Halo co-creator says ICE’s Halo-themed recruitment ad “makes me sick”

Another Halo maker says ad "ought to offend every Halo fan, regardless of political orientation." ALSO: A developer whose game just launched on Xbox slams Microsoft’s silence

The United States Department of Homeland Security on Monday posted, posted again and re-posted a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that was themed to Microsoft’s popular video game series Halo.

“Finishing the fight,” DHS posted, referencing a slogan from the 24-year-old sci-fi military shooter series.

“Destroy the Flood,” the ad encouraged potential recruits, a line that equates the immigrants ICE rounds up for deportation to the parasitic alien force players battle in the Halo games.

On Twitter/X, the post has been a hit, drawing 19+ million views and celebratory reactions (“Hats off to the Trump Meme Team,” “I can live with this timeline”, “I voted for this,”) mixed with some negative (“Cortana, show me the Epstein files,” “Calling Human people the Flood is fascist ideology.”)

I asked ICE comms yesterday why they posted it. They referred me to DHS. DHS didn’t reply.

But the dots to connect likely go like this:

• Friday: Microsoft announces a Halo remake and says the series will now also ship on PlayStation

• Saturday: Meme-posting game retailer GameStop posts to X that the console wars are over.

• Sunday: The Trump administration’s “Rapid Response” team responds to GameStop, saying the console war is the 9th war Trump has ended. (The tally is questionable.)

• Also Sunday: California Governor Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 Democrat presidential contender, reacts to the Rapid Response tweet with:

• Also Sunday: The official White House account posts 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.

• Monday: DHS gets involved with its Halo ICE recruitment post and some follow-up replies. DHS reposts itself for good measure and tries the meme on much more left-leaning BlueSky, where it does lower numbers than an earlier meme based on the movie Sicario.

Asked about the Halo posts, a White House spokesperson told reporter Alyssa Mercante that Trump is “hugely popular with the American people and American Gamers.” (Here, too, the tally is questionable.)

Over on the Halo subreddit, the mods allowed a break from their “policy to remove politics and AI slop.” Wrote one commenter: “God I’m so tired of the White House acting like an edgy 17 year old.”

Marty O’Donnell, the composer of the original Halo theme hasn’t worked on the series in years and had finished fourth in the Republican primary last year for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional seat. He and is running for it again in 2026, yesterday reacted to the DHS ICE ad. On Monday, he posted that, when he wins, he will “work with the Trump administration to destroy the Flood once and for all!”

But some former Halo developers who I spoke to were strongly against the ICE Halo ad.

Marcus Lehto, co-creator of Halo and lead designer of Master Chief, told Game File that he found the DHS/ICE post “absolutely abhorrent.”

He added: “It really makes me sick seeing Halo co-opted like this.”

I also spoke to Halo veteran Jaime Griesemer, who was one of the chief designers of the several games in the series.

“Halo is a cultural icon and like anything with cultural capital, it is going to be used by politicians and brands and anyone else looking for relevancy,” he told me.

“Usually I take it as a compliment to Halo’s continuing legacy.”

Griesemer had found the Trump-as-Master-Chief post amusing. But the ICE one, he did not.

“Using Halo imagery in a call to ‘destroy’ people because of their immigration status goes way too far, and ought to offend every Halo fan, regardless of political orientation,” Griesemer said. “I personally find it despicable. The Flood are evil space zombie parasites and are not an allegory to any group of people.“

Along with the reactions to ICE’s dehumanizing meme came reactions from press, online pundits, Halo fans and game developers to Halo publisher Microsoft’s reaction to all of this—more specifically, its non-reaction.