The US Department of Homeland Security has sparked online backlash over a new video that compares arresting migrants to catching Pokémon, with some branding it “cute authoritarianism”.
The one-minute video features footage of individuals being arrested by US officers, spliced with clips and music from the catchy opening theme of the Japanese animé, which Nintendo partly owns.
The cartoon and collectibles game features trainers capturing, training, and battling creatures called Pokémon to compete in tournaments and thwart villains.
The DHS video ends with several mock Pokémon “cards” featuring some of the people the DHS says it has arrested and deported, describing them as “worst of the worst” and detailing their alleged crimes, including attempted murder and burglary.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency also replied to the video on X with a GIF of a dancing Pikachu, a popular Pokémon character, saying it was the “Border Patrol’s newest recruit”.
The video shared on Monday, captioned “Gotta Catch ‘em All!”, has been met with ridicule from critics, who not only pointed to potential legal implications with Nintendo over intellectual property rights, but also noted how one of the raids shown in the clip has landed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in hot water.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council advocacy group, said a door that is shown near the start of the video being blown up was at a home “where multiple US citizens lived”.
“They were never shown a warrant and were handcuffed and led out the shattered door into the light of the fleet of cameras Kristi Noem brought to the raid for PR,” he wrote on X.
Noem shared the same clip in a bizarre highlight reel last Thursday set to a remix of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The dramatized footage of the raid carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents forms part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The DHS denied making a mistake during the operation, stating, “No US citizen was arrested, they were briefly held for their and officers’ safety while the operation in the house was underway.”
Dozens of online users have responded to the Pokémon video on X by tagging Nintendo and asking the company if it was aware its property was being used for “ICE propaganda”. Nintendo has not publicly commented on the video, and The Independent has contacted the company for a response.
“A new example of the political aesthetic we know as Cute Authoritarianism,” Scottish novelist Ewan Morison wrote on X in response to the video.
Commenting on one of the Pokémon cards created by the DHS, showing an alleged sexual predator, lawyer Robert Freund said: “I don’t get the Pokémon theme here. The government is collecting and training sex offenders and making them stronger? Why?”
It is not the first time the Trump administration has sparked uproar over its social media stunts.
In July, the White House posted a video on X using the viral Jet2 holiday voiceover to seemingly mock a group of migrants being deported, with the caption: “When ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. Nothing beats it!”
British singer Jess Glynne, whose song “Hold My Hand” was part of the trend, said the post made her “sick”.
