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Sam Beltran

The recent release of classic arcade games on the White House website, which allow players to deport migrants and build a border wall, has stoked more fear and anger among Filipino-Americans, as observers call out the “xenophobic” tactics in US President Donald Trump’s widening immigration crackdown.
Analysts and immigrant advocates described the games, unveiled on Thursday, as “frightening”, trivialising the human toll of the policies and normalising hostility towards migrants, particularly among younger people.
“CAN’T STOP WINNING. Build the wall. Deport. Fill a Trump Account,” the White House said after launching the games, including Rio Run. It lets users chase immigrants next to the Rio Grande River running through the Texas-Mexico border, featuring border tsar Tom Homan.
Another Tetris-based game instructs players to “build the wall” by stacking blocks and “protect the border from the coming horde”. The company on Friday said it did not grant permission for the White House to reference its visuals or gameplay.
The United States has expanded its immigration blitz in recent months, arresting, deporting and holding people in poorly maintained detention centres, including those authorised to stay in the country.
In July, a record number of immigrants were deported, while the arrests hit 49,571, legal scholars and researchers at the Deportation Data Project said.

‘Xenophobia and scapegoating’
On Tuesday, green card holder and cancer-stricken Loreto Javar was released on “humanitarian grounds” after languishing more than two months at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centre, forcing him to miss treatments.
The 73-year-old Fife, Washington resident was arrested in the US on an old criminal charge from the Philippines while applying for citizenship.
The case also prompted Filipino grass-roots rights organisation Malaya Tacoma and labour alliance Tanggol Migrante Movement to slam Philippine embassy and consulate officials for what they called an “attempt to claim credit for the release after failing to act with adequate urgency or cooperating with Javar’s family”.
“We know of Filipinos who are wary of going to the grocery stores, churches or to even drop their kids off at school. Trump continues to promote this culture of fear, submission and surrender from migrants of all nationalities,” said Jom Dolor, deputy secretary general of migrant workers’ rights group Migrante USA.
“Xenophobia and scapegoating still persist in how immigrants are made to do essential yet most unseen and unsung labour, and simultaneously blamed for the current economic decline and crisis in the US.”
Dolor accused the Philippine consulate of not doing enough to help its citizens abroad despite the huge remittances from the diaspora in the US.

Dustin Paul, a Filipino-American content creator, said the culture of fear and anger was palpable in the online and offline communities.
“I observe reactions every single day, not only from my followers but also from the families experiencing it. So many of us are angry. A lot of us are sad,” Paul said.
“We know ICE has been around for a while, way before the Trump administration, but the amount of individuals being arrested during this administration who have no criminal record is absurd,” he said, adding that the games belittling immigrants’ suffering were “disgraceful and disrespectful”.
“The individuals being detained are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, hard workers and neighbours. Families have been ripped apart and it’s embarrassing for our government to display what they go through as games.”
The TikTokker said he had “made it a point” on his platform to argue that ICE raids targeted “anyone who immigrated from another country”, disputing the myth of the “model minority” attached to Asian-Americans.
Model minority
Leland Tabares, an assistant professor of race, ethnicity, and migration studies at Colorado College, said the ICE raids were “very frightening” to members of the Asian diaspora, creating simultaneous cultures of fear and silence that reinforce the model minority trope.
“On the one hand, a lot of people are doing a lot to raise visibility about this, but on the other hand, those in the most vulnerable positions are often the ones who are most worried, and therefore most unwilling to speak out,” Tabares said.
According to Paul, the games were intended to “normalise what’s happening in our country when it comes to immigrants” by trying to “cater to younger generations as much as possible”.


Tabares said the gaming platform advanced Trump’s “two-front war on America”: a material war against real people, as well as a culture war.
“The game becomes a way to domesticate these kinds of violence and makes them very accessible to us … it’s naturalising this cultural climate of disenfranchisement and containment,” he said.
It also plays a role in reproducing the model minority concept that has divided other migrant communities and people of colour, he added.
Tabares said the strategy marked a gamification of the “American dream” while the retro aesthetics served as a callback to the nostalgia built in “Make America Great Again” (Maga) ideology.
They turn “America into a kind of game where if you play your role and do well, you will succeed in life, hiding structural inequalities”, he said.
“The games naturalised xenophobia as a playful, leisurely activity, which is frightening.”


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The Philippines

Filipino-Americans rattled by Trump’s migrant-chasing ‘xenophobia’ games

Anti-ICE activists gather outside a US courthouse in Danbury, Connecticut, last month. Photo: AP

Rio Run, which features US border tsar Tom Homan chasing migrants. Photo: The White House

Residents clash with ICE agents over the shooting of a man in north Minneapolis on January 14. Photo: The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Residents surround ICE and Border Patrol agents who plan their escape after an immigrant raid in Bell, California, last year. Photo: Los Angeles Times/TNS

Pins reading “Deport ICE” are seen during a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC last month. Photo: AFP

Why Filipino migrants are rethinking their futures in Japan

People walking in Tokyo’s Shibuya area. Japan will require about 2.72 million care workers by financial year 2040, according to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare estimates. Photo: Kyodo

Job Andawey, a licensed nurse in the Philippines, works as a carer in Japan. Photo: Job Galutan Andawey

Merrychris Urcales, a carer in Kagawa prefecture, came to Japan on a special skilled worker visa in 2024. Photo: Merrychris Urcales

Catherine Ogalesco came to Japan to work in a factory nine years ago and is now a licensed care worker. Photo: Nursing Assistant Life in Japan by Catherine Ogalesco

Alyssa Manalo, a PhD student at Hiroshima University, studies Filipino migrant workers in Japan. Photo credit: Alyssa Manalo

How the Philippines missed a Korean gambling racket worth US$3.8 billion

Security officers stand guard outside a closed Pogo compound in Cavite province, the Philippines, in 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE

Kim Young-sun is accused of running a network of 23 illegal online betting websites in the Philippines. Photo: Handout

Medical equipment found during a raid on a Pogo-linked underground medical facility in Pasay City, the Philippines, in 2024. Photo: PAOCC/Handout

Police officers escort South Korean scam suspects repatriated from Cambodia at Incheon International Airport in January. Photo: Reuters

A Philippine police officer inspects a building at a closed Pogo hub in Kawit, Cavite province, in 2024. Photo: AFP

UK-Philippines troop deal to boost Nato’s South China Sea reach

Troops from the Philippines, Britain, the US, Japan and South Korea take part in a military exercise in the Philippines in 2023. Photo: Philippine Marine Corps / Handout

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks during the Asean post-ministerial conference with the UK in Pasay City, Philippines, in July. Photo: EPA

A Japanese helicopter destroyer takes part in the US-Philippines Exercise Balikatan 2026 in the South China Sea in April. Photo: Handout

French ambassador to the Philippines Marie Fontanel (left) talks to Brigadier General Guillaume Thomas, French Air Defence and Operations Command, at Clark airbase, Pampanga, north of Manila, in 2024. Photo: AFP

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Immigrant advocates say the ‘frightening’ games normalise human suffering and violence, deepening fear among the migrant communities


Immigrant advocates say the ‘frightening’ games normalise human suffering and violence, deepening fear among the migrant communities.


Filipino-Americans rattled by Trump’s migrant-chasing ‘xenophobia’ games

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Immigrant advocates say the ‘frightening’ games normalise human suffering and violence, deepening fear among the migrant communities

Immigrant advocates say the ‘frightening’ games normalise human suffering and violence, deepening fear among the migrant communities