These Fascist Social Media Posts by DHS Have a Copyright Downside

The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety has spent current months posting unhinged propaganda from ICE movies that includes Bible quotes to historic work about Manifest Future. A few of the photos and movies posted to social media seem to make use of mental property for which DHS didn’t get hold of the rights, together with audio from the 2022 movie The Batman. And now no less than one rights holder is talking up about it.

The property of the late painter Thomas Kinkade, who died in 2012, has posted an announcement to its web site about using “Morning Pledge,” a portray the official DHS account posted earlier this month with the caption “Defend the Homeland.”

“On July 1st, the US Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) posted a photograph on their social media accounts accompanied by a Thomas Kinkade Studios portray. Using his art work was unauthorized, and now we have requested that DHS take away the put up, and we’re consulting with our counsel on our choices,” the inspiration wrote.

Defend the Homeland.

“Morning Pledge” by Thomas Kinkade pic.twitter.com/JLs26R3VlO

— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) July 1, 2025

The assertion continued to say that the Kinkade Household Basis strongly condemns the sentiment of the put up in addition to “the deplorable actions that DHS continues to hold out.” The sentiment, after all, is that America should return to a mythologized previous that’s extra white. At the least that’s how commenters on X clearly saw it.

“Like a lot of you, we have been deeply troubled to see this picture used to advertise division and xenophobia related to the beliefs of DHS, as that is antithetical to our mission,” the assertion reads. “We stand firmly with our communities who’ve been threatened and focused by DHS, particularly our immigrant, BIPOC, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and disabled family and neighbors.”

The official DHS account has additionally just lately shared a portray by Morgan Weistling with the caption “Keep in mind your Homeland’s Heritage.” The account misidentifies the portray as being titled “New Life in a New Land,” although it’s truly known as “A Prayer for a New Life.” Wiestling hasn’t publicly commented on using his picture by DHS.

Keep in mind your Homeland’s Heritage.

New Life in a New Land – Morgan Weistling pic.twitter.com/nFL61Nljbw

— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) July 14, 2025

One other portray used just lately is now not protected by copyright, however isn’t any much less controversial for the message it sends. The work known as “American Progress” by John Gast and is ceaselessly utilized in historical past books to exhibit the idea of Manifest Future, the idea that some settlers had within the nineteenth century that they have been destined by God to colonize the American West.

The tweet was given the caption, “A Heritage to be happy with, a Homeland value Defending.” As an skilled who spoke with the Washington Post notes, it presents a “sanitized model of U.S. historical past” that fails to acknowledge the wholesale destruction of Indigenous communities when settlers moved west throughout the nineteenth century. Gast himself was an immigrant, including one other layer of irony to the put up.

A Heritage to be happy with, a Homeland value Defending.

American Progress – John Gast pic.twitter.com/agU6bl8TZ8

— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) July 23, 2025

But it surely’s the DHS social media movies which might be arguably much more disturbing than the work. And so they might get DHS into some copyright hassle.

One video posted on Monday consists of the caption, “TO EVERY CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN IN AMERICA: Darkness is now not your ally. You symbolize an existential menace to the residents of the US, and US Border Patrol’s Particular Operations Group will cease at nothing to hunt you down.” And apart from the verbose language, the imagery is sort of disturbing if you bear in mind what ICE is now doing each day.

TO EVERY CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIEN IN AMERICA:

Darkness is now not your ally. You symbolize an existential menace to the residents of the US, and US Border Patrol’s Particular Operations Group will cease at nothing to hunt you down. pic.twitter.com/Ts4Cnjp70n

— Homeland Safety (@DHSgov) July 28, 2025

The video exhibits males in tactical gear storming what seems to be a coaching constructing. The video additionally makes use of a voiceover from The Batman (2022), wherein we hear Robert Pattinson learn the road “They suppose I’m hiding within the shadows. However I’m the shadows.”

The video additionally makes use of a bible quote projected on display, Proverbs 28:1, which reads “The depraved flee when no man pursueth; however the righteous are daring as a lion.” Using the passage seems to be an try to counsel that immigrants are fleeing when no one is coming for them, which clearly is mindless. ICE has waged a marketing campaign of rounding up migrants with none legal file, and these individuals do have of us pursuing them. People who usually gained’t even present their face or show that they work for legislation enforcement.

It’s additionally slightly ironic that simply two verses later, the ebook of Proverbs appears to denounce exactly what the Trump regime is doing: “A ruler who oppresses the poor is sort of a driving rain that leaves no crops.” And just some verses past that: “Higher the poor whose stroll is innocent than the wealthy whose methods are perverse.”

One other video posted to social media platforms like Facebook once more makes use of a bible verse, together with a voiceover that claims, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who shall I ship, and who will go for us? And I mentioned: Right here am I; ship me.”

The video additionally options the tune “God’s Gonna Minimize You Down” by Black Insurgent Bike Membership, featured within the Netflix series A Man in Full starring Jeff Daniels. It’s unclear whether or not DHS sought permission to make use of the tune, however the model on Instagram at present reads, “This tune is at present unavailable,” suggesting it was pulled attributable to copyright points.

The Division of Homeland Safety didn’t reply to Gizmodo’s questions on its fascist social media posts or its use of copyrighted materials. We’ll replace this text if we hear again, although the final time we interacted with ICE, an company spokesperson despatched us statistics that have been clearly not grounded in actuality. And when requested for proof of their claims about violence towards ICE officers, they ignored these emails.