An AI-generated video from the US embassy in Mexico encouraging migrants to “self-deport” has sparked disbelief and outrage online.
The video posted this week on official embassy social media accounts depicts a group of men wearing black caps and sporting tattoos performing a kind of traditional Mexican ballad known as a corrido.
“The corrido rings out loud in your homeland; return to your roots,” the AI performer sings. “You don’t need to go far to get ahead. Listen to what you say: Mexican power lies within you.”
The social media post also contains a link to CBP Home, a website that helps migrants in the US to return to their home countries.
The video made headlines across Mexican news outlets, and met with condemnation on social media.
“What a pathetic commercial,” said one X user.
“Your retirees and digital nomads can spend their money in their home country,” said a user on Instagram, referring to the large population of US citizens in Mexico. “A supremacist message of ‘get back to your country’ with nice words,” said another.
Carlos Eduardo Espina, a Uruguayan-American influencer with 14.3 million followers on TikTok, posted a reaction clip to the embassy’s video. “How ridiculous,” said Espina in the video, viewed 70,000 times. “This government is truly full of crazies.”
It’s not the first time a video from US authorities aimed at migrants has caused controversy.
Last year, the then US secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, launched a number of video ads urging migrants to self-deport or stay at home. The video ads were played on Mexican TV.
“If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it,” she said in one TV spot. “You will be caught, you will be removed, and you will never return.”
The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the videos were “discriminatory”. She later said she would ask the Mexican Congress to pass a law banning such ads from appearing in the country.
“We are going to change the law to prohibit foreign governments from carrying out political and ideological propaganda in our country,” Sheinbaum said in a news conference.
