Outraged nail artists are giving ICE the finger

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — When Heather Buzzell saw the video of a federal agent in Minneapolis running toward demonstrators only to slip on ice and fall on his backside, she was inspired.

“I just thought, ‘How funny would this be in nail art form?’ Almost as if it was a comic in a newspaper,” she said.

The next day, she painted a miniature rendering of the incident — featuring the moment the agent fell and a photographer who captured it — on a single press-on nail. When her freehand composition was complete, she layered on a coat of black gel polish that turns transparent when heated, to unveil the scene. Then she uploaded a video of her process to her social media pages; her Facebook reel has since garnered more than a million views.

The killing of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE agent and the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown had been weighing heavily on Buzzell. “I’m not in Minneapolis,” Buzzell, 36, said. “I’m at home in Pennsylvania with my kids, and there’s nothing I could do to go out there and do anything about it.” As a part-time nail artist and full-time mother, she felt that depicting the slip-and-fall via nail art was a small way of showing support for people in Minneapolis and others around the country who share her contempt for what the agents are doing.

Most Americans really don’t like how immigration agents — including Customs and Border Protection officers, like the one Buzzell immortalized, but lumped together in general parlance under “ICE” — are operating in US cities. Anti-ICE sentiment is also being incorporated in various crafts, appearing in cross-stitch patterns, felted brooches and beaded bracelets. For some nail technicians and amateur nail artists, their vivid and ever-updated creations have become a natural outlet for their outrage.

In addition to her depiction of the federal agent wiping out, Buzzell recreated another iconic image that emerged out of Minneapolis in recent days: the face of right-wing, pro-ICE influencer Jake Lang being covered by the hand of a woman with long pink nails.

Similarly anti-ICE nail designs are all over social media. Some, like Buzzell’s, involve intricate illustrations; others show their opposition through ornate lettering, spelling out the tamer rallying cry “Melt ICE” — or more often, its obscene counterpart. Recently, on the online forum Reddit Laqueristas (“The C was sold to pay for polish,” the subreddit’s description says), someone asked what nail color the woman covering Lang’s face was wearing. One user replied, “I LOVE how this sub is like, not just nail polish enthusiasts, but nail polish enthusiasts against fascism. You’re my people.”

Shani Evans, a 51-year-old professional nail artist in New York, often sports an anti-ICE manicure — currently, she has on shiny, dark purple polish with “F**k ICE* written on her middle fingernails. “I’m not having it. And I want people to know that I’m not having it,” she said.

Since ICE’s raids and arrests have accelerated, she said she’s made it a point to always devote at least one fingernail to showing her feelings about the current administration and its “rapid, accelerated self-destruction.” Anytime someone compliments her manicure, she makes sure to show them whatever anti-ICE or anti-Trump sentiment is on her nails at the time.

“Most people getting their nails done like that are women and femmes … so it’s a great way to lean into that femme beauty aesthetic, while still making a point that’s a little more aggressive,” she adds.

Melena Andrade, a 24-year-old in Albany, New York, has long treated her nails as a political message board. A social worker with a passion for nail art, she’s previously done LGBTQ Pride-themed nails, as well as election season sets encouraging people to vote. Last September, she painted single-size milk cartons and cafeteria trays onto her nails to celebrate New York’s universal school meals program, and shared photos of the work on Instagram in November when the government shutdown put food stamp benefits at risk.

When demonstrations against ICE in Minneapolis started ramping up, she painted “Melt ICE” onto her nails in the signature red and blue lettering you might find on an ice cooler outside a gas station, using lacquer polish as a base and a tiny paintbrush and acrylic paint for the detailing. She finds that her vibrant designs are often conversation starters, giving her a chance to talk to people about issues she cares deeply about.

“Even if I’m able to reach one new person and have them see my nails and be like, ‘Oh, what is going on with ICE? Why are people opposing this?’ then I think that’s well worth the time and energy that I put into creating these sets,” Andrade said.

The hostility toward ICE in the nail community isn’t necessarily surprising. Nail salons are a multi-million dollar business in the US, staffed predominately by Asian and Latino immigrants — a fact that isn’t lost on nail techs.

“The nail industry was built by immigrants, and if it weren’t for immigrants, I don’t think that independent nail techs would be able to have the type of job that we have now,” Hayley Imbler, a 32-year-old nail tech in Utah who recently shared a black and purple “F**k ICE” nail set she did for a client.

“We do work in the most stigmatized part of the beauty industry,” added Nika Belilovsky, a 30-year-old New York-based nail artist who recently posted her painting “FCK ICE” in Gothic lettering onto a nail. “When you are a nail tech, you should be aware of that, and you should also speak out about things like that.”

Writing “F**k ICE” on your nails might seem like a small or frivolous gesture. But by expressing their disdain for the administration’s treatment of immigrants in their work, nail artists are coping in the way they know best.

“It’s so hard to do my job honestly right now as a nail tech and post online like, ‘Hey guys, look at these cute little butterflies and these cute little flowers’ when we have Minneapolis happening,” Buzzell said.

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