Washington, D.C. – December 3, 2025 – Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter publicly condemned the Trump administration on Tuesday for using her 2024 hit “Juno” in an official White House social media video promoting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests. The 26-year-old pop star, currently riding the success of her chart-topping album Short n’ Sweet, called the video “evil and disgusting” and declared, “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.”
The controversy began when the White House account on X posted a 21-second montage showing ICE agents detaining and handcuffing individuals during recent enforcement operations. Set to the infectious beat of “Juno,” the clip featured the song’s viral lyric “Have you ever tried this one?” — originally a playful reference to sexual positions — now repurposed as a mocking send-off to those being deported. The accompanying caption read: “Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye.”
Carpenter responded within hours on her own X account, posting a statement that quickly went viral and drew widespread support from fans and fellow artists. During her ongoing Short n’ Sweet Tour, the singer has performed “Juno” while playfully “arresting” audience members (including celebrities like Anne Hathaway and Nicole Kidman) with pink fuzzy handcuffs for being “too hot,” a lighthearted bit that made the administration’s use of the same imagery in real detention footage particularly jarring to her and her audience.
The White House showed no signs of backing down. Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a combative statement referencing Carpenter’s album title: “Here’s a Short n’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologize for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?”
This is not the first time the second Trump administration has sparked outrage by pairing popular music with immigration enforcement videos. In recent months, artists including Olivia Rodrigo, Jess Glynne, and others have publicly objected to similar uses of their songs in official DHS and White House posts. The pattern has become a hallmark of the administration’s social media strategy, which frequently employs memes, viral audio, and pop culture references to highlight its aggressive deportation campaign.
The numbers behind that campaign are staggering. ICE reported a record 65,000 detentions in November 2025 alone — the highest single-month total in the agency’s history. Since October 1, the start of the new fiscal year, ICE has averaged more than 1,200 arrests and 1,250 deportations per day. The administration claims to have removed or prompted the voluntary departure of over 2 million undocumented immigrants since January 2025, with formal deportations alone nearing 600,000 by year’s end — a pace that would exceed even the highest annual totals from the Obama era.
Supporters credit the surge to expanded detention capacity (now over 70,000 beds), military-assisted removal flights, and financial incentives offered through the CBP Home app, which provides $1,000 stipends and free one-way tickets for those who self-deport. Border encounters have fallen dramatically, down 95% from their 2024 peak.
Critics, however, condemn both the scale and the methods. Human rights organizations report a sharp increase in the detention of non-criminal immigrants, including long-term residents with U.S.-citizen children. Overcrowding has led to deteriorating conditions in facilities, with federal judges in several states issuing scathing rulings about sanitation, medical care, and due process violations. At least 20 people have died in ICE custody in 2025, the highest annual death toll in two decades.
Pope Francis weighed in last month, calling mass deportations “a grave sin against humanity.” Meanwhile, the White House continues to lean into provocative social media tactics, seemingly undeterred by backlash from artists, activists, or international leaders.
For Sabrina Carpenter, the incident has thrust her into the center of America’s polarized immigration debate. What began as a breezy pop song about desire and playful intimacy has been transformed — without her consent — into a soundtrack for one of the most contentious policy crusades in modern U.S. history. As the administration races toward its goal of one million deportations in a single year, the clash between celebrity culture and hardline enforcement shows no sign of quieting down.
