ICE's Burning Cross: 'Protecting' Americans From Illegal Ideas
The government seeks to control the U.S. populace’s access to information from abroad.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this image, posted on LinkedIn by well-respected immigration lawyer
.His caption was also jarring: Next: ICE wants to stop ideas from crossing the border.
Unfortunately, nothing about American political life shocks me anymore, so I could only sigh with dismay when a quick Google search uncovered some recent news coverage about this image.
According to Newsweek, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posted the image on X and Instagram last week. As Newsweek explained:
The post comes as the federal government cracks down on immigrants who have expressed views not in line with its foreign policy, such as students and green card holders who expressed pro-Palestinian views on college campuses over the past 18 months, which immigration advocates argue infringes First Amendment free speech rights.
Newsweek also published a statement from the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, stating, “That post was sent without proper approval and should not have been shared. 'Ideas' should have said 'intellectual property'."
The post was quickly taken down from both platforms. But in a classic example of “saying the quiet part out loud,” even the government’s hasty “correction” of the language used in the deleted image exposes its undeniably authoritarian purpose.
If the government insists it’s not trying to stop the spread of ideas it disfavors, but merely “intellectual property” instead, what exactly does that mean?
Looking at the definition of “intellectual property” set forth by the World Intellectual Property Organization, it seems pretty clear that an “idea” is a “creation of the mind.” Moreover, ideas are communicated in many different ways, including through inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names, and images.
I can imagine the bureaucratic response. We only mean to safeguard patents, copyrights and trademarks. Our job is to protect the U.S. market from cheap knock-offs from China and elsewhere.
My imaginary response: I don’t buy it.
CNN en Español* has shared the entire updated X post, with “intellectual property” substituting for “idea,” and with the agency’s explanation up top: Our job is to ensure people, money, products and intellectual property DO NOT enter the U.S. illegally.
It makes one wonder: What is “illegal” intellectual property? What is an “illegal” idea?
Whether they call it ideas, or intellectual property, or use some other euphemism, I think the answer to these questions is clear: the federal government wants to shut down the American people’s access to information from abroad.
Look, too, at the fiery orange X in the poster. Doesn’t it look an awful lot like a burning cross? Props to DHS’s graphic design team for accurately capturing the menacing mind-set behind the rhetoric.
I wonder how the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs would explain that symbolism away.
* It may just be a reflection of my deficient googling skills, but I did not find an article about this image on the English-language CNN website, only on its Spanish-language site. If this is true, it represents an interesting choice on the part of CNN.