ICE is not media-friendly.
my contribution to the #iceoutcomics project
For my readers who are not constantly marinating in the cartoonist community, there is a project started by K. Woodman-Maynard where American cartoonists are sharing four-panel comics about how ICE has impacted their local areas.
When this project first started spreading, I immediately wondered if I had anything to contribute. I didn’t know anyone personally who’d been detained. I have no reason to fear detainment myself. I haven’t attended any of the local protests.
But I did have something to say. Something important and something not a lot of people can talk about. I knew it right away, actually; I just wasn’t sure if I should speak up.
Because I worked for a local media outlet in Portland, Oregon for the latter half of 2025. And it was a trip.
I was running a dayside assignment desk by myself when Trump called for the National Guard to come here. I had to order security for crews every day so we could cover the protests. I watched in real time as the blow-up frog became a local symbol of resistance. I sifted through so many GoFundMes run by families whose loved one had just been taken. I took endless calls from people in the community saying they’d just seen ICE (we would often later confirm that it was not ICE, but the community fear this demonstrated was a story in itself).
But what I wanted people to know most about working in local media in the Trump 2.0 era is that the federal government does not play ball. I would take calls from people asking why we only reported on arrests and detainments of citizens or non-criminals, and why we didn’t focus on all the “good” ICE was doing. The answer was not bias, although the administration doing exactly what they promised they wouldn’t do is a more newsworthy focus. It was mainly the fact that the only people who would talk to us were the families of the detained. ICE and DHS comms teams would rarely cooperate with us. Trying to get any information out of them, even a basic “we cannot comment on a pending investigation,” was like pulling teeth. This is not normal.
I’m in a unique position, because I ended up leaving that job earlier this month. Many working local journalists are not really in a position to light ICE and DHS on fire. But I have nothing to lose.
So please enjoy my honest perspective on the frankly insane public relations conduct of ICE and DHS.
Thank you so much for this contribution, Cooklin! It's powerful to hear the perspective from a journalist who has seen a lot like you have. Take care!
I live near Portland and I first met you at the zine fest at PSU, i think last year? This made reading this even more interesting to me. The way you highlight that the way DHS communicates with the public is not normal, really shocks me. I’m used to writing politicians and receiving lies and excuses masked as a legitimate response, but what you describe is actual madness. Thank you so much for making this.