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The government is releasing photos and videos to promote President Trump’s immigration agenda, including footage of troops at the border and close-up shots of shackled immigrants.
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Feb. 1, 2025, 2:29 p.m. ET
In a two-minute, 47-second video posted on the White House social media account, U.S. Marines in V-22 Ospreys land at the southern border in clouds of dust, then gather up their M4 rifles as the sun streams over President Trump’s partly finished border wall.
The goal of the video, which has the hallmarks of an action movie trailer, is unmistakable: to make sure Americans see, often in visceral ways, that Mr. Trump is making good on his pledge to seal the border and deport people he calls “illegal aliens.”
The footage is part of an expansive public relations effort, coordinated by senior White House officials, to produce and distribute videos, photographs and other imagery showing predawn ICE raids, mug shots of migrants and deportation flights on military planes.
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And while federal agencies regularly distribute news releases about their work, accompanied by photos or videos produced in-house, the campaign by the Trump White House is remarkable for its unwavering focus on immigration, the centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns and the issue at the heart of his political identity.
Few efforts like this have been so directly coordinated inside the West Wing, according to people involved in border enforcement for the past several decades.
