US Uses Warlike Rhetoric, Superman Actor to Recruit for Migrant Crackdown

From Uncle Sam to Superman, the US government is deploying patriotic icons and increasingly warlike rhetoric to recruit Americans into enforcing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

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LOS ANGELES -

Job ads promising US$50,000 (S$64,200) signing bonuses to new "deportation officers" have flooded social media over the past week, accompanied by jingoistic rallying slogans that declare "America Needs You".

White House officials have shared World War I-style posters, including one with Uncle Sam donning an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) baseball cap, while a former Superman actor has pledged he will "be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP".

"So many patriots have stepped up, and I'm proud to be among them," American actor Dean Cain, who starred as the Man of Steel in 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman, told Fox News.

ICE, the enforcement agency chiefly responsible for the recent, divisive masked raids on farms, factories and Home Depot car parks across the nation, is pulling out all the stops to hire new officers at a staggering rate.

Flush with US$75 billion in extra funding - making it the highest-funded US law enforcement agency, ahead of even the Federal Bureau of Investigation - ICE has been tasked by Mr Trump with deporting one million undocumented immigrants per year.