A political researcher is hammering the Trump administration after uncovering that amid the ongoing government shutdown, which has led to millions of Americans losing food assistance, the administration has continued to spend millions of dollars on ads discouraging illegal immigration and praising President Donald Trump, both in the United States and Mexico.
The government shutdown stretched into its 33rd day Sunday – fast approaching the longest shutdown in history of 35 days – leading to 42 million Americans losing their first round of federal food assistance, including 16 million children. But amid the chaos, the Trump administration has continued spending millions on pro-Trump advertising.
“We’re seeing that some of these campaigns have actively started during October, clearly after the shutdown started, which is key to this story,” said Natalia Campos Vargas, the deputy research director at Equis, a Latino political research firm, speaking with Rolling Stone in its report Sunday.
“During the government shutdown where employees are being furloughed, these government entities are still spending millions of dollars on advertising on TV and digital platforms.”
As of Oct. 15, the Department of Homeland Security had spent a total of $51 million in 2025 on ads aimed at deterring illegal immigration. A significant share of the ads – some of which specifically target the Hispanic community both domestic and abroad – feature DHS Secretary Kristi Noem directly praising Trump.
And, according to Campos Vargas, a not insignificant number of those ads – paid for by the American taxpayer – are being aired in Mexico, and at a time when tens of millions of Americans are missing their food assistance benefits, which the Trump administration has refused to make whole, despite having around $6 billion in emergency funds to do so.
“We are not able to track money spent outside of the United States, but we do know that the DHS is also running ads in Mexico,” Campos Vargas said, speaking with Rolling Stone. “We don’t know how much money is spent or where it is being spent.”