From Uncle Sam to Superman, the US government is deploying patriotic icons and increasingly warlike rhetoric to recruit Americans into enforcing Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.Job ads promising $50,000 signing bonuses to new “Deportation Officers” have flooded social media over the past week, accompanied by jingoistic rallying slogans that declare “America Needs You.”White House officials have shared World War I-style posters, including one with Uncle Sam donning an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) baseball cap, while a former Superman actor has pledged he will “be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP.””So many patriots have stepped up, and I’m proud to be among them,” Dean Cain, who starred as the Man of Steel in 1990s TV series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” told FOX News.ICE, the agency chiefly responsible for the recent, divisive masked raids on farms, factories and Home Depot parking lots across the nation, is pulling out all the stops to hire new officers at a staggering rate. Flush with $75 billion in extra funding — making it the highest-funded US law enforcement agency, ahead of even the FBI — ICE has been tasked by Trump with deporting one million undocumented immigrants per year.To do so, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has pledged to hire 10,000 new officers, in a process that would swell ICE’s ranks by a whopping 50 percent.On Wednesday, Noem scrapped pre-existing age caps that prevented over-40s from becoming deportation officers.Student debt forgiveness, generous overtime pay and enhanced retirement benefits are all being flouted — alongside language about the opportunity to “Fulfill your destiny” and “Defend the Homeland.””Your nation needs you to step into the breach. For our country, for our culture, for our way of life. Will you answer the call?” read one post on Department of Homeland Security social media accounts.- ‘All-hands-on-deck’ -DHS officials say they have received 80,000 applications since the recruitment campaign began less than a week ago.But critics have quickly highlighted evidence that the aggressive drive may not be working as effectively as officials claim.Dozens of officials at FEMA — a separate agency that deals with emergency disaster response — have been reassigned to ICE and threatened with losing their jobs if they do not move, the Washington Post reported.DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Post the move was part of “an all-hands-on-deck strategy to recruit 10,000 new ICE agents.”An ICE pilot program offering agents additional cash bonuses for deporting people quickly was scrapped less than four hours after it was announced, when its existence was leaked to the New York Times.And some local law enforcement agencies that have cooperated with the federal immigration crackdown have complained that they are now seeing their own officers poached.”ICE actively trying to use our partnership to recruit our personnel is wrong,” a Florida sheriff’s office spokesperson told CNN.-‘Kryptonite’ -Perhaps the highest profile and most scathing response has come from “South Park,” the popular animated TV satire that is becoming a thorn in the Trump administration’s side.In a recent episode, hapless school counselor Mr Mackey is offered an ICE job after a seven-second-long interview, immediately handed a gun and sent on a raid of a children’s concert.”If you’re crazy, or fat and lazy, we don’t care at all,” says a fictional ICE job advert.”Remember, only detain the brown ones. If it’s brown, it goes down,” orders Noem’s character during a satirical sequence set during an immigration raid in heaven.ICE raids have been accused using racial profiling by rights groups.Meanwhile, the recruitment drive has been hailed by conservative outlets.Fox News celebrated the news that Superman actor Cain had enlisted with the headline banner “Illegals, meet your Kryptonite.”Supportive comments on the channel’s Facebook page included “Now that’s a REAL Superman.” Several others pointed out that Superman, a beloved comic book hero who is closely associated with American patriotism, is “quite literally an alien immigrant.”

US President Donald Trump on Thursday alleged that jobs data had been “purposely” altered by the government’s commissioner of labor statistics to bolster his predecessor Joe Biden, presenting different figures in the wake of her firing.In the Oval Office, where journalists were convened for a “major” announcement, Trump and economist Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, displayed charts with what they said was the real data.”This shows that over the last two years of the Biden administration, the BLS overestimated job creation by 1.5 million jobs. Mr. President, that’s a gigantic error,” Moore said.Trump “did the right thing in calling for a new head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” added the economist, a longtime advisor to the Republican president.”It might not have been an error, that’s the bad part,” Trump said. “I don’t think it’s an error, I think they did it purposely.”According to what Moore called “unpublished census data,” in the first five months of Trump’s new term, the “average median household income adjusted for inflation for the average family in America is already up $1,174.”Trump called that result “incredible.”The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly revises employment data after its initial publication — both up and down, and sometimes significantly.In early August, it sharply revised down employment growth for May and June — to the tune of 258,000 fewer jobs created.The revision infuriated Trump, who sacked commissioner of labor statistics Erika McEntarfer, who was confirmed in that role in January 2024.”We had no confidence. I mean the numbers were ridiculous,” Trump told reporters Sunday.In his first term, Trump had wanted to name Moore to the board of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, but he opted against doing that in the face of criticism of Moore’s qualifications and allegedly sexist comments the economist had made in the past.

