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When helicopters descended on a Chicago apartment building last week with federal agents kitted out in military gear, locals saw a terrifying escalation in the federal government’s incursion into Chicago.

Department of Homeland Security officials saw a cinematic opportunity for a “Call of Duty”-style recruiting video with images from helmet cameras and dramatic music.

Flush with money from Republicans in Congress and on a hiring spree, Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to recruit a lot of people.

It also wants to send a message to immigrants, as it did with a more traditional international ad campaign earlier this year. The message is stay out of the US and leave if you’re here.

From the DHS side of the camera lens, there are videos like the one with the hunting or military-style tag line “Bag it. Tag it. Take it down,.”

The behind-the-scenes versions are on CCTV, like this post from the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute immigration expert David Bier, a critic of the administration, that shows agents, with a masked photographer in tow, sprinting after unidentified men who had been drinking coffee on the corner.

These videos borrow from the wartime Uncle Sam posters of yore to call for recruits as i