Fictitious reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents randomly snatching immigrants off the streets are spreading like wildfire, fueling disinformation and undermining trust in immigration authorities already at increased risk of political violence during deportation operations.
Some of the unsubstantiated claims against ICE are far-fetched, such as a viral TikTok video claiming that the Trump administration is tossing deportees out of planes and into the open ocean. “A family in Italy saw five shackled bodies wash up on the shore,” the TikTok user told millions of viewers.
Other more-organized hoaxes making headlines have fooled many in recent weeks, including friendly media.
‘Secretly deported’ Chilean grandpa
On July 18, The Morning Call, a local Pennsylvania newspaper, published an article reporting that 82-year-old Luis Leon, a green-card holder from Chile residing in Allentown, was allegedly taken by ICE officers and “secretly deported” to Guatemala.
The story in question relied heavily on accounts from family members who said the ordeal started on June 20 when ICE agents handcuffed Leon and “led him away without explanation” while trying to replace his lost green card at a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Philadelphia.
His wife, who speaks little English, was held in the immigration-processing building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family told The Morning Call, an Allentown-based outlet and the Keystone State’s third-largest newspaper.
Leon’s family did not know his whereabouts for approximately a month, saying he “disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system.”
At one point, relatives were reportedly informed by a dubious source that he had died in ICE custody.
Days after Leon’s alleged arrest, a woman claiming to be an immigration lawyer called his wife, insisting she could help bail him out, but didn’t disclose where he was or her connection to the case. That same suspicious caller dialed again weeks later and said he’s dead.
The family’s communications with the mysterious woman eventually ceased. Then, they learned Leon was alive and had supposedly turned up in a Guatemalan hospital.
“It is unclear whether Leon ended up in that Central American country deliberately or by mistake,” Morning Call reporters wrote, citing a Supreme Court ruling paving the way for federal immigration authorities to deport criminally convicted illegal aliens to a country other than their native nation.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since issued a press release to “set the record straight” on the widely shared story, which was subsequently picked up by legacy media such as The Daily Beast, The Guardian, and The Independent, all of which ran with the “secretly deported” narrative.
“ICE has not deported Luis Leon — a Chilean national — to Guatemala, as his family members have said,” DHS disputed.
Addressing the apparent arrest, the Department of Homeland Security said, “This claim is completely false,” about Leon’s purported detention during a green card replacement appointment. “There is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20, 2025.”
In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called the case “a hoax” and its surrounding news coverage “journalistic malpractice” for failing to corroborate facts with federal officials first.
“ICE never arrested or deported Luis Leon to Guatemala. Nor does ICE ‘disappear’ people — this is a categorical lie being peddled to demonize ICE agents who are already facing an 830% increase in assaults against them,” McLaughlin said. “This was a hoax peddled by the media, who rushed to press without pausing to corroborate the facts with DHS. This was journalistic malpractice.”
The Guatemalan government denied that Leon had ever been deported from the United States. On X, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, which coordinates with ICE on all deportations to Guatemala, said it never encountered any arrivals matching Leon’s name, age, or nationality, nor received anyone of South American origin.
In February, Guatemala struck a deportation deal with the U.S., agreeing to accept deportees originally from other Central American countries; however, the agreement did not cover Chileans.
As for other factual discrepancies, Leon’s kin told The Morning Call that he had survived torture at the hands of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime and accordingly was granted political asylum in America circa 1987. DHS, however, said, “ICE’s only record of this individual entering the U.S. is in 2015 from Chile under the visa waiver program.”
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According to a follow-up report from The Morning Call, Leon’s granddaughter, Nataly, said she had found him in the Guatemalan hospital recovering from pneumonia and traumatized by the past events.
A Chilean journalist later told The Morning Call that a doctor at the hospital in Guatemala City, where Nataly, the family spokesperson, claimed to have visited her grandfather, had no record of him. The reporter said a man by the same name and date of birth as Leon died in Santiago, Chile, six years ago. He showed a copy of the 2019 death certificate to The Morning Call.
Meanwhile, a Chilean fact-checking site said photographs provided to and subsequently published by The Morning Call purportedly depicting Leon were instead of a man named Manuel González, who died in 2021. González’s son previously posted one of the now-circulating pictures on Instagram as a posthumous tribute to his deceased father.
