The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up efforts to combat fake news stories, viral artificially generated videos, and misinformation online that claim Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are abusing and kidnapping illegal immigrants as well as Americans.
Asked on Tuesday if the federal department should contact Facebook and social media companies to do more to stop the rampant misinformation and disinformation circulating online, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner it would do just that.
“Yes and we are also putting resources forward to ensure DHS combats this,” McLaughlin wrote in an email.
“It’s like an hourly game of whack-a-mole debunking the scourge of lies, smears and AI deepfakes that are designed to deceive Americans,” McLaughlin added. “These fake stories don’t slow us down — they just finish off the last shreds of credibility the mainstream media has left.”
Made-up stories about federal police kidnapping people off the street began to surface earlier this year when Border Patrol and ICE arrived in Los Angeles as part of a city-specific crackdown on illegal immigrants. Federal police are permitted to detain or arrest people without warrants, but these types of encounters have been mischaracterized as kidnappings.
As some Border Patrol agents have been temporarily moved inland from the border to ramp up arrests of illegal immigrants, the volume of bogus videos and false information has grown.
One example showed a pregnant woman crying as she was detained and placed into a government vehicle. A Hispanic man is separated from the woman by men in “police” shirts while he cries out that the woman is “due any day.” The real-looking video has the word “deportation” overlaid on it, suggesting that it shows a real arrest that will lead to a deportation.
The account has shared 10 such videos since last Friday, including one that showed a man working in a restaurant being ambushed by men in ICE uniforms and taken out of the business.
Another video from the account showed McDonald’s employees being rounded up at work and Walmart employees being arrested outside the store. All of the videos were fake.
But the fake news stories and bogus viral videos do not stop there. On Monday, a video shared to an “ICE of TikTok” account on X purported that ICE had shot a Hispanic man in Charlotte, North Carolina. McLaughlin debunked the claim.
“No. This criminal illegal alien from Mexico had a panic attack and was taken to the hospital where he attempted to escape by climbing into the ceiling tiles from the hospital bathroom,” McLaughlin corrected in a post to X. “He was unsuccessful and was apprehended inside the ceiling by law enforcement. He has a prior arrest for assault.”
Commentator Sam Stein charged on Tuesday that ICE had raided a church in Charlotte.
“Lost in legitimately major news this weekend is just how inhumane and aggressive ICE’s first operations in Charlotte were. Raiding a church, sending folks fleeing into a forest, and leaving kids crying??” Stein wrote in a post.
“False. ICE didn’t raid a church,” McLaughlin responded. “But they were right that I would post on Monday and debunk this crap.”
CHARLOTTE ‘UNDER SIEGE’ AS BORDER PATROL AGENTS DESCEND ON CITY
A social media post from the Occupy Democrats organization claimed that ICE attempted to deport a Native American woman.
McLaughlin rebuffed the allegation last Friday and said it was “dead wrong” because “this woman was never in ICE custody.”