Updated Sept. 30th, 2025

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump’s plans to secure the border and kick out the foreign criminals the former administration welcomed with open arms were a big factor in his 2024 election victory. Despite the popularity of mass deportation policy ahead of the election, Democrats and corporate media are working overtime to paint legitimate enforcement actions as criminal and smear the people leading that enforcement as “Gestapo.”

These lies are not without consequences. The chronically Antifa-afflicted Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility is once again under siege, and the Los Angeles police department is reportedly experiencing a “surge” in calls about “kidnappings” that are actually federal immigration enforcement efforts.

Even worse, mere months after nearly a dozen suspects were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism for storming an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, while armed in July, a shooter in Dallas carried out what Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem called a “vile attack motivated by hatred for ICE.” The perpetrator shot three detainees after firing “indiscriminately” into an ICE van before killing himself.

The anti-ICE rhetoric touted by the left and their allies in the propaganda press has proved dangerous and deadly. Yet, corporate media and congressmen alike continue to parrot it. Here are all of the hoaxes manufactured in an attempt to hamper Trump’s immigration enforcement by whatever means necessary.

‘Des Moines Superintendent’

Corporate media feigned shock and awe in September 2025 when the superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district was arrested “on a deportation order and weapons charges,” as The Federalist’s Joy Pullman reported. Headlines about the high-profile detention focused on Ian Roberts’ role in the Des Moines school district.

According to ICE, however, the Guyana national was not only working illegally, but attempted to evade arrest from ICE in a taxpayer-funded vehicle stocked with a loaded firearm. He was also in possession of a hunting knife and $3,000 in cash, according to the agency.

As Pullmann reported, over the last five years, “Roberts bilked American taxpayers out of more than $1 million in superintendents’ salaries plus $400,000 to settle three lawsuits accusing him of hiring women over men while leading a Pennsylvania school system.”

“That district could not verify his credentials but still paid him $183,000 per year, plus benefits, for three years,” Pullmann added.

5-Year-Old Hostage

Yet another corporate media-led smear campaign against ICE kicked off when headlines accused agents of holding a young child hostage to goad her father into complying with detainment.

NBC News originally peddled the hoax that ICE agents used the 5-year-old daughter of an apparent illegal alien as bait to “pressure” her father into surrendering. The story prompted responses from Democrats such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called ICE “vile and beyond cruel.”

A correction notice retroactively applied to the article, however, confirmed that the original story “mischaracterized the activities of ICE agents.” In the updated story, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the father “ignored law enforcement emergency lights to pull over and drove back to his house.” He then “fled from the car, gave officers the double middle finger, and darted inside his house.”

“He abandoned his 5-year-old daughter in the car. Officers helped rescue the child and called local police to report the abandonment.”

‘Utah Violinist’

In August and September 2025, corporate media raised a ruckus about ICE’s detention of a “Utah violinist.”

Donggin Shin, a Korean national, was more than eligible for detention after DHS said he not only illegally overstayed his visa, but also received a DUI conviction in 2019.

Coverage of his arrest, however, highlighted his role as a musician in the “prestigious Utah Symphony and Ballet West” and the protests and fundraising efforts that followed his detainment. NBC News even amplified Shin’s apparent justification for his DUI — his depression over his father’s “Level 4 glioblastoma brain tumor.”

‘Kidnapping’ In California

When Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon’s family held a press conference on June 30, 2025, claiming she was kidnapped at gunpoint by “bounty hunters” and was held in a warehouse until she signed self-deportation paperwork, corporate media went ape about the abduction of a “California community leader.”

Calderon’s story and photos of her “rescue,” which authorities said were “made to look as if she was abused while in ICE custody,” were fishy from the start. Yet, that didn’t stop prominent Democrats such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass from also amplifying the tale.

News eventually broke that Calderon seemingly faked the nabbing — even staging elements of it on a surveillance video — and was later charged with federal conspiracy and making false statements, but Democrats and the propaganda press just moved on to their next information operation.

‘Raid’ at Minneapolis Mexican Restaurant

In June, Democrats helped paint a legitimate criminal investigation into a potential drug and money laundering operation at a Minneapolis Mexican restaurant as an “ICE raid.” The fake news not only led to a protest, but also earned the officials who parroted the falsity a scolding from Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, who called the lie “highly irresponsible.”

“Putting out the rhetoric that it was an immigration enforcement, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office does not participate in immigration enforcement. Elected officials have a responsibility to the constituents to put out accurate information. They don’t have to agree with it, but do not mislead the public, causing more harm to our communities,” she said.

‘Father Of Marines’

In June 2025, corporate media tried to use a viral video of a heated Border Patrol arrest in California to undermine the credibility of ICE and Trump’s illegal immigration enforcement efforts.

Headlines about the lively detainment repeatedly referred to the man in question as a “father of Marines,” noted his “wife is American,” and claimed he was “violently detained” and even “beaten” by federal agents. The truth is, Narciso Barranco was not only illegally present in the U.S. but also appeared to try and evade arrest by threatening agents with a weedwhacker, prompting them to take “appropriate action.”

‘Maryland Father’

In yet another attempt to criminalize Trump’s immigration enforcement plans, corporate media and Democrats spent the month of April 2025 clamoring over the deportation of a Salvadoran with suspected MS-13 ties by claiming he was merely a “Maryland father.”

Outlets purported Kilmar Abrego Garcia “was in the U.S. legally,” living “under protected legal status,” and “a legal resident.” In reality, Garcia illegally crossed into the U.S. in 2011 and faced potential removal in 2019. Evidence “show[ed] he is a verified member of MS-13,” and he is also suspected of human smuggling and abusing his wife. While Abrego Garcia did have a withholding order that kept him from being sent to El Salvador, he did not have “protected status” that prevented his deportation to another country.

Arrest Quotas

In a Jan. 26th, 2025, article, the Washington Post asserted that the Trump administration assigned “quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests.” Not only did WaPo publish the assertion based on nothing more than anonymous sources, but it also reportedly only gave the White House four minutes to comment.

As White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung later noted, the “dishonest” WaPo report was a “fake story.”

Chicago School ‘ICE Raid’

Just four days after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, a reporter for The Chicago Tribune claimed that ICE “showed up” at a Chicago-area school.

“This immigration action appears to be the first at a Chicago school after President Donald Trump took office,” the post claimed.

Illinois’ Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Public Schools officials quickly used the situation to attack the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement plans, even though the so-called “raid” was determined to be a U.S. Secret Service investigation into a “threat against a government official.”

Border Patrol Whipping Lie

In September 2021, as President Joe Biden’s border crisis became the worst in U.S. history, corporate media and Democrat conspiracy theorists flooded front pages, the White House press briefing room, and social media with lies that Border Patrol agents in Del Rio, Texas “whipped” migrants trying to cross into the U.S.

The New York Times specifically asserted that the horse-mounted agents used “the reins of their horses to strike at running migrants,” a claim that the publication scrubbed after the photographer who took the viral photos said he never saw Border Patrol whip anyone.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection investigation confirmed in 2022 that it found no evidence that border security officers “struck any person with horse reins.” In fact, the findings determined “there is no evidence” that the border crossers who were corralled by the agents were “ultimately forced to return to Mexico or denied entry to the United States.”

Mass Sterilizations At Detention Center

During the first Trump administration, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace, and Chris Hayes appeared to defame a Georgia doctor when they peddled claims he performed mass unnecessary hysterectomies on women held at an ICE detention center. The story about the “uterus collector” was verifiably false from the start and resulted in a $30 million lawsuit against NBC Universal, MSNBC’s parent company.