Singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell has publicly condemned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for using her song “American Dreaming” in a recruiting video without her permission. In a post published on Saturday, November 14, Ferrell said ICE had used the song on Thursday in a video she found “genuinely racist,” one that she said was pushing a warped view of who belongs in the country. Times Now World reported on November 15 that she is exploring legal avenues over the use of her work, and Hindustan Times reported the same day that she said, in its headline summary of her statement, “I do not stand for this.”

Source: Times Now World, November 15, 2026; Sierra Ferrell post via YouTube, November 14, 2026

The video at the centre of the dispute was posted on Thursday, November 12, on ICE's official X account, @ICEgov. It runs about one minute and carries the caption: “The way it was. The way it can be again.” It ends by directing viewers to join.ice.gov, the agency's hiring site, according to a detailed account of the video and the reaction to it published by The Library on November 15.

The advertisement is a montage of vintage colour and black-and-white images evoking mid-20th-century Americana. Coverage summarised by Opera News, drawing on Raw Story's reporting, described vintage footage showing a woman drinking a Coca-Cola, a couple laughing by the water, a mother pushing a stroller and Mount Rushmore. Raw Story and Mediaite, which reviewed the video, reported that every person whose face can be made out in the footage is white.

Criticism from across the political spectrum

That combination — the all-white faces reviewers described and a caption promising a return to “the way it was” — drew criticism from commentators who do not usually agree with each other. Richard Hanania wrote on X: “We get immune to this but we need to keep pointing out that the people tasked with enforcing immigration law keep fantasizing about an all-white depopulated country.” New York Times columnist David French also criticised the video on X, and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona described it in a post on X as “one of the most offensive, racist, xenophobic, dog whistle for white nationalists propaganda I have ever seen coming out of an official US government account.” These are the critics' characterisations of the video, reported as their statements; ICE has not offered its own explanation of the message.

The Plain Record's November 13 account named further critics from different sides of the debate: Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official, questioned the messaging, and immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick pointed out that the footage represented a period when Jim Crow laws were still in effect. Times Now World likewise reported that critics said the period the imagery evokes also encompassed state-sanctioned racial segregation.

The singer's objection, and the legal steps she describes

Ferrell's objection is separate from the commentary: it is about her own work. She said the agency used “American Dreaming” without permission, that she was sickened by the association of her art with the video's themes, and that she supports immigrant communities and does not support the agency's campaign, Times Now World reported. Inshorts, summarising her statement on November 15, reported that legal steps are underway to have the video removed and that she is considering further action against the government.

As of the reporting through the weekend, neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security, its parent agency, had publicly responded to the criticism, according to The Library's November 15 account, and Times Now World reported that the agency had not issued a public response regarding Ferrell's claims or the potential legal challenge either.

Background: a hiring drive, and a familiar style of appeal

The video appeared as ICE continued a broader effort to recruit new personnel. Opera News' summary of Raw Story's reporting said Stephen Miller had championed the ICE hiring drive before his promotion to White House chief of staff; President Trump selected Miller to replace Susie Wiles, and Miller took over the position on Monday, November 9. The Washington Post has reported that ICE's recruitment effort is expansive, with the agency seeking applicants through advertising and online outreach, and the new appeal follows a Department of Homeland Security recruiting campaign in 2025 that made similar appeals, according to The Library.

What happens next turns on two tracks. The first is Ferrell's: whether the video is removed from the agency's platforms and whether her threatened further legal action is filed. The second is the agency's: whether ICE or the Department of Homeland Security answers the criticism at all, and whether the recruiting campaign continues in the same style. For immigrant families — including Punjabi diaspora readers whose relatives work, study and hold pending cases in the United States — the dispute matters beyond one song, because it is an argument, conducted in public, over how the agency that enforces immigration law describes the country it is hiring people to police.