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Comedian Theo Von addressed the Department of Homeland Security and said their use of an old video clip in a DHS anti-immigration video without his permission was “fucked up.”
“My father immigrated here from Nicaragua,” Von said on Thursday’s episode of his podcast, “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.” “One of my prized possessions is I have his immigration papers [from] when he came here, and I have them in a frame.”
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He continued: “So I have tons of thoughts about it, but this was just fucked up, right? It was fucked up.”
On Sept. 24, DHS posted a since-deleted video on its social media pages about deporting undocumented people from America. The beginning of the video uses an old clip of Von saying, “I heard you got deported, dude. Bye!” The rest of the video then brags about the department’s deportation numbers while showing images of people being arrested and upbeat music plays. The video ends with the text “Leave now” over a clip of a plane.
After DHS posted the video, Von called out the department on social media, writing that he didn’t approve the usage of his video or words, and asked them to take it down. The deportation video was deleted within hours.
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On Thursday’s episode, Von explained the story behind the clip that DHS used. He said somebody came up to him in a parking lot about 1 1/2 years ago and explained that her friend had just been deported, and asked Von if he had a message for the friend.
“I didn’t know if it was real or not,” Von said. “I was just joking around.”
He called DHS’ video an “intense thing” and said he has a lot of different thoughts about immigration, including his belief that America is becoming a “surveillance state” where “everyone is going to have to be on the books.”
“And why is the government even making these [videos],” Von asked. “I don’t know. But that’s where we’re at in the world.”
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Von said the incident made him feel “paranoid.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Von said the next morning a “high government official” texted him and offered him extra security, adding that text “shook” him. He implied he did get security.
Von, whom The New York Times described as “one of the defining conversationalists of media’s new MAGA-friendly mainstream,” has been a supporter of President Donald Trump and his administration, promoting Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his podcast. Von even attended Trump’s inauguration in January.
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Trump revealed in May that his 19-year-old son, Barron Trump, told his dad to go on Von’s podcast. Von performed for service members in May in Qatar while Trump was visiting.
“In fact, my son Barron said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to do an interview with’ somebody I hadn’t heard of, but my son knew very well — he knows everyone,” Trump reportedly told service members during a visit at a military base in Qatar. “He said, ‘Dad, you got to do an interview with a guy named Theo Von.’”
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Von, however, has recently broken with Trump on several key issues, including the U.S. intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict earlier this year as well as Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza.