Tracy Mumford

Today's Friday, January 30th.

Here's what we're covering.

For the past few months, the Times has been tracking how a growing number of social media posts from the Trump administration have echoed white supremacist language, alluded to ethnic cleansing, and referenced neo-Nazi literature.

The extremist language has appeared in dozens of posts from federal accounts, including the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

The messaging has been used to celebrate President Trump's immigration policies and recruit agents to carry them out.

For example, one post from DHS included a link to join ICE, along with the phrase, Which Way, American Man?

That slogan is nearly identical to the title of an anti-Semitic book from the 70s titled, Which Way, Western Man?, which is a key text for white supremacist groups.

And earlier this month, the White House and DHS posted an ICE recruitment ad with the line, We'll Have Our Home Again.

That's the name of a song written by members of a self-described pro-white fraternal order that's popular with extremist groups like the Proud Boys.

When a Times reporter asked a Homeland Security spokeswoman about that language, she denied it had anything to do with the song.

But if you tapped on the ad on Instagram, the song started playing.

When the reporter pointed that out, the spokeswoman said, quote, I'm telling you it's not there, and accused the Times of pushing a left-wing conspiracy theory.

Within an hour, the Instagram post disappeared.

Most of the social media posts are still up, though.

One expert on extremism at the Anti-Defamation League said that the language in them would be recognizable to just two groups, people who study white supremacists and white supremacists themselves.

In Minnesota yesterday, residents testified in front of state lawmakers about the fear and chaos that's been caused by the surge of federal agents there in recent weeks.

Native American organizers described tribal members being profiled based on their appearance by agents who mistook them for immigrants.

And a physician said that people were avoiding medical care because they were worried about leaving their homes and being detained.

Lawmakers also heard from an independent journalist who described how she applied to become an ICE agent as a kind of experiment and was hired despite having failed to complete basic paperwork or take a drug test.

She told lawmakers she felt her story was evidence that ICE was not properly vetting its new hires as it ramps up its operations around the country.