Sabrina Carpenter Condemns White House for Using Her Song in ICE Raid Video
The needle dropped on a track meant for joy, for the kind of pop euphoria that fuels summer drives and festival singalongs, but the record scratched violently into a political nightmare. Sabrina Carpenter, the pop phenom whose ‘Espresso’ has been the season’s inescapable earworm, found her art weaponized in a context that left her, and many fans, with a bitter aftertaste.A video surfaced, reportedly from a U. S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid training exercise or promotional clip, soundtracked not by some ominous, tension-building score, but by the bright, synth-driven pulse of Carpenter’s music. The dissonance was jarring, a sonic collision of worlds that prompted an immediate and fierce rebuke from the artist herself.Taking to her social media platforms, Carpenter didn’t mince words, issuing a statement that cut through the typical PR-speak: ‘Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda. ’ It was a line drawn in the sand, a definitive severing of her creative expression from the complex, often brutal machinery of federal immigration enforcement.This incident isn’t just a celebrity soundbite; it’s the latest, starkest chapter in a long-running saga about art, ownership, and the ethical quagmire of music licensing in the political arena. Remember the uproar when Trump’s campaign used songs by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, R.E. M., and the Rolling Stones without permission, leading to cease-and-desist letters and public condemnations? Or more recently, when ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ singer Oliver Anthony asked the Republican presidential candidates to stop playing his song at rallies? This is that same battle, but amplified by the particularly sensitive and visceral nature of ICE’s operations, which have been a focal point of intense political debate and human rights concerns for years. From a music industry perspective, the legalities are murky.The government, like any entity, can often secure blanket performance licenses through organizations like ASCAP or BMI, which allow for the public performance of millions of songs. But that’s typically for non-commercial, background use.Using a specific track as a thematic underscore for a government agency’s video—especially one as politically charged as ICE—ventures into the realm of implied endorsement, a area where moral rights and publicity rights often clash with cold licensing contracts. It raises a fundamental question: where does an artist’s control end when their work is released into the world? Carpenter’s firm stance is a powerful assertion that, for her, it doesn’t end at the checkout counter.
#Sabrina Carpenter
#White House
#ICE raids
#political protest
#music rights
#immigration policy
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