Margaret Cho Informs Dean Cain He'll 'Never Be White' Amidst New ICE Career

Comedian Margaret Cho publicly challenged Dean Cain over his appearance in a new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruitment push, posting an Instagram video that addressed him directly: “You’ll never be white.”

In the video, posted on Aug. 8, she further asked, “Why would you join ICE and encourage people to join ICE when your ancestors were interned in World War II? You’re Japanese. You’re not even white. I know you, and you are not white. You will never be white.”

Cain, best known for the 1990s series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, is of Japanese heritage on his father’s side and was born Dean Tanaka.

In an interview last week, he said he hasn’t hidden that background: “Tanaka is my given name, and it’s funny that people are like, ‘Well, you tried to hide that.’ It’s tattooed on my ankle,” he told Variety. He also noted his family’s wartime history—“My family was interned in the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho”—and added, “That was a horrible injustice, but I don’t think that I deserve any sort of reparations.”

In a video promoting ICE recruitment that he shared on social media, Dean Cain urged applicants to help arrest “hundreds of thousands of criminals, including terrorists, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, MS-13 gang members, drug traffickers, you name it—very dangerous people.”

He framed his involvement as consistent with his background, saying, “For those who don’t know, I am a sworn law enforcement officer, as well as being a filmmaker, and I felt it was important to join with our first responders to help secure the safety of all Americans, not just talk about it.” Cain also said he will be sworn in as an “honorary” ICE agent.

Cho—who broke ground with ABC’s All-American Girl, the first U.S. network sitcom centered on an Asian American family—questioned Cain’s role in light of his heritage and family history.

She criticized ICE’s enforcement impact and, in her video, addressed him again: “You’re never gonna be white, no matter how many of these white activities that you participate in. Always Wong, never white,” she snapped.

As debate around the video continued, research from Syracuse University’s TRAC program reported that, as of July 27, roughly seven in 10 migrants detained by ICE did not have a U.S. criminal record.