Why the Trump Team Keeps Turning ICE Raids Into Reality TV
Noem has gone right on making this content out of suffering. When Chaya Raichik rolled out with her this week in Arizona, it was as if she acquired a sidekick in a cop comedy. A nervous Raichik spoke direct to camera while in front of a small group of people in protective gear, ball caps, and sunglasses, standing around a militarized vehicle marked Special Response Team. “Hi, everyone,” she began. “I’m in Phoenix, Arizona, with DHS Secretary Noem and the incredible ICE and DHS team, and we are about to go arrest a criminal illegal alien.” As proof, she posted a photo of a man apparently restrained in a vehicle, guarded by someone with an “ICE Special Response Unit” patch on his shoulder. In a video of the scene posted a bit later, Raichik focused on Noem speaking to the man, who she said tried to block them (and their cameras) with his foot: “This illegal was so mad he was getting arrested so he tried blocking us and hiding with his CROC,” she posted. Leaning into the large vehicle where he sat, her own face blocked by her long brown hair and a too-big protective vest, Noem taunted the man, as Raichik quoted in her caption, “DHS Secretary Noem: ‘You’re not scaring me with your crocs’ 😂😂😂” This was a New York Post headline later. The Arizona Republic put “Libs of TikTok” in their headline on the arrests.
Noem appeared coiffed with a ball cap as before, but this time in black tactical-ish gear, in one video carrying a rifle. “We’re going out to pick up somebody who I think has charges for human trafficking,” Noem said in a post to her “@Sec_Noem” X account. Her follow-up post with arrest photos offered no elaboration. Raichik could be seen in her own content dressed modestly, in a long block dress or skirt, but topped by a tactical vest with ICE insignia.
The mocking, almost celebratory tone (and emoji) from Raichik is a signature, honed on years of targeted harassment of trans and queer people online, Pride and drag events, teachers and librarians who were LGBTQ-affirming, and providers and clinics who served young trans people. When USA Today reported on her harassment campaigns, Raichik posted a photo of herself holding up the front page: “When Libs of TikTok tweets, threats increasingly follow.” Borrowing from anti-gay activist and former orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant, Raichik has characterized herself as merely trying to protect children from “groomers,” a word she helped popularize into a slur widely used on the right. Her content has always been part policing and part propaganda, but this is the first time she’s been used in this way: to ride along for a round-up, a kind of audience proxy that Trump’s audience knows all too well.
