The Trump administration marked Halloween on Saturday, October 31, with social media videos celebrating migrant arrests and military action against foreign adversaries. The posts included material from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), the Department of Defense and the FBI.
ICE shared a one-minute video on X set to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” It opens with horror-film imagery before showing arrests and detained migrants, with captions identifying some as wanted for crimes, including homicide. ICE has led the administration’s mass deportation campaign targeting migrants without legal status.
The Department of Defense also posted a Halloween video, describing its focus as “lurking for America’s enemies.” The black-and-white montage combines missile launches and troops in action with clips of President Donald Trump talking about killing drug traffickers, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying those who kill Americans would be killed.
The FBI, meanwhile, published an animated video featuring a caricature of its director, Kash Patel. It adapted the lyrics of “Thriller” to highlight statistics the agency presented as showing a decline in crime.
The posts come amid frequent use of provocative social media content by the White House and Trump. Videos targeting migrants without legal status have been widely criticized as degrading and racist.
One post from Trump’s account urged American men to join ICE and paired the appeal with an image of Uncle Sam. Its wording echoed the title of a 1978 book by American white supremacist and neo-Nazi William Gayley Simpson. The book praises Adolf Hitler and promotes a conspiracy theory about a plot against white people and Christianity; a related idea appears in the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which claims that immigration will make white people a minority in the United States and Europe.
In February, Trump also shared a racist video depicting former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as monkeys. The post referenced a conspiracy theory about the 2020 election and drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans.
Sources: Folha Mundo.