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The official White House X account on Thursday posted its most bizarre meme to date: a Studio Ghibli-style AI cartoon of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer handcuffing a crying woman. The stout animated agent stands in front of an American flag while placing the restraints, and the woman is making a distressed expression. The caricature aims to mock Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, an undocumented immigrant who was arrested by ICE on the basis of illegal reentry. The White House seemed to scoff at the woman’s anguish, adding “She wept when taken into custody (picture attached).” Basora-Gonzalez was convicted of fentanyl trafficking but deported to the Dominican Republic in October 2020 before she could serve out her year-long sentence. She re-entered at an unknown date. Agents ambushed Basora-Gonzalez on March 12 outside the restaurant where she allegedly worked as a cook. Her court-appointed attorney said her re-entry did not make her a flight risk so she shouldn’t be detained before trial, but the government said that her pretrial detention was nevertheless required. Thursday’s post is just one of a number of wild memes Trump and his administration has shared in the last two months.
