The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has spent recent months posting some of the most bizarre material that’s ever come from an official U.S. government account. And now we can add “Fascist Pokémon” to the list.
The official DHS account published a one-minute video on X and Instagram on Monday that opens with footage of explosions at the doors of unseen victims. The Pokémon music starts, with the lyrics “I wanna be the very best…” as viewers see American stormtroopers in fatigues walking in slow motion.
The song continues as there are shots of people with blurred faces being arrested in a montage that clearly seeks to glorify masked federal agents. Those agents have been terrorizing local communities since President Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term, including last week, when ICE agents reportedly used a 5-year-old autistic girl to lure her father out of a house.
It’s unknown at this point whether Nintendo gave DHS permission to use Pokémon music and images in this unusual video, but that seems extremely unlikely. Nintendo didn’t respond to questions on Tuesday morning.
Social media users had mixed reactions to the new Pokémon video, with some praising Trump’s brutality. “Whoever is behind the social medias. Well done 🙌❤️😂,” one high-ranking comment reads.
Others were trolling DHS right back. The top comment on the Instagram video right now reads, “Don’t forget catch all of the people on the Epstein list 😍 gotta catch them all right?” Another Instagram commenter replied with an animated GIF showing the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a Pokémon and the words “Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
President Trump was reportedly good friends with Epstein for 15 years. Despite initial promises from people like Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel that extensive documents on Epstein would be released, they now claim there’s no Epstein list. Epstein died in prison in 2019, though many people are skeptical of the official story that he killed himself.
In follow-up tweets, DHS has posted images of people the agency suggests were caught for various offenses, made to look like Pokémon cards. The cards read “worst of the worst” and include the subject’s name, age, and nationality. A flag showing the subject’s country of origin appears behind their head. There are also stats that are typical for a Pokémon.
Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, has leaned into President Trump’s extreme rhetoric when it comes to immigration. And that posturing has really come through on social media, with DHS frequently posting aggressive messages on X using music and images that don’t appear to be officially licensed.
Back in July, DHS posted a video that uses a voiceover from The Batman (2022) along with a Bible quote to justify the agency’s horrifying tactics. Another video uses a song called “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which was featured in the Netflix series A Man in Full starring Jeff Daniels. Again, it’s unclear if DHS has sought permission to use these songs and movie clips, but that seems highly unlikely. The audio for the DHS video that uses “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” is no longer available on Instagram, presumably over copyright issues.
DHS also posted a video last week that uses a cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and it also sounds like audio from the original song is incorporated in some kind of remix. The DHS account is also extremely fond of imagery that seeks to invoke a sense of nostalgia for when America was more patriarchal and white. The estate of the late painter Thomas Kinkade, who died in 2012, posted a statement about DHS’s unauthorized use of the painting “Morning Pledge.”
All of this disturbing content seems intended to strike fear into the country. And there’s certainly reason to be fearful when masked agents use violence at such a scale. Peaceful protesters have repeatedly been attacked at ICE facilities, including when Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was injured in the city of Broadview on Friday.
This is what it looks like when ICE violates our First Amendment rights. pic.twitter.com/EneI3BAkPF — Kat Abughazaleh (@KatAbughazaleh) September 19, 2025
Fifteen people have died in immigration detention since President Trump took office in January, according to NPR. Ten of those deaths occurred from January to June, the highest rate of deaths in the first six months of any year on record. And as long as Trump is in office, it only seems like things are going to get worse for the most vulnerable.
DHS didn’t immediately respond to questions about Tuesday morning. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.