ICE posts Halloween 'Thriller' video pairing horror monsters with detained immigrants

The ICE clip

On Saturday, 31 October, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a roughly one-minute video on X, set to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". It opens with horror film villains, including Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pennywise the clown, before a graphic reading "ICE's Halloween Spooktacular" introduces footage of arrests. Other footage shows officers taking people into custody and leading them into holding facilities, and some men are seen seated on the floor of a mass detention area, hands over their faces. One image shows a man escorted by masked officers under a caption describing him as wanted for homicide. The video also mixes in jack-o'-lanterns, zombies and a cartoon in which an ICE agent puts cuffs on a green alien, before it ends with an animated officer holding handcuffs next to a holiday greeting. ICE captioned the post with a line addressed to its followers:

“Happy Halloween from your friends at ICE”

Defense Department and FBI videos

The Defense Department published its own Halloween video under a heading that roughly means it is haunting America's enemies. The footage combines missile launches, soldiers and explosions with clips of Trump announcing the killing of drug traffickers. It also shows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatening to kill people who kill Americans. The FBI released an animated video featuring a caricature of its director, Kash Patel, set to a variation of "Thriller". In it, the bureau presented figures on what it claims is a fall in crime.

Reactions and criticism

Comments under the ICE post were split. ICE supporters called the clip "pretty funny", while critics condemned the stunt as inhumane. One supporter wrote on Facebook that they did not celebrate Halloween but liked the video. A critic on X argued that it normalized identifying South Americans as monsters and said it did not reflect the conduct of a mentally healthy government. Critics have also denounced the videos about migrants without valid papers as degrading and racist. ICE faces heightened scrutiny over a reported rise in enforcement activity across the country in the weeks before November's midterm elections.

The wider pattern

Trump and his administration regularly publish provocative posts online intended to troll critics and political opponents and to generate engagement across social networks and other media outlets. ICE has a central role in Trump's campaign of mass deportation of people without valid residence permits, so its detention videos sit directly within that effort. The Defense Department, the FBI and ICE all used the Halloween holiday to publish content in this format.