President Donald Trump issued an order Thursday demanding that US universities supply enrollment data as evidence they are not considering an applicant’s race when awarding admission.The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that affirmative action by universities on the basis of race was unlawful, but said that they could use statements about the racial experiences of candidates when deciding on places.”The persistent lack of available data — paired with the rampant use of ‘diversity statements’ and other overt and hidden racial proxies — continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in practice,” Trump wrote in a memorandum.Since returning to the presidency, Trump has waged a campaign against US universities, accusing them of being hotbeds of anti-conservative ideology, anti-Semitism and “wokery.”He has also issued executive actions curtailing diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government, which had been intended to redress historic injustices.He accused the so-called “DEI” policies of discriminating against white people.”Greater transparency is essential to exposing unlawful practices and ultimately ridding society of shameful, dangerous racial hierarchies,” Trump wrote.The order requires that universities expand their reporting into the National Center for Education Statistics to “provide adequate transparency into admissions.”The details of the enhanced requirements would follow at a later date, the memorandum said.As part of his wider push to bring higher education to heel, Trump has wielded federal funds as a negotiating tool for universities that he says are too liberal, insisting that they submit to curriculum, enrollment and other changes.The Republican’s administration has also decreased or placed holds on spending for university research as part of wider budget cuts since taking office in January. Columbia University was the first to be targeted in Trump’s war against elite universities, for what the US president claimed was its failure to tackle anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests.It was stripped of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding and lost its ability to apply for new research grants. Labs saw vital funding frozen, and dozens of researchers were laid off.But Columbia last month agreed to pay the government $200 million, and an additional $21 million to settle an investigation into anti-Semitism.Columbia, along with Brown, reportedly already agreed to disclose admissions data including race and test scores to the government as part of their settlements with the administration over alleged breaches of anti-discrimination laws.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday moved to kill a $7 billion program designed to bring rooftop solar to low-income and disadvantaged communities across the United States.The Solar For All grant program was created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, former president Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation.Sixty recipients — a mix of state agencies and nonprofits — had already been selected across both Democratic-led and Republican-led states. The initiative aimed to help more than 900,000 households slash their electricity bills by hundreds of dollars a year.In a video posted to X, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said last month’s “Big Beautiful Act” repealed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, under which Solar For All was housed. He said he was now obligated to follow the law.Zeldin alleged — without elaboration — that the program’s funds were being siphoned off by the administrative costs of “middlemen,” calling the setup a “grift.” He also criticized its exemption from requirements to buy American goods, claiming it amounted to “great news for China.”Of the $7 billion obligated so far, just $53 million has been spent, according to an analysis by research firm Atlas Public Policy.Tom Taylor, a senior policy analyst at Atlas, told AFP there had been a general understanding that once contracts were signed, obligated funds couldn’t be clawed back. “But the Trump administration is now testing that theory,” he said.Environmental groups erupted in anger.”President Trump pledged to cut energy bills in half, but once again his administration is trying to make it more expensive to keep your home cool or the lights on,” said Adam Kent, director of green finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council.Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders accused Trump of acting to protect fossil fuel interests. “Donald Trump wants to illegally kill this program to protect the obscene profits of his friends in the oil and gas industry,” he said in a statement, vowing to “fight back to preserve this enormously important program.”The administration has already worked with Congress to repeal tax credits for wind and solar, tightened restrictions on federal leases for renewable energy projects, and rescinded designated offshore wind areas.It has also proposed ending regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and vehicles — and released a report suggesting climate change could be beneficial.