The White House is facing criticism for a new Instagram advertisement promoting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), featuring Spider-Man. The post includes four images showing Spider-Man's hand shooting a web, with the caption: 'Your friendly neighbourhood ICE agents.'
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In the images, the superhero's web captures a group of men, and an ICE officer is shown standing over them. The text reads: 'Criminal illegal aliens will be caught and deported.'
Marvel, the owner of Spider-Man, has not yet responded to the post, but fans are urging the company to sue the government.
Previous similar stunts
This is not the first time the Trump administration has used pop culture references in such ads. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security shared a video of immigrants being arrested, set to the Pokémon theme tune. The clip, captioned 'Gotta Catch 'Em All,' imitated the anime with images of Ash Ketchum and Poké Balls, ending with mocked-up Pokémon cards showing the arrested men's crimes and nationalities.
Those cards labeled the men as 'illegal' with a 'weakness' symbol of ice, referencing both Pokémon types and ICE. The Pokémon Company International confirmed to Metro that it was not involved in the video's distribution. Pokémon is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.
