Fact or fiction? Ads about ICE bombard US computers, TVs and phones - USA Today

The television portrayals couldn't be more different.

One recent TV ad that aired on MSNOW and CNN featured images from the January killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis, along with news footage of people being violently confronted on city streets. The montage is punctuated by a snippet of podcaster Joe Rogan asking, “Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘…. Is that what we’ve come to?”

Another high-profile ad broadcast in select TV markets struck an opposite perspective, portraying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as everyday community folks with a difficult job to do. It concludes with cinematic images of unmasked agents calmly escorting detained persons to police vehicles.

They’re at-odds depictions designed to shape public opinion about the controversial agency whose aggressive tactics have sparked shock and outrage nationwide, with polls indicating nearly two-thirds of Americans now think ICE has gone too far. While advocacy groups have long used such outreach to challenge public policy or spotlight social ills, the mostly critical ICE-focused spots represent a new twist on the strategy by focusing directly on a federal agency and its agents.

“I’m struggling to think of any precedent,” said Travis Ridout, a professor of government and public policy at Washington State University in Pullman and an expert in political advertising. “This seems to be something new.”

The ads have aired in recent months as part of six-figure campaigns largely spearheaded by advocacy groups whose constituents are affected by ICE activity or who see it as their moral duty to take a stand. Some have aired in cities targeted by heightened detention and deportation efforts, such as Chicago, New Orleans and Charlotte, North Carolina, while others have focused on streaming services that have run ICE recruitment ads, such as Spotify.

While most aired for several weeks at most, they remain viewable on social media and video-sharing platforms such as YouTube.

In November, a one-minute ad produced by global advocacy group Women’s March addressed those working as ICE officers: It showed a young girl greeting her father as he comes home from work, wearing a troubled look on his face, the letters ICE visible on his shirt.

Her dad crouches to embrace her when she asks about his day, his mind racing with TV images of crying mothers and children, masked agents breaking car windows and people being slammed onto the ground.

“A mask can’t hide you from the neighbors, your children, or God,” a voiceover says in the ad, titled “What Will You Say?” “They’ll know. You can walk away before the shame follows you home.”

That same month, a spot produced by progressive nonprofit MoveOn Civic Action spoofed ICE recruitment ads: “Do you feel good about tear gassing kids? Shooting pastors? Or kidnapping grandmas? Then you have exactly what Donald Trump is looking for.”

And in December, an ad created by national civil and religious rights organization Interfaith Alliance featured a child’s voice singing “O Holy Night” over news footage of ICE agents violently detaining people and bursting through doors wielding guns, interspersed with images of family and community holiday gatherings.

Called “Choose Love, Not ICE,” the Interfaith Alliance video has nearly 2 million views on YouTube and ran in Charlotte, New Orleans and other ICE-targeted markets as well as during "A Saturday Night Live Christmas" special on NBC.

“We also did a small buy in West Palm Beach on Fox News, in case the president happened to be watching,” said the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, the organization’s CEO.

The ad, Raushenbush said, aimed to galvanize faith communities and others against ICE’s tactics, including what he called the Department of Homeland Security’s "almost obscene" use of Bible verses in social media posts promoting ICE enforcement.

The stark contrast between the child’s voice singing a beloved hymn and the agency’s militaristic actions was designed “to frame this as a stark choice of understanding how your faith is being used and what your faith calls you to do,” he said.

“It’s really about asking who we want to be as a country,” Raushenbush said. “There have been moments when it’s been crucial that faith communities show up around national politics, whether it’s war or civil rights, and this is another one of those moments.”

Clashing portrayals of ICE

Stephen Medvic, a professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said the ads essentially treat ICE as policy, with critics not necessarily calling for its abolishment but saying its actions have gone too far. As such, he said, their lineage lies in campaigns of past years that aimed to sway public sentiment on federal policy.

“While it’s unique that they’re focused on a particular agency, the way they’re in keeping with old issue ads is that it’s really about a policy choice that’s been made,” he said.

Medvic described the dynamic as similar to a 2025 ad produced by VoteVets that criticized job cuts affecting military veterans by Elon Musk’s now-disbanded Department of Government Efficiency, or the “Harry and Louise” ad campaign mounted to oppose Clinton administration national healthcare reform efforts in the mid-1990s.

The fascinating outlier, he said, is the pro-ICE ad, attributed to a shadowy group called American Sovereignty. Posts on social media indicate it ran during the Super Bowl in select markets.

The 30-second spot features images of people celebrating kids' parties, playing cards, or coaching baseball, a narrator describing them as friends, neighbors, sons, fathers, little league coaches and veterans before noting their jobs as ICE officers.

“They are removing violent criminals from our streets and neighborhoods,” the voiceover says. “It’s dangerous and difficult work. But ICE has one mission: to make America a safer place to live – and that’s what they’re doing.”

According to its website, American Sovereignty’s mission is to bolster border security through cooperation with law enforcement, policy makers and community leaders. It lists no leaders, staff, headquarters, funding sources, or other identifying information, and the organization did not respond to questions from USA TODAY.

“We don’t know who’s behind it, but they’re clearly trying to bolster ICE’s image as an agency,” Medvic said. “It may be in the mold of the former Department of Defense ads for recruiting purposes, putting the armed forces in a positive light to attract recruits. But it’s really a reaction to public opinion turning against ICE, and that’s pretty unique in and of itself.”

'Gestapo' comparison spurred agency to action

It was in mid-January, when leaders at the Jewish Democratic Council of America heard Joe Rogan’s take on ICE, that they felt their organization had to act, CEO Halie Soifer said.

The 30-second ad featuring Rogan’s “Gestapo” comparison, titled “It’s Gone Too Far,” debuted on Feb. 9 and aired on MS NOW and CNN. It calls on Trump to "stop the abuse" and "investigate the killings."

“When we heard Joe Rogan likening ICE’s actions to the Gestapo, that resonated with us,” Soifer said. “We’ve seen the White House using White nationalist dog whistles to recruit for ICE, invoking Neo-Nazi slogans and White supremacist memes in a way that is deeply troubling. We know from the darkest moments of history where that can lead and will absolutely not allow it to be repeated.”

While the ad aligns with the organization’s call to its members to engage political leaders around the issue, the ad “is not an election ad,” she said. “It doesn’t mention any candidate or party. It’s part of our larger advocacy efforts to rein in the policies of this administration.”

Trump announced on Feb. 13 that ICE would withdraw its agents from Minneapolis after a contentious and deadly surge in which the killings of Good and Pretti, both captured on video, drew heated backlash for what many saw as the administration’s attempts to falsely portray them at fault.

While urging pullback was among the ad’s goals, Soifer said, “there’s still no transparent investigation into the killings and no accountability for what appears to be the murder of American citizens without cause. It’s a step in the right direction, but there’s still a ways to go.”