Deportees in Shackles Are White House's 'ASMR'

The White House X account on Tuesday shared a video showing undocumented immigrants in handcuffs, shackles, and chains preparing to fly out of Seattle's Boeing Field on Feb. 4 with the caption, "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight," per the Seattle Times. ASMR, meaning autonomous sensory meridian response, is a term used to refer to audio or visual stimuli that give a pleasant, tingling sensation. In this case, the label was attached to the sound of clanging chains amid the roar of jet engines; the video has 77 million views as of this writing.

The video comes from a longer one initially shared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Seattle office with the caption, "REMOVAL FLIGHT. A group of undocumented aliens are flown from Seattle as part of a process to finalize return to their home countries," per CNBC. Such deportation flights, complete with "chains and all," took place quietly during President Trump's first term and under President Biden. What's different this time "is President Trump's desire ... to boast of the process and show off its dehumanizing aspects," writes the Times' Dominic Gates.

While some X users applauded the deportations, others described the footage as "psychopathic" and "an affront to basic human dignity." (See a roundup of negative reactions here.) Maru Mora Villalpando of La Resistencia, a group fighting to end the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, argues the video is part of the Trump administration's "theatrics" and is meant to equate immigrants with criminals. "But if they were criminals they would have lawyers, which they don't," Mora Villalpando tells the Times. Six minutes after the White House shared the video on X, Trump advisor Elon Musk shared it with his 218 million followers, writing, "Haha wow" alongside emojis of a troll and a gold medal. (More deportation stories.)