During Donald Trump's second term, social media accounts run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have changed their focus and tone. In the past year, the @DHSgov account on X has made a series of posts touting deportations and encouraging Americans to defend their homeland by joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Some posts include memes and poster art. This marks a departure from the content shared to the account during the Biden administration, which was mostly made up of announcements, safety tips, and informational videos.
While only one in 10 Americans say they follow the DHS on a social media platform, many have been exposed to the department's posts. 35% of Americans say they often or sometimes see DHS content on social media; 20% say they rarely do and 35% say they never do. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to follow the DHS on social media (18% vs. 11%), but members of both parties are about equally likely to say they come into contact with content posted by the agency.
To understand how Americans feel about content shared by the DHS on social media, we presented survey respondents with a selection of 10 posts made to X by @DHSgov between June 2025 and January 2026. The posts that we selected are related to immigration and include images or memes. We then asked whether they approve or disapprove of each post and calculated each post's net approval by subtracting the share who approve of it from the share who disapprove of it.
Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of all 10 of the posts shown to them in the survey, though the extent of disapproval varies significantly depending on the post. The post viewed most positively has a net approval of -1, while the least popular post has a net approval of -34.
Responses to the posts are highly polarized by political party. Among Democrats, net approval of the 10 posts ranges from -64 to -88. Among Republicans, it ranges from +20 to +58. Among Independents, it ranges from -4 to -36.
An image of Uncle Sam (pictured below), with the caption "AMERICA NEEDS YOU," is the most favorably viewed post out of the 10, and has a net approval of -1.
Only slightly more Americans disapprove than approve (-4) of a post showing a Thanksgiving meal with the caption "Ensure a Future of Plenty" as well as a link to join ICE.
The post viewed most negatively (-34 net approval) shows a skeleton lifting weights with the caption, "MY BODY IS A MACHINE THAT TURNS ICE FUNDING INTO MASS DEPORTATIONS."
The next most negatively viewed post (-29 net approval) shows alligators wearing ICE hats outside of an immigrant detention facility.
— Carl Bialik contributed to this article
See the results for this YouGov poll
Methodology: This YouGov poll was conducted online on January 13 - 15, 2026 among 1,122 U.S. adult citizens. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4 percentage points.
Image: @DHSgov
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