The Colorado Sun reported that ICE agents have been leaving Ace of Spades playing cards — famous since at least the Vietnam War as death cards — on cars left behind after drivers and passengers have been detained by ICE in Colorado.
The Sun reported that “family and friends who went to retrieve the vehicles, left abandoned on Highway 6, found the cards, which were printed with contact information for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora.”
Terrorífico,
Los matones del ICE están dejando cartas con el as de espadas en vehículos para amedrentar a los inmigrantes. Esta práctica racista era habitual en Vietnam, donde los estadounidenses marcaban a los asesinados con la «carta de la muerte».https://t.co/zJlPPtBBIq
— Héctor B. M. (@uprazhneniye) January 25, 2026
The Sun also reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, “said via email Friday that ICE is investigating the situation and ‘unequivocally condemns this type of action and/or officer conduct.’”
The alarmed response is unusually sharp and unambiguous from DHS, which has been reluctant in other scenarios to recognize any narrative implying federal agents are in the wrong or behaving unjustly. One example of the blanket exoneration DHS has offered its agents in other cases is a Washington Post headline this week reading: “Trump aides declared 16 DHS shootings since July justified before probes completed.”
[NOTE: The detentions in Colorado so far have differed in one major way from the more sweeping operations in places like Minnesota. Alex Sánchez, president and CEO of Voces Unidas, which tracks and publicizes Border Patrol and ICE arrests and offers legal help to the detained, said “the agents appear to be looking for specific people, not conducting raids.” That specificity aligns with the Trump administration’s stated deportation mission.]
Colorado Democrats have picked up the story and amplified it, calling the practice “disgusting.”
This is disgusting on so many levels. Families of those arrested by ICE near Vail say agents left behind branded “death cards” after arrests, a racist intimidation tactic, according to advocates and community leaders.
Our communities deserve better, and we await the results of… pic.twitter.com/pGWlJG662k
— Colorado Dems
(@coloradodems) January 24, 2026
The Ace of Spades has been adopted as a so-called “death card” symbol by numerous groups ideologically centered on intolerance, including white supremacists.
U.S. soldiers reportedly left Ace of Spades cards on their first kill during the Vietnam War, a practice famously recounted in a memorable scene from Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic, in which Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore hands out death cards.
One X user recently speculated that Greg Bovino, who was running ICE operations in Minnesota until this week, idealized Duvall’s character.
personally i would suggest this character is obsessed with Duvall in the “Apocalypse Now” beach scene. Especially walking through the “k mart” with his camera crew.
not funny, but soooo funny.
if he begins handing out “death cards” we’ll know we’ve nailed it.#yeg #yegcc #newyork https://t.co/M6G24mETZz pic.twitter.com/tkhWc9ujVN— Bob Ligertwood gr 9, truck driver (@BobLigertwood) January 25, 2026