Theo Von slammed the Department of Homeland Security for using his viral comedy clips in their promotional videos for deportations. On Tuesday, the DHS shared an upload that opened with Von saying, “Heard you got deported, dude, bye!” The moment was clipped from a longer video, which includes the critical context of the podcast host meeting a fan who asked if he could record a video for a friend who had been deported.
“Yooo DHS i didnt approve to be used in this,” Von wrote on X. “I know you know my address so send a check. And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are alot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”
The DHS and official White House social media accounts have been attempting to capitalize on viral trends to promote the mass deportations occurring across the country. In the video Von criticized, for example, the clip is followed by scenes in which people are being handcuffed and transported for deportation. It brags about the removal of “2 million [people] in 250 days,” and includes a clip of Donald Trump saying immigrants have “simply stopped coming.”
Yooo DHS i didnt approve to be used in this. I know you know my address so send a check. And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are alot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye! https://t.co/5v5gagf4Dr
— Theo Von (@TheoVon) September 24, 2025
In late July, the White House tried to jump on the “Jet2 Holiday” commercial meme — which features Jess Glynne’s 2015 hit single “Hold My Hand” — to promote U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportations. The caption read: “When ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. ✈️🎶 Nothing beats it!” It accompanied a video of multiple men restrained in hand and leg cuffs being deported. Conveniently, the ICE agents faces were blurred out, but not the people they detained.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
If the goal is to make the Trump administration’s efforts look cool or less sinister, their memes are only doing the opposite. “This post honestly makes me sick,” Glynne said at the time. “My music is about love, unity, and spreading positivity, never about division or hate.”
“It’s amazing and it’s scary because you don’t have control. I’m grateful for it, but at the same time, it’s very lawless in that world. People can make whatever they want,” Von told Rolling Stone in 2023 about his fear of losing ownership or control over his viral content. “We’ve created an environment where one thing that gets out there can make it so that that’s all you are.”
Von hosted Trump on his podcast, This Past Weekend, ahead of the 2024 presidential election, and JD Vance earlier this year. Meanwhile, this past weekend, reports emerged that two American military cargo jets deported people to Africa on flights that appear to have had their transponders turned off, preventing tracking by obscuring their locations from public flight databases and other nearby aircraft. The secret flights are part of what appears to be a surge in ICE activity across the African continent, following a pressure campaign led by Trump on many of the governments there over the summer.
From Rolling Stone US
