Breaking Down the CBP Home App Commercial with Kristi Noem

I didn't expect to hear Kristi Noem on "El Ritmo de New York."

I didn’t expect to hear Kristi Noem’s voice on 96.3 “El Ritmo De New York,” a Spanish-language radio station that plays merengue, salsa, bachata, and reggaeton.

On the sunny drive back home from New Jersey, after spending a beautiful day with my family on Memorial Day, I heard the menacing words of the Secretary of Homeland Security:

“If you’re here illegally, you’re next. You will be fined nearly $1,000 a day, imprisoned, and deported.”

Sounds bad. Is there a way out of this? Kristi Noem is glad you asked, answering in her best “for the low, low price” voice:

“But if you register using our CBP Home App and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.”

First of all, “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence, but there are many shades of bullshit in this spot. She starts the ad by highlighting the kinds of “illegal aliens” CBP is rounding up.

• “An illegal alien in Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts.”

• “An MS-13 gang member from El Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man.”

• “A Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan.”

So, let me get this straight: If you’re a child rapist or murderer, you can use the CBP Home App to self-deport? Sounds like a pretty good deal for these criminals.

Of course they can’t. This spot isn’t intended for the most heinous lawbreakers. Kristi Noem knows that. Trump knows that. A murderer is not going to choose to self-deport, nor would they be allowed to. Incidentally, did you notice how none of these men have been convicted? Did you notice that she said “accused” of murder? Because for this administration, an accusation is just as good as a conviction.

The commercial is meant to scare and intimidate. Note the production. The heart-pounding action-movie theme music. The sirens in the background. This is a warning.

And consider the choice to have an English-language spot on a Spanish-language radio station. If you want your message to reach as many people as possible, wouldn’t you use the language your intended listeners are most comfortable with?

But reach isn’t the priority. The message, for those who receive it, is clear: “This is not your land. You’re not welcome here.” The spot literally ends with, “Do the right thing. Leave now.” Plus, using Spanish would be bad optics, since Trump decreed English to be the official national language in March.

I wonder how many immigrants without legal residency will use the app. They tend to steer clear of anything official or governmental out of fear, as well they should, given this administration’s eagerness to disregard due process and ship immigrants to a concentration camp, or its willingness to use green card interviews as a ruse to detain immigrants. As

K. Starling

wisely pointed out a few weeks ago in her piece, “A Registry: The Alarm Legacy Media has not yet Rung,” putting vulnerable groups on registries has a long and dark history.

The app makes a show of immigrant enforcement innovation, even though it’s just a reskin of the CBP One app, an app that once gave asylum seekers and other migrants a means to schedule appointments at ports of entry. It also gives the administration plausible deniability when they trample over human rights. “Well, we gave them every opportunity to leave. We made it so easy. We even created an app!”

Will immigrants self-deport? According to chief border goon, Tom Homan, during a Fox News segment a few weeks ago, 7,000 immigrants had already self-deported through the app. I’ll believe that figure when

Austin Kocher

does.

Homan is almost always full of shit, but he did reveal something interesting during this interview:

“We’re still gonna have to go find the criminals. Criminals aren’t going to take advantage of this program.”

This statement runs counter to the official position of the White House: All undocumented immigrants are criminals.

This is easy to disprove, of course, as I did in my post, “No, Not All Undocumented Immigrants Are Criminals, a few months ago.

Homan understands the difference between a “criminal” and someone who overstays a visa, a distinction he drew on Fox—a rare admission.

To sweeten the pot, Trump is offering immigrants a $1,000 incentive to voluntarily self-deport. Would you give a “criminal” 1,000 bucks? Of course not. He just changes the narrative as he sees fit. More importantly, will immigrants take him up on that offer? Apparently, the first flight left last week with 65 self-deporting immigrants on board.

It’s a bad deal for immigrants. Many of these people have been here for years, maybe even decades. A grand doesn’t even begin to cover the expenses of uprooting one’s life. It’s just bait. We’ll see if they take it.

More than anything, the CBP Home App is a marketing campaign. In fact, it is part of a $200 million “Stay Out and Leave Now” marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter if the self-deportation feature of the app is effective or not, because its marketing campaign—or let’s call it what it really is: propaganda—is effective.

Driving through the small riverside town in which my wife and I live, during the unofficial start of the summer, Kristi Noem’s words unnerved me, and I have nothing to be worried about. That, more than anything, is what they want. If they can’t have your support, they’ll accept your fear instead.

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