Trump’s DHS is recruiting ICE officers with a Halo meme

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been using popular video game franchises, such as Pokémon and Halo, to promote its immigration enforcement activities on social media. In the latest incident, the DHS posted an image featuring Halo characters and a Warthog vehicle from the games, along with the text "DESTROY THE FLOOD," which implicitly compares immigrants to the parasitic alien species from the Halo games. This follows the DHS's previous use of the original Pokémon theme song in a montage of ICE raids, which drew criticism for its implicit comparison of immigrants to Pokémon creatures. The DHS's Halo post was part of a social media exchange between the Trump administration and video game retailer GameStop, where the two entities made meme-filled references to the Halo franchise and the supposed "end of the console wars." Microsoft, the developer of the Halo games, declined to comment on the DHS's use of its intellectual property, while The Pokémon Company International had previously expressed that it was not involved in the creation or distribution of the DHS's Pokémon-themed content.