The Department of Homeland Security shared a meme-style video likening ICE raids and capturing undocumented immigrants to Pokémon — prompting a backlash for using the popular Japanese animé partly owned by Nintendo to promote the raids.
The government agency posted the video on X Monday, which opens with exploding doors and masked agents leading accused suspects away, all while set to the Pokémon theme song and captioned with the text: "Gotta Catch ‘Em All."
By Tuesday, the video had more than 24 million views. And even Customs and Border Protection added to the meme, sharing a gif with a dancing Pikachu and saying it was “Border Patrol’s newest recruit.”
Pokémon is part-owned by Nintendo and the company has been alerted about the video, the Daily Beast reported. It's unclear if DHS had permission to use the footage and song.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents held a 5-year-old autistic girl outside her Massachusetts home to pressure her father to surrender to authorities last week, according to the girl's family.
A video of the incident, obtained by Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra, shows a young girl surrounded by what appears to be several male law enforcement agents outside of her home in Leominster, Massachusetts, last Tuesday.
The girl is sitting beside what appears to be a law enforcement SUV and holding a bottle while encircled by the several men, according to the video.
"They took my daughter, she’s 5-years-old. She has autism spectrum," the girl's mother says in the video. "Give me my daughter back."
The woman told Telemundo — which is owned and operated by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News — that her husband called her while he was driving with their daughter shortly before the incident and told her he thought he was being followed.
Her husband, Edward Hip, drove home and "managed to run back into the parking lot of my house, but they grabbed" their daughter, she added.
Hip is originally from Guatemala and has lived in the United States for the last 22 years, according to his wife, who asked that her name not be published. The pair share two children who were born in the U.S., she said.
The video appears to then show authorities trying to coax the girl's father out of his Leominster, Massachusetts home.
"Is that your daughter? Come here so I can see those IDs," a man who appears to be an immigration agent can be heard saying in the video.