Mario, who is in the U.S. without legal status, shows a social media hoax he saw on his phone warning of immigration checkpoints in Sacramento, Calif.
Jude Joffe-Block/NPR
Social media posts warning of Immigration and Customs Enforcement checkpoints on some of Sacramento’s busiest streets spread quickly in the local Latino immigrant community last week.
“Share and spread this information,” one TikToker told her 36,000 followers in Spanish.
The message provoked fear. But there have not been signs of ICE checkpoints in Sacramento. ICE did not return a request for comment, though the agency has previously said that it doesn’t use checkpoints.
What is true is that the new Trump administration is ramping up immigration arrests. A policy change allows ICE agents to enter and conduct arrests inside churches, schools and healthcare facilities, which were previously off limits. Yet as immigrants vulnerable to deportation seek out immigration news, they have to also parse through rumors and hoaxes on social media.
A video that falsely claimed ICE agents had been at a church food pantry in the Washington, D.C. suburbs went viral on TikTok. Social media posts about a possible raid at a grocery store in Durham, North Carolina turned out to be rooted in a prank.
False reports on TikTok about ICE raids in Phoenix prompted Aaron Lopez, who does community engagement for a local law firm, to make his own posts debunking them.
“A lot of us are not doing this for the views or the likes,” said Lopez, who came to the U.S. as a child from Mexico and has a temporary status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “We’re doing this because we’re genuinely afraid for people, scared for them.”
Mario, a laborer in Sacramento who immigrated from Mexico 30 years ago and does not have legal status, said the false posts about checkpoints in his city prompted some people to stay home. He asked to be identified with just his first name because he fears deportation.
He uses TikTok as his main way to stay informed and is angry that some up and coming influencers appear to be spreading rumors about ICE activity as a strategy to get more engagement to build their platforms.
“If you want to be TikTok famous, do something serious, do something interesting,” Mario said. “Don’t play around with it.”
Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer attorney with the immigrant rights group NorCal Resist, said her organization has been flooded with questions about rumors spreading online.
“Mostly they are asking, ‘Is this true?’ and they’ll share a social media post. And they’ll say, ‘Should I go to work? Should I take my kid to school?'” Gonzalez said. “It’s just really sad.”
Volunteers from NorCal Resist drove around Sacramento to check if there was any truth to the checkpoints rumor, and then spread the word that there was no evidence for the claim.
Gonzalez did this work in the first Trump administration as well but she says it seems like rumors are more of a problem these days.
Some posts seem to be accidental false alarms. But Gonzalez said there have been cases where she asked social media users to take down posts that turned out to be untrue and they left them up anyway.
“At that point, I really have to think that they’re just using this to harvest engagement for financial gain,” Gonzalez said.
Sharing vetted information
Many immigrant rights groups around the country are trying to quickly get vetted information to the immigrant community.
In Phoenix, the organization Puente — which advocates for immigrants — recently launched a hotline to collect tips about ICE activity from the community.
“Instead of texting your comadre, or spreading the word, or putting a picture on social media, text it to us and we’ll make sure we’ll go out there and verify that information,” said Puente’s executive director, Natally Cruz.
Some community organizations have begun publicizing confirmed reports of ICE activity. For example, the Rapid Response Network in Santa Clara County, California confirmed on Jan. 26 on Facebook that ICE agents had been seen conducting operations in San Jose.
Organizations involved in rapid response are also posting on social media and holding training sessions to teach immigrants what their rights are if an ICE agent knocks on their door, or if they are stopped.
President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, complained about these efforts on CNN on Tuesday. “They call it ‘Know Your Rights.'” Homan said. “I call it ‘how to escape arrest.'”
In nearby Modesto, rumors about immigration enforcement began spreading in the days before Trump took office, after U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted an operation in Bakersfield.
Chavez, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Modesto without legal status, said when he’s seen unverified warnings about immigration enforcement, it creates a dilemma.
“You feel the need to pass on the information right away to others,” said Chavez, who asked to only be identified with his last name due to his status. “But later, you might realize that it caused a lot of worry but wasn’t really credible.”
Earlier this month, he was driving when a relative texted him a photo that was being shared online. It showed a truck nearby that some people thought might be used for immigration enforcement.
“You don’t stop to analyze if it is true,” Chavez said. “What you feel first is the effect of the news, the shock it generates.”
That day, he gave up on the errands he had intended to run. Instead, he took a detour to avoid the truck, and went home.
