If you’ve been on X at all during the past year, then you might’ve noticed that the algorithm has been pushing unsavory right-wing content on our feeds ever since Elon Musk took it over. But this past weekend, the shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. by a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan apparently pushed whoever is running the Trump administration’s account right over the edge.
Taking the cake for the most racist poster was the Department of Homeland Security’s official account, which called for “remigration”— a racist term that calls for the deportation of nonwhite people. Seriously, Wikipedia it. It’s a synonym for ethnic cleansing.
It’s not the first time the DHS has had a major racist crash-out on social media. Recently, another post blamed immigrants for every issue affecting Americans today:
The post goes on to give many more examples of things undocumented immigrants are apparently ruining for everyone else, from health care to welfare, as if it weren’t actually the government’s job to enable access to all of these things for its citizens.
I know we’re talking about X here (which has a reputation that is now somewhat lacking), but is it too much to ask for official government accounts to maintain some kind of professionalism? Instead, we have right-wing conspiracy pages that glorify deportation and talk about arresting immigrants as if it were a fun and frivolous hobby. A recent ICE recruitment post from this year depicts a large, sus-looking van with a caption: “Think about how many criminal illegal aliens you could fit in this bad boy!”
These distasteful posts have grabbed many people’s attention, including celebrities. Earlier this month, DHS posted an Instagram reel encouraging immigrants to self-deport, using Olivia Rodrigo’s iconic song, “All-American Bitch.” In a comment that made headlines but has since been deleted, Rodrigo wrote, “Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.”
And that is the one silver lining in all of this: People are not taking it all in silently, and they’re clapping back majorly in the comments.
A particularly juicy and highly liked comment on a racist DHS post shows a meme of Schrodinger’s Immigrant: A person who is simultaneously lazily collecting all the welfare while also somehow taking away all the jobs, illuminating the absurdity of the administration’s stance. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for government benefits, and data doesn’t support the notion that they are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens.
Even though it’s apparently normal for our government to post racist propaganda on their social media now, it’s essential that we keep calling it out for what it is: unhinged and un-American behavior. Regardless of your stance on immigration, I think we can all agree that making fun of other people’s suffering is not it.