Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, September 24, 2025…

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ramping up its hiring efforts, as it aims to bring on 10,000 new agents by the end of the year. Some experts say the Department of Homeland Security’s recruitment strategy is filled with white nationalist messages and imagery.
A 39-year-old man has died after being held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County.
After months of delays and refinement, supervisors in Shasta County, which has for years been at the center of election integrity debates, have approved funding for new changes to the county’s voting system.

Experts Concerned About Imagery In ICE Recruitment Materials

Some of the images look like World War II recruiting posters. Uncle Sam asking you to defend the homeland. Others reference a glorified version of the past. White settlers traveling across the plains toward their Manifest Destiny as Native Americans retreat to the shadows.

These are the words and images the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using to recruit more than 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents by the end of the year, which would make it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government. DHS is also offering signing bonuses of $50,000, student loan repayment and starting salaries as high as $80,000.

These posts have millions of views on social media platforms like X. Experts who study extremist groups are flagging them as dangerous. Pete Simi is a sociologist at Chapman University who has been studying extremist groups and violence for more than 25 years. “Propaganda is an art,” he said. “It’s a very powerful way of communicating and it typically obscures the truth. When it’s done effectively, it makes it hard to call it out.” Ambiguity plays a major role in white supremacist messaging because it allows whoever posts hateful rhetoric to hide behind plausible deniability, Simi said.

Simi went on to say that someone who isn’t versed in far-right extremist culture will see an image of Uncle Sam and won’t think twice about it. But the posts DHS is using to recruit ICE agents can be interpreted through a white nationalist lens. For example, the caption on the post showing settlers expanding westward, the words heritage and homeland are capitalized. “In white supremacist circles, H.H. stands for Heil Hitler,” Simi said. Also, the caption contains exactly 14 words, which is a symbolically significant number for people who follow that ideology. White nationalists use messaging with 14 words as a hidden reference to a famous phrase from the 1980s: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

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“It became one of the most central slogans among white supremacists,” Simi said. “They reference it in everything from tattoos, to t-shirts, to emails. It’s just ubiquitous among these folks.”

Former DACA Recipient Dies While In ICE Custody

A 39-year-old man has died after being held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Adelanto in San Bernardino County.

According to a statement from ICE, Ismael Ayala-Uribe died Sunday after being transferred to a local hospital. The cause of death is still under investigation.

Ayala-Uribe applied for, and received, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA status in 2012. His application for renewal was denied in 2016.

The Adelanto facility has long been criticized by detainees and state and federal inspectors for among other things, its poor medical and mental health services. Several members of Congress were denied access to the facility in June, after they heard about deteriorating conditions there. After finally being allowed to tour the detention center, Representative Judy Chu called the conditions there “inhumane.” Detainees told her they had gone several days without a change of clothes and were not allowed to use the telephone to talk with loved ones or their attorneys.

Shasta County Finally Approves Funding For Elections Experiment

After months of delays and refinement, Shasta County Supervisors have approved funding for an elections experiment in the county meant to improve transparency.

The county clerk originally asked Shasta County supervisors for $2.5 million to overhaul how elections are run. But the final amount approved was reduced to just under $140,000, enough to buy three additional ballot-counting machines and cameras to livestream the process.

Shasta County Clerk Clint Curtis said the pared-down plan means he won’t be able to accomplish some goals, such as waiting to count mail-in ballots until election night. “We wanted to actually have it where we counted all the ballots on election night,” he said. “But we don’t have the tabulators for that. That would take days and days and days.”

Curtis has never run an election. But he’s seeking to increase transparency with cameras and wants to reduce the role machines play in ballot counting. The funding approved by county supervisors allows for a scaled-back version of what he wants to do.

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Experts Concerned About Imagery, Language In ICE Recruitment Materials