The Department of Homeland Security's practice of posting photos of immigration detainees on social media has drawn sharp criticism from legal scholars and state officials, who argue the posts are not law enforcement but rather abuses of power that endanger lives and mislead the public.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has long used Instagram and other platforms to publish images of detainees, often showing them being escorted onto deportation flights. In the first year of the current administration, at least 2,000 such images were posted on X, and over 30,000 immigrants were listed on a new DHS website. Many posts include criminal histories, some of which have been inaccurate, and are frequently published after the individual has already served their sentence.
Some posts go further, mocking detainees based on ethnicity or national origin. For instance, around the anniversary of 9/11, a photo of a Sikh man was captioned: “Get off our roads, you don’t know how to drive, Mr. Singh.” Days later, a young white man stabbed a Sikh truck driver in Wyoming. This incident highlights the potential real-world harm of such government speech.
State officials have also voiced frustration. A Minnesota official said earlier this year that despite efforts to correct the record, DHS “continues to publicly repeat information that is inaccurate and misleading” regarding detainees in the state.
Beth Lyon, a clinical professor of law at Cornell University and co-director of its Migration and Human Rights Program, argues that these posts violate the United States' obligations under the 1994 ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, which cautions against portraying migrants as threats. The UN also urges governments not to amplify myths that equate migrants with crime, disease, or abuse of public benefits.
The U.S. stands out among nations in allowing its immigration enforcement agency to engage in such social media practices. Lyon points to the Supreme Court's “government speech doctrine,” which grants the government wide latitude in expression, including xenophobic speech. But she contends that constitutional permission does not justify the harm.
She proposes a balancing test: agencies should weigh the law enforcement value of a communication against the invasion of privacy and dignity it causes. This is not a novel idea—the U.S. Marshals Service has long held that releasing photos of prisoners serves no law enforcement purpose once they are in custody.
Lyon argues the same logic applies to ICE detainees. Since the Constitution does not provide sufficient guardrails, Congress must step in and establish clear statutory limits on when DHS may publicly release images of people in immigration detention. Until then, she says, DHS's social media accounts should be suspended unless the agency proves it can use them responsibly.
This call for action comes amid broader scrutiny of immigration enforcement tactics, including surges in ICE arrests and the political fallout, as seen in Hispanic voters punishing Republicans in midterms. The debate over DHS's social media use is part of a larger conversation about the balance between enforcement and civil liberties.
