CHICAGO — A British photographer and former child refugee has sued the Trump campaign for allegedly using his photo of a bowl of Skittles in a tweet against accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S.

David Kittos filed the copyright infringement suit this week in a Chicago federal court, naming as defendants the Trump campaign, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, running mate Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr., who posted the tweet.

Kittos, who fled Cyprus as a 6-year-old in 1974, is seeking unspecified damages and a public apology from the Trump campaign for using his work without permission, according to Heather Blaise, his Chicago-based attorney.

“It’s pretty ironic that he would steal an image from a refugee to make a statement against refugees,” Blaise said Thursday.

An amateur photographer whose day job is in technology, Kittos posted the photo of a white bowl filled with colorful Skittles candy to his Flickr account in January 2010 as an artistic experiment with different lighting techniques, Blaise said.

The image went viral last month, when Donald Trump Jr. used Twitter to warn against accepting Syrian refugees, a divisive campaign issue. The Sept. 20 tweet allegedly features Kittos’ photo and reads: “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

The Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment Thursday.

Blaise said she sent demand letters to the defendants last week seeking, among other things, a public apology and a monetary award, but did not receive a response, leading to the lawsuit. “The reason we selected Chicago is we just thought the jury pool would be better than it would be in New York or Los Angeles,” Blaise said.

Kittos registered for copyright protection for his Skittles photo on Oct. 3, according to the U.S. Copyright Office — two weeks after the Syrian tweet was posted. Registration is not a requirement for copyright protection, but is required for filing a lawsuit, Blaise said.

Because Kittos’ photo was not registered at the time of the tweet, he would not be entitled to statutory damages, but can pursue actual damages, including what he would have charged to license the photo.

“In this case, we have a plaintiff who will say there’s not enough money in the world that he could have given me to license this work,” Blaise said.

On Thursday, Chicago-based Wrigley, which owns the Skittles brand, said the company had no involvement in the lawsuit.