Hey, Nintendo: You Cool With ICE Using Your Pokémon IP To Recruit More Goons?

If we were to play a Techdirt word association game where you say the first thing that comes to your mind when I say “Nintendo,” the answer had better be “intellectual property bully” for most regular readers here. If not, well, I specifically haven’t done my job very well. Nintendo is incredibly protective and litigious when it comes to all of its IP, with that surrounding the Pokémon franchise being no exception. No potential infringement over the years has ever been too small for Nintendo to get the lawyers involved.

Well, we’re going to see if there any limits on the larger end of that spectrum now, because DHS released what I guess is a recruiting video that turns the entire prospect of enforcing our immigration laws into a fucking game of Pokémon.

The one-minute video features footage of individuals being arrested by US officers, spliced with clips and music from the catchy opening theme of the Japanese animé, which Nintendo partly owns.

The DHS video ends with several mock Pokémon “cards” featuring some of the people the DHS says it has arrested and deported, describing them as “worst of the worst” and detailing their alleged crimes, including attempted murder and burglary.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency also replied to the video on X with a GIF of a dancing Pikachu, a popular Pokémon character, saying it was the “Border Patrol’s newest recruit”.

So let’s get the obvious out of the way: this is gross. It’s gross because these are human beings we’re talking about, no matter any crimes or transgressions they may have committed. It’s gross because the analogy to Pokémon would suggest that we’re collecting these human beings in order to pit them against one another in battles. It’s gross because DHS and ICE absolutely suck at their jobs, and do so while hiding their identities so they cannot be held accountable. It’s gross because this is all being done in the context of ICE operating with court-approved racism. It’s gross because at least one of the images of a door being blown open in the video is from ICE activity that got Kristi Noem in trouble.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council advocacy group, said a door that is shown near the start of the video being blown up was at a home “where multiple US citizens lived”.

“They were never shown a warrant and were handcuffed and led out the shattered door into the light of the fleet of cameras Kristi Noem brought to the raid for PR,” he wrote on X.

And it’s obviously some flavor of trademark and copyright infringement as well. Which is why plenty of people seeing this on various social media sites are tagging Nintendo and asking them what the hell they’re going to do about it.

Dozens of online users have responded to the Pokémon video on X by tagging Nintendo and asking the company if it was aware its property was being used for “ICE propaganda”. Nintendo has not publicly commented on the video, and The Independent has contacted the company for a response.

“A new example of the political aesthetic we know as Cute Authoritarianism,” Scottish novelist Ewan Morison wrote on X in response to the video.

Well, Nintendo? We’re waiting! Unleash the legal hounds! Send the C&D letters. File lawsuits. This is, after all, what you do!

Meanwhile, the Pokemon Company came out with a statement, saying that they’re aware of the situation and the use is unapproved by them. However, IGN quotes (former Techdirt podcast guest) Don McGowan who used to be Pokemon Company’s top lawyer saying:

“I don’t see them doing anything about this for a few reasons,” McGowan, now principal at Extreme Grownup Services, told IGN today. “First, think of how little you see [The Pokémon Company International]’s name in the press. They are INSANELY publicity-shy and prefer to let the brand be the brand.

“Second, many of their execs in the USA are on green cards,” he continued. “Even if I was still at the company I wouldn’t touch this, and I’m the most trigger-happy CLO [Chief Legal Officer] I’ve ever met. This will blow over in a couple of days and they’ll be happy to let it.”

Seems pretty unfortunate for all involved, and a depressing statement on the nature of the US government these days.

But, Nintendo isn’t in the same situation really. So it really should speak up. Because if it doesn’t, then the assumption will be made either that you officially or tacitly endorse the use of your property in the rounding up of sometimes-illegal immigrants by ICE, or that you don’t really care all that much about the misuse of your intellectual property any longer.

Those are the only two options.