To: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Edward Markey
Inhumane policies affecting real people are not games!
Stop Gamifying Deportation and Dehumanizing Immigrants on WhiteHouse.gov
To: The White House and the Executive Office of the President
We call on the White House to remove or substantially revise the immigration-themed games currently published in the official White House Arcade and to conduct a public review of the Arcade’s content standards.
The issue is not whether Americans agree or disagree about immigration policy, border security, or deportation. Americans can hold strongly different views on those questions.
The issue is how the government of the United States chooses to portray human beings.
At:
The official White House website currently offers an arcade game titled “Build the Wall.” The White House describes it with the words:
“Protect the border from the coming horde.”
Inside the game, the player is presented with the phrase:
“ZOMBIE BORDER SIEGE.”
Another game, “Rio Run,” turns border enforcement into an arcade-style activity centered on apprehension and deportation.
These are not simply neutral explanations of federal policy.
Words such as “horde,” zombie-invasion imagery, and the transformation of deportation into entertainment risk portraying immigrants as an anonymous threat rather than as human beings. Immigration enforcement involves real people, families, legal proceedings, asylum claims, detention, removal, and consequences that can permanently alter lives.
Whatever our politics, official government communications should not dehumanize groups of people or turn serious governmental actions against human beings into amusement.
We therefore call on the White House to:
- Remove or substantially revise “Build the Wall” and “Rio Run” so that immigration policy is not presented through dehumanizing imagery or language.
- Review all content in the White House Arcade for messaging that stereotypes, dehumanizes, or trivializes the treatment of groups of people.
- Establish and publish standards for games and other entertainment appearing on official White House digital platforms so that government communications uphold basic human dignity.
- Explain publicly how the current Arcade content was reviewed and approved for publication on WhiteHouse.gov.
This petition is not asking Americans to adopt one political position on immigration.
It asks for something much more basic:
The government of the United States should debate and enforce policy without portraying human beings as hordes, zombies, targets, or points in a game.
Please sign and share this petition, visit the White House Arcade yourself, and examine the content firsthand:
Why is this important?
This is important because real lives are at risk and in eminent danger from the Trump administration
How it will be delivered
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