Members of Congress are demanding answers from Meta after it ran advertisements by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they say included imagery and music intended to appeal to white nationalists and neo-Nazis.<\/p>\n
In a letter sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Reps. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., questioned how the social media company approved an ad campaign from the Department of Homeland Security featuring the song \u201cWe\u2019ll Have Our Home Again,\u201d which is popular in neo-Nazi spaces. The lawmakers urged Meta to cease running the ad campaign on its social media platforms and asked whether the company would commit to ending its digital advertising partnership with DHS.<\/p>\n
The Intercept was among the first to report ICE\u2019s use of the song in a paid post recruiting for the agency, which published shortly after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. In their letter, the members of Congress cite The Intercept\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n
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The lawmakers also questioned imagery contained in the ads that extremism researchers said echoes far-right \u201creclamation\u201d narratives long associated with racist violence and accelerationist ideology.<\/p>\n
\u201cBusinesses are not on the sideline at this moment and it is important they also know how they are contributing to what is happening in Minnesota and across the country,\u201d said Balint. \u201cA lack of change is not neutrality but complicity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security, which has not responded to the congressional letter, defended its recruitment messaging in a statement to The Intercept.<\/p>\n
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin rejected comparisons between the ads and extremist propaganda, arguing that criticism of the campaign amounted to an attack on patriotic expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy Reps. Becca Balint and Pramila Jayapal\u2019s standards, every American who posts patriotic imagery on the Fourth of July should be cancelled and labeled a Nazi,\u201d McLaughlin said. \u201cNot everything you dislike is \u2018Nazi propaganda.\u2019 DHS will continue to use all tools to communicate with the American people and keep them informed on our historic effort to Make America Safe Again.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaughlin also accused critics of \u201cmanufacturing outrage\u201d and said the controversy had contributed to a rise in assaults against ICE personnel. \u201cIt\u2019s because of garbage like this we\u2019re seeing a 1,300% increase in assaults against our brave men and women of ICE,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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McLaughlin did not provide evidence to support the claim. Similar assertions by the Trump administration about sharp increases in assaults against immigration agents are not reflected in publicly available data.<\/p>\n
The most controversial ad in the campaign was a paid DHS recruitment post that published less than two days after the fatal shooting in Minneapolis. It paired immigration enforcement footage with the song \u201cWe\u2019ll Have Our Home Again\u201d by Pine Tree Riots. Popular in neo-Nazi online spaces, the song includes lyrics about reclaiming \u201cour home\u201d by \u201cblood or sweat.\u201d In the ad, it played as a cowboy rode a horse with a B-2 Spirit bomber flying overhead.<\/p>\n
The ad featured a scene of a B2 bomber flying over a man on horseback.\u00a0Screenshot: @DHSgov\/X.com <\/p>\n
After publicly rebuking allegations that the song had neo-Nazi ties, DHS later removed the recruitment post from its official Instagram account, according to a review of the page and reporting by other outlets. The department did not announce the deletion or respond to questions about why it was taken down. DHS did not address the song\u2019s documented circulation in white nationalist spaces or its appearance in the manifesto of a 2023 mass shooter.<\/p>\n
The Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019s Hatewatch project has separately documented the song\u2019s origins and circulation within organized white nationalist networks. The song was written and performed by Pine Tree Riots, a group affiliated with the M\u00e4nnerbund, which the SPLC has previously identified as a white nationalist organization. Hatewatch also found that the song has circulated widely in extremist online spaces and appeared in recruitment efforts by far-right groups.<\/p>\n
Balint and Jayapal framed the controversy as bigger than a single post. They accuse Meta of profiting from a large-scale digital recruitment campaign relying on themes that would stand out to white nationalists. They questioned what safeguards existed to prevent extremist-linked content from appearing in government advertising, and whether recent changes to Meta\u2019s hate-speech policies allowed the company to run the ads.<\/p>\n
The letter details the scale of the recruitment push. According to the lawmakers, DHS spent more than $2.8 million on recruitment ads across Facebook and Instagram between March and December of last year, and paid Meta an additional $500,000 beginning in August. During the first three weeks of last fall\u2019s government shutdown, ICE spent $4.5 million on paid media campaigns, the lawmakers write. The letter also cites reporting showing DHS spent more than $1 million over a 90-day period on \u201cself-deportation\u201d ads targeted at users interested in Latin music, Spanish as a second language, and Mexican cuisine.<\/p>\n
Balint and Jayapal argue that such spending has been made possible by an influx of funding for ICE. A decade ago, ICE\u2019s annual budget totaled less than $6 billion. Under new federal appropriations enacted last year, the agency has roughly $85 billion at its disposal, making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the United States. According to analysts cited by lawmakers, its budget is bigger than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers pointed to what they described as a deterioration in internal oversight and hiring standards, including waived age limits, large signing bonuses, and reports of recruits being rushed into the field without adequate training. They argued that the combination of rapid expansion, aggressive recruitment, and weak platform safeguards poses risks to public safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important that we scrutinize how that funding is being used, particularly if it is being used to attract certain demographics for hiring while pushing others to the periphery, or out of our society,\u201d Balint said.<\/p>\n
The letter asks Meta to disclose the scope and duration of its advertising agreement with DHS, provide any communications related to the recruitment ads, and explain what restrictions apply to paid government content under its policies.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s Community Standards prohibit content that promotes dehumanizing speech, harmful stereotypes, or calls for exclusion or segregation targeting people based on protected characteristics, including race, ethnicity, national origin, and immigration status.<\/p>\n
The policies also state that Meta removes content historically linked to intimidation or offline violence and applies heightened scrutiny during periods of increased tension or recent violence involving targeted groups. The members of Congress questioned whether those standards were enforced consistently for paid government advertising tied to DHS recruitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a whole host of safeguards that should be considered,\u201d Balint said. \u201cBut at a minimum, they need to abide by their own community guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Balint said the inquiry is ongoing and could expand beyond the recruitment campaign itself. \u201cI am certainly going to continue looking into how private groups are profiting off of or contributing to the untenable dynamic with ICE that is putting our communities at risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Since the recruitment campaign became the subject of public scrutiny, DHS and ICE have not made additional posts using the same song, imagery, or music across their official social media accounts.
\nThe post Lawmakers Call on Meta to Stop Running ICE Ad Featuring Neo-Nazi Anthem appeared first on The Intercept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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