Since the federal government shut down, the Trump administration has spent almost $10 million on ads urging immigrants to self-deport and Americans to join U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a new report has shown.
Analysis shared with Newsweek by Equis, a research and polling organization focused on Latinos, and Priorities USA, which mainly monitors election campaigns, showed ads continuing to run across social media and TV channels as other vital government services were frozen.
“Millions of people are at risk of losing their food stamps and are about to go hungry because of this government shut down,” Natalia Campos Vargas, a deputy research director at Equis, told Newsweek. “But somehow the Trump administration and DHS and ICE are choosing to spend millions of dollars on ad campaigns. That just feels inherently wrong to me as a taxpayer.”
While Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, do not fall under the Department of Homeland Security, the program has become a symbol of the ongoing standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, leaving the federal government shut down for over four weeks.
Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday morning for comment.
Why It Matters
DHS has rapidly increased its social media, TV, and internet presence since President Donald Trump’s return to office, instigating sweeping campaigns to encourage immigrants to either not come to the United States in the first place or leave if they are in the country illegally. Amid the federal government shutdown, the White House has repeatedly blamed Democrats for critical programs and federal agents’ wages being put on hold.
What To Know
Using data from Priorities USA’s AdHawk platform, Equis found that DHS and ICE continued ad spending between October 1 and 21, despite the government shutdown, which had led to around 900,000 workers being furloughed and roughly 2 million going without pay.
Over those three weeks, ICE spent $4.5 million on paid media, while DHS spent over $5.3 million on ads aimed at illegal immigrants, as well as part of recruitment for ICE agents. Equis said that ICE had spent over $13 million on its ads since August alone, including targeted campaigns in sanctuary cities including Seattle, Boston, and Chicago.
Campos Vargas said this appeared to be at odds with the Trump administration’s messaging that critical services were going without funding due to the standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over budgets and spending.
While SNAP benefits do not fall under DHS—they are administered by USDA—the program has become a focal point of the disagreements, keeping the government closed and federal workers, including those at ICE, without pay.
DHS ads have split Americans, with recent campaigns on Spotify prompting some users to boycott the platform, while others have celebrated the department’s use of its social media accounts, which often use memes to tell illegal immigrants to leave.
While the government is generally not permitted to keep spending on media campaigns during a shutdown, the campaigns that have continued to air may be deemed essential messaging or funded with already-appropriated funds that cannot be diverted elsewhere.
What People Are Saying
Equis Deputy Research Director Natalia Campos Vargas told Newsweek: “Because of the nature of being government entities, these are tracked as non-partisan spends on ad platforms. They’re subject to different rules and things like that; they aren’t political in nature because they are meant to be government agencies. But it is very clear in the speech that is used that it is highly political in nature.”
What Happens Next
DHS is likely to continue its advertising and social media campaigns, as it looks to further increase immigration enforcement and agent recruitment across the country—two tasks the administration has made clear won’t let up despite the lack of funding.
