Congress Demands Answers from Meta Over ICE Ads with Alleged Neo-Nazi Imagery

Members of Congress are pressing Meta for explanations after the tech giant ran U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement advertisements allegedly containing imagery and music associated with white nationalist and neo-Nazi movements.

Representatives Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent a formal letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioning how the company approved a Department of Homeland Security ad campaign featuring the song “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” which is widely circulated in neo-Nazi online communities. The lawmakers are urging Meta to immediately cease running the campaign and reconsider its digital advertising partnership with DHS.

The controversy gained national attention after The Intercept reported on ICE’s use of the song in a paid recruitment post. The timing was particularly sensitive, as the ad was published shortly after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“Businesses 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,” Balint stated. “A lack of change is not neutrality but complicity.”

Meta has not responded to requests for comment on the matter.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin defended the recruitment materials, rejecting comparisons to extremist propaganda and framing criticism as an attack on patriotism. “By Reps. Becca Balint and Pramila Jayapal’s standards, every American who posts patriotic imagery on the Fourth of July should be cancelled and labeled a Nazi,” McLaughlin said. “Not everything you dislike is ‘Nazi propaganda.'”

McLaughlin further claimed the controversy has contributed to a “1,300% increase in assaults against our brave men and women of ICE,” though she provided no evidence to support this assertion. Similar claims made during the Trump administration about sharp increases in assaults against immigration agents have not been substantiated by publicly available data.

The most contentious ad in the campaign paired immigration enforcement footage with “We’ll Have Our Home Again” by Pine Tree Riots. The song, which includes lyrics about reclaiming “our home” by “blood or sweat,” played over footage of a cowboy on horseback with a B-2 Spirit bomber flying overhead. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch project has documented the song’s origins within organized white nationalist networks, noting it was written by a group affiliated with the Männerbund, which SPLC identifies as a white nationalist organization.

After initially defending the ad, DHS later removed the recruitment post from its official Instagram account without announcement or explanation. The department has not addressed the song’s documented circulation in white nationalist spaces or its appearance in the manifesto of a 2023 mass shooter.

Balint and Jayapal emphasized that this issue extends beyond a single problematic post, accusing Meta of profiting from a large-scale digital recruitment campaign that employs themes resonating with white nationalists. According to the lawmakers, DHS spent over $2.8 million on recruitment ads across Facebook and Instagram between March and December 2023, with an additional $500,000 paid to Meta beginning in August. During just three weeks of last fall’s government shutdown, ICE reportedly spent $4.5 million on paid media campaigns.

The representatives also highlighted that DHS spent more than $1 million over 90 days on “self-deportation” ads specifically targeted at users interested in Latin music, Spanish as a second language, and Mexican cuisine.

This substantial advertising spending reflects ICE’s dramatic budget growth. A decade ago, ICE operated on less than $6 billion annually. Under new federal appropriations last year, the agency now commands approximately $85 billion, making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the United States – larger than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to analysts cited by the lawmakers.

“It 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,” Balint said.

Meta’s Community Standards explicitly prohibit content promoting dehumanizing speech, harmful stereotypes, or calls for exclusion targeting people based on protected characteristics, including race, ethnicity, national origin, and immigration status. The lawmakers are questioning whether these standards are being consistently enforced for paid government advertising.

Since the recruitment campaign came under scrutiny, DHS and ICE have ceased posting content using the same song, imagery, or music across their official social media accounts. Balint has indicated that the congressional inquiry will continue and may expand beyond the initial recruitment campaign.