US President Donald Trump’s White House on Thursday launched an online arcade featuring classic games with a “MAGA” twist, allowing players to deport migrants and build a border wall.
Rights groups immediately condemned the games as the Trump administration intensifies its programme of mass arrests and deportations targeting undocumented migrants, reports AFP.
One game, Rio Run, reworks the classic Snake game. It depicts US border czar Tom Homan chasing migrants with different skin colours along the Rio Grande near the Mexican border.
The website also features Build the Wall, which draws on the block-stacking format of Tetris. Its instructions tell players to “Protect the border from the coming horde”.
Another game asks players to collect nets and place them into so-called “Trump accounts” — investment accounts with a $1,000 deposit for children born from 2025 through 2028.
The White House account on X shared a video featuring the “Make America Great Again” logo, MAGA, modelled on the logo of video game maker Sega. “CAN’T STOP WINNING. Build the wall. Deport. Fill a Trump Account,” it says.
“This administration is laser focused on ways to innovate and tell the story of the President’s many accomplishments in a way that resonates with every American,” the White House said in a statement to AFP. “This is an effort to further contrast between a culture of fun and winning and the dark socialist vision Democrats have for America.”
Rights groups sharply criticised the White House for launching the gaming website.
“Makes me sick. They’ve been playing games with people’s lives for years, now they’ve made a video game of what they’re doing,” Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation in Eagle Pass, Texas, told AFP.
The game designers “have lost touch with what it means to be human and care for others.” Adriana Jasso, programme coordinator for AMIGOS San Diego Community, who works at the border, said the arcade-style games reflected a fundamental “lack of seriousness” from the administration.
“The cruelty, the extremity of the administration… is no longer surprising,” she said. Jasso said the White House appeared determined to dehumanise and ridicule migrants even as people die in detention centres. “This presents the issue as if it were a game, when in fact it is not.”
Trump campaigned on a pledge to expel millions of undocumented migrants. Since returning to power, he has taken several measures aimed at accelerating deportations and reducing the number of border crossings.
The White House has also long relied on social media stunts to reinforce its messages and provoke liberal opponents. Its use of music without permission has additionally triggered backlash from several artists.
