DHS Uses NFL Legend’s Image In Anti-Migrant Propaganda

The National Football League has asked the Department of Homeland Security to take down a social media video that uses highlights of Hall of Fame safety Brian Dawkins to promote the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns. So far, the agency is refusing.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed Monday that the league had asked DHS to remove the video, The Guardian reports. Neither the NFL nor the Philadelphia Eagles consented to the footage being used, and the league holds the rights to all official game footage, a team source told Fox 29.

DHS posted the clip to X on Sunday night with the caption “Our time has come.” It opens with Dawkins’ famous pregame walkout as he chants “The time has come,” then cuts to a series of the defensive back’s hardest hits. The department posted it in reply to a tweet claiming a “huge migrant caravan” was headed toward the southern border, according to Fox 29.

Dawkins said he had nothing to do with it.

“I have respectfully not given permission to anyone other than those I currently do business with to use my NIL. Be Blessed!” he wrote on X.

DHS defended the post in a statement, saying it is “playing lockdown defense at the border” and will use “every Weapon at our disposal, from A to X, to keep Americans safe,” a reference to Dawkins’ “Weapon X” nickname, CBS Sports reports.

When political commentator Ed Krassenstein posted about the NFL’s request, DHS’s James Percival replied with an image of Bugs Bunny saying “No,” Fox 29 reports. As of Wednesday afternoon, the video was still posted.

Dawkins, a nine-time Pro Bowler, spent most of his 16 NFL seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, who drafted him in 1996. He helped lead Philly to four straight NFC title games and a Super Bowl appearance, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018, per CBS Sports.

So a federal agency used a Black NFL legend’s name, image, and likeness without permission to sell an immigration crackdown on brown and Black people. When the league and the player objected, it answered with a cartoon rabbit.

Let that sink in. 

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