On social media, ICE fights a holy war

If you mashed together a Vietnam War epic with a Christian end-times movie, what might emerge is one of the recent social media videos produced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In early July, the department posted a minute-long short showing agents in tactical gear bathed in eerie red light — among them, Homeland Secretary Kristi L. Noem — piling into a helicopter, from which they survey a landscape as if preparing for an aerial attack. The soundtrack is a cover of the 1940s folk tune “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” by the San Francisco rock band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. As the action unfolds, a man is heard quoting from the Book of Isaiah: “I heard the voice of the Lord say, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go forth for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.’”