Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security’s X account appeared to reference an antisemitic dog whistle. And it wasn’t the first time that happened this summer.
“Which way, American man?” the department’s official page posted Sunday, over a political cartoon from 1936 called “Uncle Sam at the Crossroads.”
The post, a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alluded to the phrase “Which way, Western man?” – the title of a 1978 book steeped in antisemitic conspiracy theories and explicit threats against Jews. As a social media meme, the phrase has been used to ridicule the “woke,” feminism and immigrants.
In its own X post on Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League called the “Which way” reference “the latest problematic ICE recruitment post from the X account of the Department of Homeland Security.” The ADL cited several problems with it, including the reference to the 1978 book by William Gayley Simpson, whom the organization calls a “white supremacist and antisemite.”
The “American man” post came a month after another controversial post from DHS reading “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage,” with both “H”s capitalized — an alignment that both progressive outlets and X’s own AI chatbot Grok theorized could be an illusion to “HH,” a shorthand for “Heil Hitler” deployed by neo-Nazis.
“HH capitalization … and a painting symbolizing white colonial expansion over Native lands mirrors known white supremacist dogwhistles,” Grok wrote in response to one user.
Multiple Trump administration officials have documented ties to antisemitic and white-supremacist circles and ideologies. Trump’s nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, announced this week, “has repeatedly appeared in front of the massive portrait of Adolf Hitler’s favorite battleship during media interviews,” the Daily Beast reported.
Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment. In a statement to CNN, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “Calling everything you dislike ‘Nazi propaganda’ is tiresome,” and went on to describe the intended message of the “American man” post: “Uncle Sam, who represents America, is at a crossroads, pondering which way America should go.”
The posts reflect a larger effort by DHS and ICE, who are seeing a massive budget increase and hiring spree under President Trump, to use nostalgic language and images depicting American “culture” and “heritage” as under attack from outsiders. As part of its ICE recruitment efforts, DHS has employed numerous works of art depicting frontier life and other American idylls – often without permission from the artists or their estates.
Other images used by DHS, such as John Gast’s 1872 painting “American Progress,” are positive depictions of concepts like Manifest Destiny. DHS itself does not have such a lengthy history: It was formed in 2002 in response to the 9/11 attacks, largely by consolidating offices from other departments.
Critics from groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights say the DHS posts use coded language and motifs popular in online white supremacist communities, with some overlap with Christian nationalism: One video overlays a Bible verse over footage of ICE agents. DHS has claimed to receive 100,000 ICE applications since launching its campaign.
But the latest post is more overt.
“Which Way, Western Man?” argues that Western and “Nordic” culture is under threat by Jews. The book includes passages on “the Jewish-led and largely Jewish-manned movement of Communism” and “the Jewification of the West.” One chapter is titled “The Necessity of Eugenics.”
The book has since been re-published by National Vanguard Books, a neo-Nazi group that also publishes the white nationalist novel/manifesto “The Turner Diaries.”
Mike Rothschild, a Jewish researcher of conspiracy theories, wrote on X that the post was “a clear reference” to the book, which he described as “a work of staggering racism and antisemitism that argues Jews must be ‘put out and kept out’ of western society.”
The ADL also objected to DHS’s use of the 1936 cartoon by Frank Lea, which depicts Uncle Sam puzzling over signs pointing to “Inflation,” “Depression” and “Opportunity.” The DHS version replaces those signs with ones reading “Cultural Decline,” “Invasion” and “Law & Order.” Text overlaid on the image reads, “America needs you. Join ICE now.”
The alterations, the ADL said, “basically equate migrants in the U.S. with ‘cultural decay’ and ‘invasion.'” The Jewish civil rights group concludes, “A U.S. government agency should not resort to using such language and imagery for any purpose, let alone recruiting people to serve.”
Liberal Jews, largely pro-immigrant thanks to their own families’ immigrant backgrounds, have increasingly spoken out against ICE’s migrant roundup tactics, including raids at houses of worship. A recent detention center opened in the Everglades has also drawn comparisons to concentration camps.
Pam Nadell, a historian whose forthcoming book is a history of American antisemitism, told JTA that when it came to both posts, “I see the antisemitism.”
“Think of who they’re appealing to, who might be likely to want to join ICE and come and get rid of the immigrants,” Nadell said. She also saw significance in using a New Deal-era cartoon but replacing the name of Franklin Roosevelt’s anti-poverty program with “Cultural Decline.” Roosevelt’s critics, she said, were often antisemitic.
“In the ’30s, the attacks on the New Deal, the attacks on Roosevelt, the charges that he was controlled and manipulated by a cabal of Jews, that’s part of the right-wing attack against the New Deal,” she said. “So the fact that they’re replacing that attack with ‘Cultural Decline,’ that’s the same kind of right-wing attack. Back then, it was on the government; now it’s on civil society.”
