The social media feeds of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are mostly filled with arrest porn, like mugshots, images of immigrants being nabbed by federal agents, and conservative media articles about crimes allegedly committed by an immigrant. They also put in some glamor shots of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, including videos of her this week riding a horse in the Argentinian countryside (as she visited the country on taxpayer funds along with the man with whom she’s long been rumored to be having an affair). DHS has also been posting nostalgic art with yearnings for a White America, like a Thomas Kinkade painting and a John Gast painting glorifying “manifest destiny.”
In addition to the arrest porn, shots of “ICE Barbie,” and kitschy art, DHS has recently thrown in a couple of Bible verses to justify their militarized efforts to hunt immigrants. Such kidnappings of Scripture for dehumanizing rhetoric and the flexing of imperial power stand out as particularly grotesque abuses of the Christian faith, even amid an administration constantly pushing Christian Nationalism and attacking Christians who care for immigrants.
DHS isn’t merely taking verses out of context; they’re snatching verses that clearly don’t apply to their work as they try to frame arresting, detaining, and deporting people as the result of a divine call from God. So this issue of A Public Witness opens up DHS’s social media in one hand and an actual Bible in the other to consider the competing faiths.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to employees at the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 28, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)
Homeland Heresies
This month, DHS shared two videos that use a biblical passage along with footage of militarized forces running around looking for immigrants. Both also used audio from movies, raising questions of whether they actually had the rights to do so. DHS is already facing claims from others that they used copyrighted materials without permission, including from the estate of Kinkade which called the use of his painting “unauthorized.”
On July 7, DHS posted a video they titled “Here am I, send me” (along with an American flag emoji after that phrase). As the title suggests, they co-opted Isaiah 6, which is when the prophet Isaiah experienced a divine call that included a vision of seraphim flying around, the voice of God calling out, and a hot coal placed on his mouth before he answers for God to send him.
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