Theo Von is not laughing about becoming the face of a government deportation brag reel. The stand up comic and podcaster blasted the Department of Homeland Security after the agency posted a punchy 31 second montage touting mass removals, and opened it with a memeable clip of Von saying, “Heard you got deported, dude. Bye!” Von says he never signed off, he wants the video taken down, and he would like a check while they are at it.
The DHS spot ran on X and other platforms and stitched Von’s line to b roll of arrests, runway shots, and bold on-screen stats. The text boasts that the Trump administration racked up two million removals in 250 days, broken out as about 1.6 million self-departures and 400,000 deportations, before flashing a final message that says “LEAVE NOW.” It also drops in a clip of Trump declaring that migrants have “stopped coming.” The tone is part hype video, part warning, which is exactly why Von wants no part of it.
Von took to social media to put DHS on blast. “Yooo DHS i didn’t approve to be used in this,” he wrote, adding that he knows the government has his address, so they should send compensation. He followed with a cleaner version of the same message on camera and a punchline that landed with fans, keep me out of your “banger” deportation videos. For a guy who has chatted up Trump and JD Vance on his podcast, the pushback shows he is not interested in being conscripted as a government hype man.
Why did DHS use him in the first place? The original “deported, dude” clip appears to have been a casual shout-out that traveled as a meme, which made it irresistible fodder for a quick hit propaganda cut. But that shortcut triggered a rights and optics headache. Government communications are not exempt from permission and fair use debates, and brands avoid this exact trap because talent backlash can turn a flex into a fiasco. Now, Von’s objections are the headline, not DHS’s numbers.
The department has already been under fire for leaning into culture war packaging. In a separate flap, The Pokémon Company condemned a DHS themed “Gotta Catch ’Em All” raid montage, saying it had nothing to do with the campaign. That episode invited mockery and legal side eye from fans and IP lawyers, and it set the stage for Von’s complaint to land even harder. When your marketing formula is borrowed catchphrases and borrowed faces, you invite blowback from the folks you borrowed from.
DHS has not offered a detailed response to Von’s takedown demand but have since taking it down. The agency’s message remains focused on removal statistics and deterrence, but the public conversation has shifted to consent, compensation, and whether the government should be making swagger reels with comedians and children’s franchises.
For Von, the line is simple, use someone else’s punch line. For DHS, the calculus is trickier, take the clip down and you look spooked, keep it up and the story keeps cooking. Either way, Von’s catchphrase has outlived its meme cycle and turned into a media headache for the nation’s largest domestic security agency.
