Police at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are investigating a violent poster depicting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent being shot in the head after multiple copies were found on campus this week, according to Fox News Digital and The Madison Federalist.
The image, first shared on X by the Wisconsin College Republicans, shows a figure wearing an “ICE” vest with a gunshot wound to the head. Blood splatter behind the agent forms a thought bubble containing the words “speak their language.” Beneath the drawing, the poster states, “you can’t vote away fascism.”
A sticker found on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus shows a drawing of an ICE officer with a gunshot wound to the head alongside the phrase “The only good fascist is a dead one.” Photo by William Hong.
University spokesman John Lucas told The Madison Federalist that the sticker was removed on Thursday and that UWPD is investigating the incident. “UW–Madison condemns violence of any kind,” he said.
Marc Lovicott, the executive director of communications for the UW–Madison Police Department, confirmed to the outlet that “a report regarding the sticker was made to us yesterday by a community member, and UWPD is investigating it as a graffiti incident.”
Additional stickers with similar imagery were photographed by Turning Point USA members, including one discovered by TPUSA board member William Hong. He told The Madison Federalist, “I felt absolutely disgusted seeing such promotion of violence of federal agents in a federally funded university.” Hong added, “Taking time to draw and put these violent messages around the campus is not free speech, but a call to violence.”
Nick Jacobs, chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans and a student at UW–River Falls, told Fox News Digital that violent rhetoric across the Universities of Wisconsin system has escalated sharply since the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10.
“It’s almost celebrated among students to write threatening things about college Republicans, about ICE agents, about Republicans,” Jacobs told Fox News Digital.
Jacobs said his chapter recently created a chalk memorial for Kirk. “Leftists wrote what was on the bullet casing an hour after we did it,” he said, referring to messages investigators reportedly found on shell casings recovered after the killing. According to Fox News Digital, the recovered casings contained left-wing messaging, including references to an Antifa-associated song.
Jacobs said the climate is affecting campuses statewide. “This is something that’s really pervasive to the entire education system,” he said. “It’s never been this bad.”
He also criticized what he described as an inconsistent response from universities. “When George Floyd was killed, the school offered counseling to students,” Jacobs told Fox News Digital. “But when somebody who is very similar to a lot of students is killed on a college campus, radio silence.”
UW–River Falls previously told Fox News Digital it follows the Universities of Wisconsin’s Institutional Statements Policy, which limits official statements to matters directly affecting university operations and requires viewpoint neutrality.
Federal officials have warned that hostility toward immigration-enforcement personnel has risen significantly in recent years. DHS has attributed this trend in part to increasingly extreme anti-enforcement rhetoric from far-left activists.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a sniper opened fire on the ICE Dallas field office in September, killing one detainee and critically injuring two others. Investigators recovered shell casings at the scene containing anti-enforcement messages. DHS described the Dallas shooting as a “targeted attack on ICE law enforcement” and warned that political rhetoric directed at federal officers has “very real consequences.”
University of Wisconsin–Madison officials said the investigation into the violent poster remains ongoing.