As federal officials carry out the Trump administration’s deportation plans across the country, the White House on Tuesday sparked backlash after posting a video on X mocking immigrants being deported.
The video shows what appears to be ICE officials placing immigrants in chains and handcuffs before they board a plane, presumably for deportation. The post is captioned, “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight,” referring to the acronym for “autonomous sensory meridian response,” a pleasant physical sensation triggered by certain sounds that has become a popular genre of videos on some social media platforms.
The video was filmed during an operation at King County International Airport–Boeing Field in Seattle two weeks ago, reported The Seattle Times, citing a volunteer with an immigrant rights group that monitors weekly deportation flights out of the airport.
Elon Musk, whom President Donald Trump has tasked with gutting the federal workforce through the nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, reposted the video, writing, “Haha wow” along with emojis of a troll and a medal.
The White House later shared Musk’s post.
Such deportation operations took place during former President Joe Biden’s term as well. But the Trump administration’s attempts to make a public spectacle out of its mass deportation efforts — which has included Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivering sinister warnings to undocumented immigrants that the government will “hunt you down” — underscores its dehumanization of immigrant communities.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the White House’s post had been seen more than 68 million times, according to X. Many of the online responses to the post were critical, as CNBC reported, with some calling it “disgusting” and “cruel.”
Although most of Trump’s campaign promises centered on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, data obtained by NBC News show that 41% of people detained by ICE in the first two weeks of February had no previous criminal conviction or had a pending criminal charge. Trump’s sweeping and haphazard deportation efforts have ensnared U.S. citizens as well, raising allegations about racial profiling by federal officials.
