Demonstrators in inflatable costumes (or sometimes nothing at all) have brought a touch of the surreal to the otherwise grim confrontations with federal immigration agents across American cities. As protests grow in both size and intensity, “freedom frogs” and their ilk are increasingly becoming symbols for the demonstrators’ cause – for better or worse.
For protesters, the incongruity is part of the appeal. The “juxtaposition” of a costumed animal “standing up to ICE officers covered in weapons and armour is absurd”, said 404 Media. That is part of why images like the Portland “freedom frogs” are “hitting so hard”.
“This moment is dangerous,” Whitney Phillips, an expert on political semiotics and narratives, told The New York Times. “It’s violent. It’s also absurd.” The “animal army” might not have “precluded shoving matches” or ICE arrests of demonstrators, but its very surrealism has “altered the national conversation”.
Although critics may argue that the costumed protesters are taking the threat posed by armed administration forces “too lightly”, that is “kind of the point”, said Fast Company. The administration’s attempts to frame anti-ICE protesters as “Antifa supersoldiers” are undermined by viral clips showing agents confronting “gaggles of gyrating animals”.
For supporters of the president’s deportation platform, such displays are more proof that Trump is in the right. “If you think this is crazy,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X in response to a protest of naked bike riders outside Portland’s ICE facility, “congratulations, you’re a Republican.” | 
