President Donald Trump’s administration has lined the White House driveway with large posters featuring migrants’ mugshots as the president broadcasts his immigration crackdown, according to a report.
In a clear view for the press, the “roughly 100” posters were placed along “Pebble Beach,” the north grounds of the White House is where TV crews broadcast, Axios reported Monday.
Each poster features the word “ARRESTED” above an immigrants’ mugshot and the crime they are accused of committing. Instead of names, the posters say “illegal alien” under each mugshot.
The hope is that the posters are visible behind the journalists as they broadcast from that spot, a White House official told Axios.
Photos, obtained by the outlet, show posters with immigrants who allegedly committed “murder,” “sexual contact with a child,” “rape,” and “distribution of fentanyl.”
The posters capture “some of the worst illegal immigrants and criminals the Trump administration has arrested since taking office,” an official told Axios. The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
The new display comes after a New York Times-Siena College poll found that less than half of Americans — 47 percent — approve of the way Trump is handling immigration. That’s a relative strength for the president in recent polls, as his overall approval rating has dipped since inauguration to 42 percent.
Polling by ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos shows his approval rating as low as 39 percent, marking the worst showing for a president at the 100-day mark, dating back to at least the end of the Second World War.
The posters were also set up shortly before Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan is set to give a briefing Monday morning.
The Trump administration has been scrutinized for removing alleged Venezuelan gang members last month who were then taken to a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison under the president’s use of a wartime law. In court documents, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official admitted that “many” of the deported men have no criminal record whatsoever.
Over the weekend, a two-year-old U.S. citizen appeared to have been deported from Louisiana to Honduras; a federal judge denounced the move as having “no meaningful process.” The child was reportedly released in Honduras on Friday along with her mother and sister, who were born in the country.
Last month, the administration announced that in Trump’s first 50 days in office, ICE has arrested nearly 33,000 immigrants, nearly half of whom were convicted criminals.
