- White House video showed immigrants being deported on a GlobalX flight with meme audio
- The video used a British airline ad voiceover and Jess Glynne’s song 'Hold My Hand'
- Jess Glynne criticised the White House for using her music to depict deportation
A White House video showing the deportation of immigrants has once again sparked outrage online - this time for using a voiceover from a British airline advertisement, commonly used in memes to depict vacation disasters or chaotic situations. The clip, shared on X by the official White House account, shows handcuffed undocumented people being escorted by blurred-out Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials into a GlobalX flight - an airline provider used by ICE.
The White House captioned its post: "When ICE books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation," adding, "Nothing beats it!"
The sound, in which a British woman narrates a vacation deal offered by the Jet2 airline, includes a clip of singer Jess Glynne's 2015 hit "Hold My Hand". The sound has become one of TikTok's biggest trends. According to Forbes, the audio has been used in nearly 2 million videos, many of which portray chaotic incidents, such as a person getting knocked over by a splash from a water slide or a woman almost getting hit by a rebounding axe at an axe throwing range.
The White House's post quickly went viral online, garnering more than 11 million views. It prompted a barrage of condemnation online, with many tagging Jet2 and asking, "Y'all ok with this?" Some users also called the video "disgusting", while others accused the Trump administration of dehumanising vulnerable people.
Singer Jess Glynne also slammed the White House in a post on Instagram. She said that post makes her "sick" because her music is about "love, unity and spreading positivity - never about division or hate".
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Notably, the "Jet2 holiday" video is the latest example of the Trump administration using memes on its social media accounts. Earlier this month, the White House shared an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump. The picture showed a heavily muscled Trump in Superman's costume, mid-flight, with the caption, "The symbol of hope. Truth. Justice. The American Way. Superman Trump." The overlay text read, "A Trump Presidency. Truth. Justice. The American Way."
The Trump administration has acknowledged its tendency to communicate through memes. "Nowhere in the Constitution does it say we can't post banger memes," the White House posted in earlier this month.
