From Christmas movies to carols: Trump administration uses the holidays to push its anti-immigrant agenda

President Donald Trump’s administration has capitalized on the holiday season to promote its anti-immigrant agenda. In recent weeks, the White House’s social media accounts have shared posts that use scenes and dialogue from classic Christmas movies such as Home Alone, but with images of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“All aboard the Deportation Express! Next stop: Back to where you came from”, reads the description of a TikTok video recently posted on the official U.S. government account. The post features images of handcuffed migrants being led onto a deportation flight, set to a song from The Polar Express, the beloved children’s film starring Tom Hanks.

Another TikTok video featured a scene from Home Alone in which Macaulay Culkin takes a photograph out of a trunk and puts it back with disgust. In the photomontage, the scene was paired with an image of a woman crying during what appears to be an arrest. “Daily reminder: the deportations will continue”, reads the text accompanying the video.

The communications team has also recreated posters from films such as Elf and How the Grinch Stole Christmas to spread messages against illegal immigration. In one case, the slogan from the film about the green antihero portrayed by Jim Carrey is adapted to claim that “illegals stole healthcare.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has joined in on this Christmas-themed marketing strategy, releasing its own video inspired by Santa Claus’s “nice and naughty” list. According to the message spread by the agency, the “nice” ones are those who decide to self-deport. All the while We Wish You a Merry Christmas plays in the background.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin has limited herself to saying that the department will continue to use any tool at its disposal to keep citizens “informed” of the work its agents do.

Meanwhile, activists have criticized the use of symbols traditionally associated with family celebrations to promote anti-immigration rhetoric.“Co-opting this sacred season for such purposes is not only wrong, it is utterly contrary to the meaning of advent and Christmas. This is the time when Christians honor the Holy Family, who themselves were migrants seeking refuge”, Jeremy Weitz, communications director for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, stated to The Guardian.

Recently, a Catholic church in Massachusetts installed a nativity scene with a message critical of Trump’s strict immigration policies. “ICE was here”, read a sign placed where the figures of the Holy Family are usually displayed, suggesting that they had been detained by immigration agents. The installation included the contact information for an advocacy group that provides advice to migrants. The gesture sparked controversy and put the parish in conflict with both the Archdiocese of Boston and ICE.

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