John,
ICE’s latest recruitment ads are built around music and language drawn straight from far-right neo-Nazi memes, and they are aimed at extremists who are most fervent about guns, tactical gear, and vigilantism. Meanwhile, two companies you probably use all the time are making a profit from running these ads: YouTube and Google.
One ICE recruitment post on the official DHS Instagram account, less than two days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, included the song, “We’ll Have Our Home Again” by Pine Tree Riots. This song, popularized in neo-Nazi spaces, uses phrases associated with white nationalist calls for race war, their “glimpse at kingdom come:”
“On the other side of misery,
there′s a world we long to see
The strife we share, will take us there
Oh by God we'll have our home again
By God, we'll have our home
By blood or sweat, we′ll get there yet
By God we′ll have our home”
Google and YouTube are taking taxpayer money to platform these plainly racist lines for millions of viewers and helping ICE recruit an additional 10,000 jackbooted thugs to terrorize our communities.
No corporation should be profiting from ICE ads that promote white supremacist rhetoric and intimidation. Tell Google and YouTube to stop taking ICE’s money and take down these vile recruitment ads immediately.
In the past, these kinds of race-baiting dog whistles were promoted by white supremacists fringe groups. Now they are blasted out unapologetically on the official government social media. It’s as if the torch-bearing “Unite the Right” rioters who killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 are now running the actual DHS recruitment campaign.
And these ads are not being shown at random. As part of ICE’s aggressive $100 million recruitment campaign, funded by Congressional Republicans, they target men who seek out guns, tactical gear, and far-right podcasts online. Using phrases like “sacred duty,” “defend the homeland,” and “foreign invaders,” ICE is defining the lines of battle against the so-called “enemy within.”
Tell Google and YouTube to stop profiting from ICE’s violent and racist campaign and to remove these hate-filled recruitment ads immediately.
Thank you for fighting back against ICE’s reign of terror.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
