A Florida congressional candidate says he bought the online domain nazis.us and set it up to redirect visitors to the US Department of Homeland Security, under whom federal agents have been carrying out brutal immigration crackdowns at the behest of the Trump administration.

Mark Davis, who says he is running as a Democrat for Republican Vern Buchanan’s seat in November’s midterms, took responsibility for the ploy in a Friday X post – as polling showed most Americans believe the killing of Minneapolis woman Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent demonstrated problems with the way ICE has been operating.

“I’m a nobody. A dad in [conservative] Florida,” Davis wrote. “And I’m the one who bought nazis.us because [Trump’s Republican party] went full fascist and … not a soul in power thought to actually raise hell. So I did.”

Davis added that if establishment figures “won’t fight Nazis, then a nobody fucking will”.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told TMZ after it first reported on nazis.us that her agency, which houses ICE, had “successfully blocked the redirect” by Thursday morning. However, as of late Friday afternoon, typing nazis.us into a web browser led users to dhs.gov.

Good was killed in one of numerous violent encounters seeing federal officers including ICE agents descend on community members during protests across the US over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Many who oppose the tactics used by federal agents have likened them to the Gestapo, the secret police of Nazi Germany. Notably, after endorsing Trump’s victorious run for a second presidency in 2024, podcast host Joe Rogan compared ICE to the Gestapo in the wake of Good’s killing.

Trump, for his part, has made it clear that it bothers him when people refer to his administration as Nazis.

“Look, they call me a Nazi all the time – I’m not a Nazi,” Trump said on the CBS News program 60 Minutes in November. “I’m the opposite. I’m somebody that’s saving our country, but they call me Nazi.”

Meanwhile, the Intercept news website noted that the DHS’s official Instagram account published a recruitment post touting “We’ll Have Our Home Again”, attaching a song with that title.

The song is popular in neo-Nazi spaces and features lyrics about recapturing “our home” by “blood or sweat,” echoing themes invoked by white supremacists when they call for race wars, according to the Intercept.

Records from GoDaddy’sWHOIS database say nazis.us was registered on 13 January by a user with a Florida mailing address.

Davis received mixed reactions online after claiming responsibility for the nazis.us redirect, with some applauding him as principled and courageous – while others mocked him and promised to help defeat him.

On Friday, he posted a message on the social media platform Threads that he suggested was an answer for numerous media outlets trying to contact him to ask about the redirect.

“I shouldn’t have to do this,” Davis said. “But I watched elected leaders stay silent while this country goes with fascism.”