Heavily armed agents who refuse to identify themselves or even show their faces. Arrests without warrants. American detained without being allowed to prove their citizenship.
As protests against immigration raids continue in Los Angeles and spread to other cities, these tactics that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents use to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation pledge are coming under increased public scrutiny.
At the same time, misinformation about ICE raids – and the unrest they provoked – has spread across social media, influencing public perceptions about both.
Some of the misinformation came directly from Trump, who has deployed 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines to control protests in Los Angeles. He and his administration have depicted a city in chaos, in contrast to the situational instances of violence and vandalism that have been reported.
“If I didn’t ‘SEND IN THE TROOPS’ to Los Angeles the last three nights,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, June 10, “that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now.”
‘Do what you need to do’
Immigration enforcement has become more aggressive in recent weeks at the direction of Stephen Miller, a top White House aide, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In late May, Miller addressed officials at ICE headquarters in Washington, instructing them to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” according to the Journal. He claimed he could take a few agents onto the streets of Washington and round up 30 people in a matter of minutes.
Miller also told immigration officials to target the parking lots of two commercial enterprises: Home Depot and 7-Eleven. In many cities, day laborers – some of them undocumented – congregate at those locations to look for work.
ICE officials took Miller’s remarks as permission to “do what you need to do” to increase arrests, the Journal reported – and the result has alarmed lawyers and advocates for migrants.
Controversial tactics
ICE officers are conducting raids dressed in military gear, carrying high-powered weapons and wearing face masks. They do not display badges and refuse to identify themselves. Some of those arrested have been taken to out-of-state detention centers without notice to their lawyers or their families, at times in direct violation of court orders.
Some U.S. citizens have also been detained during raids and held for hours, or longer, before officers allowed them the chance to prove their citizenship.
The Journal reported ICE officers have made arrests without warrants. In other instances, officers obtained criminal arrest warrants for people facing only the civil offense of being in the country without authorization.
A criminal warrant authorizes officers to break into homes or businesses to search for suspects.
Show of force
The show of force has extended beyond searching for undocumented migrants. In Irvine, California, military-style vehicles converged on a residential neighborhood as officers searched for a man who allegedly posted fliers alerting residents of potential ICE raids.
ICE officials have boasted on social media about bashing in car windows and performing “extractions” of people they suspect are illegal immigrants. Some have accused officers of abuse.
Maksim Zaitsev, a Russian citizen who is awaiting a decision on his application for asylum in California, told The Wall Street Journal that officers beat him when he appeared at an ICE office for a routine check-in. Photos showed bruises and scabs on Zaitsev’s face. A judge dismissed assault charges against him, citing the officers’ misconduct.
“We came to the United States for protection because of what we encountered in Russia,” Zaitsev told the Journal. “It seems we are encountering here what we fled.”
Misinformation spreads
It’s unclear how many immigrants have been arrested during the raids around Los Angeles. The Washington Post reported that some have already been deported and that lawyers were rushing to intervene before others can be sent out of the country.
Most of the protests over the raids have been relatively peaceful, according to witnesses, news reports and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
On Friday, some demonstrators tried to block an ICE van after a raid in the city’s fashion district, while others vandalized a federal building where immigrants were being detained, according to a timeline prepared by CBS News.
The LAPD had declared multiple gatherings as “unlawful assemblies” by Saturday evening, according to LAPD social media posts.
Protests escalated on Saturday, particularly in the suburb of Paramount, where a rumor spread of an impending ICE raid that never materialized. Clashes erupted near a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, when demonstrators briefly blocked a freeway, set cars on fire and reportedly threw objects from freeway overpasses as police cars passed below.
What are Republicans saying?
Some Republican social media users and organizations like Fox News have portrayed the protests as chaotic or dangerous. Trump described protesters as “paid insurrectionists,” according to The New York Times.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shared a social media post that showed police cars burning – purportedly during the weekend protests. The picture actually was from riots that broke out in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
Other social media users blamed the protests on George Soros, a well-known financier and supporter of liberal causes who has long been the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories.
An account on X calling itself “US Homeland Security News” posted a photograph of a pallet of bricks and claimed: “Soros funded organizations have ordered hundreds of pallets of bricks to be placed near ICE facilities to be used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It’s Civil War!!”
The account is apparently not affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security. And, according to the Times, the photo was downloaded from the website of a brick wholesaler based in Malaysia.
