Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto condemned the Trump Administration‘s use of imagery inspired by the popular video game to promote Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recruitment.
His remarks followed a series of official social media posts that incorporated AI-generated depictions of Halo characters to encourage participation in President Donald Trump‘s immigration enforcement agenda.
“It really makes me sick seeing Halo co-opted like this,” Lehto told Game File, adding that he found the posts “absolutely abhorrent.” The image, which riffed on Halo iconography and featured the phrases “Destroy the flood” and “Finishing the fight”, appeared as ICE conducts aggressive enforcement operations across U.S. cities. The post followed the announcement of a new Halo remake by Microsoft.
The official White House account also got in on the act posting an image of Trump wearing Master Chief-style Spartan armor, saluting a flag with 40 stars, under the GameStop slogan “Power to the Players.” It garnered over 40 million views, as Game File reports:
Other former Halo developers also criticized the government’s messaging. Jaime Griesemer, an early designer on the franchise, said using Halo imagery “in a call to ‘destroy’ people because of their immigration status goes way too far,” and called the comparison “despicable.” He added that the game’s fictional enemies — the parasitic Flood — “are not an allegory to any group of people.”
The government’s use of commercial gaming IP in immigration messaging is not new. In September, DHS circulated a video combining ICE arrest footage with clips from the Pokémon anime and mocked-up trading cards labeling detainees “worst of the worst,” concluding with the slogan “Gotta Catch ‘Em All.” The Pokémon Company later said it had not authorized the material, though its former chief legal officer, Don McGowan, told IGN legal action was unlikely.
A White House spokesperson said Trump is “hugely popular with the American people and American gamers,” while offering no explanation for the government’s adaptation of the franchise. Lehto said the repurposing of Halo for immigration enforcement was troubling. “It really makes me sick,” he said.
Originally published on Latin Times
