Fury after White House uses Defying Gravity to promote the work of ICE on TikTok
(White House on TikTok)
(White House on TikTok)
The Trump administration is under fire for using music from Wicked to celebrate the detention of people by ICE.
ICE, which stands for US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, is a federal agency that enforces immigration laws in the United States, including arresting and deporting people that the agency believes are in the country illegally. It was formed in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The White House’s official TikTok, which was launched by the administration in August despite lawmakers’ concerns that the app’s Chinese owners represent a national security risk, shared a video over the weekend using Cythnia Erivo’s Wicked ‘war cry’ “Defying Gravity” alongside distressing images and videos of people being detained.
Text reading: “Ahh that deportation feeling…” was overlaid on a scene of Donald Trump smiling and walking in slow-mo through the White House, before shifting to clips of ICE officers handcuffing and chasing people down.
The video itself is captioned “holding space for this ✨” in reference to the much meme’d interview between Erivo, Ariana Grande and Out magazine journalist Tracy E. Gilchrist.
Since Donald Trump returned to office for his second term in January, after defeating Kamala Harris in the November 2024 election, he and his administration have made cracking down on illegal immigration a major part of his presidency, with ICE targeted with raising deportation numbers through an increase in raids and arrests across the country.
In recent months, many have alleged they have been wrongfully arrested, detained and deported by ICE despite being citizens, having correct visas or valid asylum claims. This includes the case of gay makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero, who entered the US legally in 2024 to seek asylum after fleeing anti-LGBTQ+ violence in his home country of Venezuela, but was deported by ICE to a supermax CECOT prison in El Salvador, known for its poor conditions and human rights abuses, because the agency incorrectly believed he had links to gangs.
“Human beings are not illegal”
Celebrities have been speaking out against ICE, with Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp and Hacks star Hannah Einbinder, amongst others, all saying: “F**k ICE” at various public events. RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Alaska also described the agency as a “terrorist organisation” at LA Pride, saying: “Human beings are not illegal. To protest is part of the f**king fabric of this country. Treating people like f**king human beings is not f**king negotiable.”
She continued: “Pride is a f**king party but Pride is also a f**king riot, OK? Our ability to get together like this as a community, to stand in one place all together is very powerful, especially in 2025.”
Protest against ICE have erupted in cities across the US throughout 2025, with the US government deploying the national guard and members of the military to quell the unrest, which resulted in some demonstrators being hit with rubber bullets, tear gas and flashbang grenades.
Unsurprisingly, people reacted with disgust at the “Defying Gravity” video shared by the White House, with social media users variously labelling it “dystopian”, “wrong”, “horrible” and “pure evil”.
“how is it even legal for the white house to be so unprofessional about it?” one comment, which has more than 580,000 likes, reads.
“i’m sorry what do you mean THE WHITE HOUSE posted this,” another user asked in shock.
Fans of Wicked, in particular, were outraged by the use of “Defying Gravity” – a song about an Othered person experiencing self-acceptance – to promote anti-immigrant narratives, with many noting that the movie’s stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande themselves would not approved of the song’s use in this way.