Following the DHS fact-check, the family stopped speaking to the press and asked for privacy, The Morning Call reported.
Daily Kos, a liberal blog focused on Democratic Party politics, admitted in the fallout that they “got played.”
“The tale had all the right ingredients for viral outrage—an innocent victim, a faceless bureaucracy, a system that’s failed before,” Daily Kos reflected. “But when the dust settled and the facts came in, the only thing left was a cautionary tale about how fast fiction can sprint past the truth.”
The left-wing outlet advised readers: “The next time you see a story that fits your worst fears a little too perfectly, hit pause. Ask for receipts. Don’t be the mark.”
Migrant mother ‘kidnapped’ by ICE bounty hunters
In Los Angeles, ground zero of the anti-ICE uprisings, an illegal immigrant from Mexico is accused of orchestrating a fake ICE “kidnapping,” allegedly to generate public sympathy and solicit donations.
Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old Mexican national unlawfully living in South Los Angeles, was federally charged last week with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT FEDERALLY CHARGED FOR FAKING ICE ‘KIDNAPPING’
On June 30, an attorney representing Calderon’s family held a press conference announcing that bounty hunters had kidnapped her five days earlier at a parking lot outside a Jack in the Box restaurant before she was turned over to an ICE staffer and presented with voluntary self-deportation paperwork.
Calderon refused to sign the papers and demanded to speak to an attorney, the family lawyer said. “She was punished” as a result and allegedly held hostage in a warehouse at an undisclosed location.
The news conference garnered national media coverage. As the case captured the public’s attention, Calderon’s daughter set up a since-deleted GoFundMe page, requesting at least $4,500 in donations and claiming that her mother “was taken by masked men in an unmarked vehicle…when she was on her way to work.”
According to a criminal complaint charging Calderon, the entire story was fabricated.
On July 3, when she was still supposedly missing, concerns mounted after federal agents confirmed that Calderon was not in immigration custody, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) started searching for Calderon over the holiday weekend.
HSI agents ultimately tracked Calderon down in the parking lot of a Bakersfield shopping plaza. Upon apprehension, Calderon allegedly continued to falsely claim she was taken and detained with others.
Authorities allege that video surveillance, including footage of Calderon leaving the Jack in the Box parking lot and getting into a nearby sedan, as well as telephone records, show that she concocted this made-up story.
Calderon allegedly created what law enforcement believes to be fabricated photos of her “rescue,” doctored to look like she was abused while in ICE custody, and planned to hold a press conference on July 6 to rake in more GoFundMe donations and obtain other benefits.
FAKE NEWS
Politicians and media outlets ran with the made-up story of an illegal alien, Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, being “kidnapped” by federal agents and held hostage.
Turns out, her entire story was a lie meant to scam Americans out of their money. pic.twitter.com/2PSxvJDYoc
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) July 18, 2025
Calderon remains in U.S. immigration custody and is expected to make an initial appearance in the coming weeks before a federal court in downtown Los Angeles. If convicted, Calderon faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for conspiracy and up to another five years behind bars on the false statements charge.
“Since early July, my office invested valuable time and resources working this alleged kidnapping investigation only to discover that it was a hoax,” HSI Los Angeles special agent in charge Eddy Wang said in a statement.
Homeland Security said ICE spent days investigating the kidnapping claims and looking for Calderon, at times searching detention cell to detention cell.
LOS ANGELES OFFICIAL WARNS ‘BAD PLAYERS’ IMPERSONATING ICE COULD BE STOKING TENSIONS
“Dangerous rhetoric that ICE agents are ‘kidnapping’ illegal immigrants is being recklessly peddled by politicians and echoed in the media to inflame the public and discredit our courageous federal agents,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli added.
Essayli warned that all those involved in the “well-orchestrated conspiracy” will face justice under federal law.
The department’s Transnational Organized Crime Section is prosecuting the case.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, amplified the Calderon family’s allegations on social media, asserting in a still-active X post: “She’s a mother from L.A. — taken out of her car on her way to work, and then held in a warehouse as officers hoped she would ‘self-deport.’ No hearing. Just fear. This doesn’t make anyone safer.”