American counterterrorism analysts warned their fellow law enforcement agencies that the federal government's own recruitment campaign could radicalize white supremacists into joining ICE.

"Violent extremists might perceive White Supremacy Ideology in ICE Recruitment Materials, Leading to a Potentially Increased Threat Environment."

: Colorado Information Analysis Center, March 2026 intelligence bulletin

The memo was not written by an academic. It was not published by a civil liberties group or a progressive think tank. It came from the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a state fusion center whose job is to track terrorism threats and share warnings with law enforcement agencies across the country. And it was aimed squarely at the Department of Homeland Security.

The bulletin cautioned that social media posts crafted by DHS to recruit ICE agents contained white supremacist themes so pronounced that they could "create a permissive environment to engage in vigilante action and/or violence against individuals perceived to be immigrants." More alarmingly, analysts warned these posts might convince white supremacists to attempt to infiltrate ICE itself, using the agency's authority to commit bias-motivated violence.

Translation: the people whose job is to prevent domestic terrorism flagged the federal government's own propaganda as a radicalization vector.

The bulletin emerged from months of inflammatory social media posts under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired in March and replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin. The agency's combative spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin also departed, having overseen the social media push that drew the warning.

Colorado analysts singled out a January 9 DHS post on X featuring an image of a lone man on horseback with the caption "We'll have our home again." To the casual observer it might read as frontier nostalgia. The memo explained it differently: the phrase is a lyric from a song adopted by white nationalist organizations, whose refrain includes lines about reclaiming "our home" by "blood or sweat."

Members of Patriot Front have been recorded chanting the song's chorus. Lyrics from it opened the manifesto of a white supremacist who killed three people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2023. The Southern Poverty Law Center separately alleged that DHS was "using white nationalist imagery and language to recruit new employees and arrest immigrants."

DHS defended its online tactics as "bold and effective."

The bulletin identified a pattern of visual and rhetorical elements overlapping with symbols from extremist subcultures. Analysts highlighted the department's frequent use of the term "remigration," which they noted dates back to 1930s Germany, where it was used to advocate for the forced expulsion of Jewish people.

They also flagged DHS's use of the "Moon Man" meme, a character from a 1980s McDonald's advertising campaign that online racists adopted for its resemblance to a Ku Klux Klan hood. The bulletin documented one social media user who replied to a DHS post using the Moon Man character and wrote "it's TND time," an abbreviation for "total n* death" that circulates among white supremacists. The user attached his own version of the meme showing the character posing before a swastika flag with a rifle.

The memo included a disclaimer stating it did not intend to "imply ideological alignment between DHS, ICE, and white supremacist ideology." But the evidence presented was damning enough that even former insiders agreed. Claire Trickler-McNulty, who spent eight years as an ICE official under Obama, Biden, and Trump's first administration, described the bulletin as "rather damning" and said she appreciated how clearly it laid out the dangers of using white nationalist imagery.

The government was essentially handing recruitment materials to people who wanted to use federal authority for racial violence.

The analysts documented what happened next. White supremacist groups began encouraging their followers to join ICE. On a neo-Nazi accelerationist social media channel, users discussed infiltrating the agency and forming a "breakaway militia" as part of a nationwide race war. On a neo-Nazi message board, the bulletin says, members debated the advantages of joining ICE, viewing it as an opportunity for "accelerating conflict in the US" and "beating up race traitors." One user claimed someone in the network had already been a captain at an ICE-contracted detention facility.

The bulletin also warned of a different danger: that antifascist activists might misinterpret DHS messaging and perceive all ICE personnel as supportive of white supremacy, creating perceived justification for violence targeting law enforcement.

Spencer Reynolds, a former DHS official who advised the department on intelligence collection and domestic terrorism, rejected this warning about law enforcement being at risk. He told The Intercept that the bulletin's conclusion presented "a false equivalency that ignores historical and present-day facts." From this country's founding to today, he said, Black people and other people of color have always been victims of white supremacist violence.

Reynolds was right about the asymmetry. But his disagreement with one part of the warning did not erase the core finding: DHS recruitment materials were being consumed by violent extremists who saw federal endorsement where none existed.

The bulletin originated from a fusion center, part of a network of information clearinghouses for local, state, and federal police that spread across the United States after 9/11. Originally conceived as counterterrorism measures, fusion centers have evolved into a sprawling surveillance apparatus tracking everything from drugs and shoplifting to student protests, despite little evidence of their efficacy as terror-fighting tools.

Reports from fusion centers circulate widely among law enforcement agencies nationwide. The Colorado bulletin is notable because it represents the first public indication that state officials within the US counterterrorism establishment are concerned about DHS messaging under Trump.

"The fact that you have the fusion center putting out a warning for law enforcement offices based on DHS messaging is surprising, even if it seems appropriate," Trickler-McNulty said.

ICE and DHS did not respond to requests for comment. The Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which oversees the fusion center, did not answer whether the agency had received any response from DHS about its bulletin. Fusion centers spread information to "private sector, local, tribal, and federal organizations," spokesperson Micki Trost said in an email statement. "Bulletins help us share information with this network to meet our mission."

The pattern of weaponizing social media for immigration enforcement extends beyond recruitment. The Intercept previously reported on DHS's use of the neo-Nazi anthem "We'll Have Our Home Again" by Pine Tree Riots, after which lawmakers urged Meta to stop running the ad. ICE agents were documented leaving behind "death cards" after capturing immigrants. The agency removed its Spanish-language training requirement for new recruits.

What Colorado analysts captured was the downstream effect: when a federal agency adopts the aesthetic and language of extremism, it does not matter whether that is intentional. White supremacists read the signal regardless of intent. They saw an open door and began planning to walk through it with federal credentials.

The question is not whether DHS meant to recruit white supremacists. The question is whether anyone in Washington noticed until a state terrorism tracking unit told them about it.