Another week, another pop star angry that their song was used without their permission in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment ad.
Singer Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Juno” appeared as the soundtrack for a Department of Homeland Security promotional video posted on the official X account of the White House. It featured a montage of clips appearing to show ICE officers chasing down, tackling and handcuffing people in what looks to be the city of Chicago. The lyrics — “Wanna try out some freaky positions? Have you ever tried this one?” — from the song play atop the footage.
“[T]his video is evil and disgusting,” Carpenter posted on Tuesday. “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.”
Too late, since the DHS had already done it without her knowledge.
Using the work of pop music performers minus their consent is the only way the White House can score their ICE campaign with music clips that actually appeal to people younger than 50.
The list of luminaries who have condemned the agency’s actions or filed legal copyright removal requests (Jay-Z had his song “Public Service Announcement” struck from a DHS social media post) reads like a sold-out Coachella lineup: Jay-Z, Olivia Rodrigo, MGMT, Zach Bryan, The Cure, Usher, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It also includes the estates and companies that represent Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” Pokémon’s original theme song “Gotta Catch ’Em All” and the “Wicked” soundtrack’s “Defying Gravity” as sung by Cynthia Erivo.
As for the catalog of bona fide stars and meme-made celebs who have expressed gratitude for hearing their work in an ICE detainment video? There is no such list.
From the Stones to Springsteen to Swift, GOP campaigns, rallies and election-year ads have featured the music of performers who didn’t want their songs associated with Reagan’s trickle-down economics, either Bush administration’s Gulf war, or Trump’s scorched-earth policies. There wasn’t, and still isn’t, a wealth of popular artists who openly embrace right-wing ideals. Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood, the latter of whom teamed up with Trump to release a “God Bless the USA” bible, can’t do it all.
The right’s strategy has been to use a song once, knowing that a copyright infringement complaint will likely follow, then avoid further legal action by moving on to another artist’s work. Call it poach and run.
But the DHS, like Trump’s White House, has added another element to its grift by capitalizing on the complaints that follow its theft of popular songs.
Carpenter’s response to her song being used without her consent was met with a trolling retort from the DHS. The department weaponized the singer’s own lyrics against her to capitalize on the negative attention (a hallmark of MAGA’s winning strategy in gaming the attention economy).
“Here’s a Short n’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologize for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement, referencing Carpenter’s recent single “Manchild” and the title of her 2024 album, “Short n’ Sweet.”
Crazy idea: The administration might also catch pedophiles and rapists by releasing unredacted copies of the Epstein files. But how to turn that ugliness into a “fun” video with a quippy caption?
The DHS was forced to remove MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” from an ICE recruitment ad after the band issued a takedown request. The video, posted in October, showed agents arresting protesters outside an ICE facility in Portland, Ore. It was captioned: “End of the Dark Age, beginning of the Golden Age.”
The White House also used British singer Jess Glynne’s 2015 single “Hold My Hand,” a song that recently made a comeback in a viral Jet2 holiday ad, to promote its deportation operation over the summer. The DHS posted the song clip to its official social media channels, along with the caption: “When ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. Nothing beats it!”
Glynne and the airline company condemned the ad. But by then, the DHS was on to the next song by an artist who wanted nothing to do with them.
The post The DHS keeps poaching music for ICE recruitment ads. Musicians keep demanding it back appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
