disclaimer noting that it doesn\u2019t intend \u201cto imply ideological alignment between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and white supremacist ideology.\u201d But the analysts show how the social posts were quickly gaining traction among white supremacists, who were encouraging each other to sign up as immigration agents.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the timeframe that these posts from DHS have circulated online,\u201d the intelligence bulletin warns, \u201cwhite supremacist violent extremist groups have been simultaneously advocating for their followers to join ICE and\/or musing about the potential for ICE to turn into a white supremacist militia.\u201d<\/p>\n In a \u201cneo-Nazi accelerationist social media channel,\u201d for instance, internet users talked about infiltrating ICE and using its authority to form a \u201cbreakaway militia,\u201d auguring a nationwide race war. Users on a neo-Nazi message board, the bulletin says, \u201cdiscussed the advantages of joining ICE, viewing it as an opportunity for \u2018accelerating conflict in the US\u2019 and \u2018beating up race traitors.\u2019 One user claimed that someone in the network had already been a captain at an ICE-contracted detention facility.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which oversees the fusion center, did not answer when asked whether the agency had received a response from DHS about its bulletin. The fusion center spreads information to \u201cprivate sector, local, tribal, and federal organizations,\u201d spokesperson Micki Trost said in an email statement. \u201cBulletins help us share information with this network to meet our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n The bulletin also argues that DHS\u2019 posts could provoke violence against law enforcement from those who oppose white supremacists. Antifascist activists might \u201cmisinterpret DHS messaging and perceive all ICE personnel, and by extension law enforcement and government officials, as supportive of or complicit in white supremacy, therefore creating perceived justification for violence targeting those individuals,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n\n
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