A photo posted to the website People Over Papers, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are reported, showed a white van, law enforcement officers and yellow crime-scene tape at a McDonald’s in Riverside.
In Orange County, the vehicles photographed en route to a protest against ICE at Angel Stadium were presumed to be driven by federal officers.
And in another post, on the social media site X, a photo of law enforcement officers and a marked SUV shot from afar depicted, the author wrote, an ICE raid at a Jurupa Valley tire shop.
In none of those instances, however, were ICE officers or any other federal immigration-enforcement officers present.
In Riverside, the officers were city police investigating an in-custody death. In Orange County, those were sheriff’s deputies backing up Anaheim police on crowd control. And in Jurupa Valley, there was no raid at the tire shop in the Rubidoux neighborhood, only a state Park Ranger getting new rubber on his work vehicle.
To be sure, a number of sightings are legitimate reports as ICE, Homeland Security and the U.S. Border Patrol make good on President Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. But there is confusion among civilians as these law enforcement officers carry out their missions sometimes while driving unmarked vehicles in civilian clothes or uniforms lacking significant identifying marks or that perhaps say only “Police.”
Officials at Union del Barrio, an independent political organization that promotes and defends the rights of Mexican Americans living in the U.S., said thousands of reports about raids are posted every day and that most turn out to be well-intentioned but false. Others come from influencers seeking “likes” and “malicious people who want to scare our communities,” the organization’s website says.
“Sharing every rumor of ICE/migra activity may seem like a public service, but it unnecessarily promotes fear within our community,” the website cautions. “Fear keeps people locked in their homes, unable to work, attend to their families, go to classes, go to the doctor, church or, worse, unable to defend themselves or our communities.”
So why the rush to post unconfirmed information?
Karen North, a professor of digital social media at USC who holds a Ph.D. in psychology, attributes that in part to uncertainty — who is being targeted and where? — coupled with a distrust of government that creates a “societal paranoia.”
“Their ability to think they’ve seen something becomes heightened,” North said. “Frequently, we see some announcement that celebrities have died and often they have died years ago. When people see spectacular news, they want to share that information with friends and family. Couple that with the fact that people really want to be seen as being in the know.”
The OC Rapid Response Network, an organization of nonprofits, civil rights attorneys and law school clinics, encourages people to follow the acronym SALUTE when reporting sightings: Size/strength, actions/activity, location/direction, uniform/clothes, time and date, equipment/weapons.
“What’s leading to a lot of misinformation is folks are not gathering all the information that they need,” said Sandra De Anda, the network’s director of policy and digital strategy.
An advisory on People Over Pages warns that the reports are not confirmed sightings but are reviewed by moderators. “Please take this information with caution and account for human error,” the website says.
Union del Barrio urges anyone considering reporting an ICE sighting to take precautions to ensure accurate posts:
• Note the time and place.
• Report the number of vehicles and officers present, with a description of their uniforms.
• Share photos and videos.
• Report any arrests.
Homeland Security has said little about how many officers are conducting the raids, the number of raids and the number of arrests. Los Angeles Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez said on his website that from June 6 to June 22, 1,618 people had been arrested with the intent to deport them, citing Homeland Security data.
Messages seeking comment from federal officials were not returned. But Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, did say in a post on X that federal officials say who they are with, are flanked by “vehicles that also say the name of the department” and wear vests saying “ICE,” “ERO” (Enforcement and Removal Operations) or “Homeland Security.”
Uncertainty doesn’t have to exist, North asserted.
“There’s an obligation on the part of government officials to communicate clearly about their actions,” North said. “If they are arresting mostly people who committed crimes, why aren’t they telling us that? So much of the story, so much of the narrative of the immigration raids are basically anecdotes that are being turned into a narrative we are accepting. We don’t know what’s actually happening.”
That uncertainty is causing trouble for Southern California law enforcement agencies.
So much so that Los Angeles police Chief Jim McDonnell told the Board of Police Commissioners in late June that he has ordered his officers to respond to reports of unidentifiable people who say they are making arrests.
In Anaheim, employees speaking to community groups have begun toting Police Department badges, patches and uniforms with them to help residents differentiate between Anaheim’s officers and federal authorities, city spokesman Mike Lyster said.
Anaheim police do not participate in immigration enforcement but they will perform crowd control, Lyster said.
“We have seen a lot of confusion, fear and, understandably, misunderstanding about what people see in our community,” Lyster said. “We see people well-intentioned trying to alert people to something they think is important; we see people unsure about something, and — we don’t know it for a fact — we believe it is possible some people do it to generate views.”
Lyster said he personally investigated some reports that immigration authorities were present at the Disneyland Resort.
“There was no basis in truth whatsoever,” Lyster said.
Anaheim updates immigration enforcement activities on a city blog, anaheim.net/contigo.
Elsewhere, the “ICE officers” seen eating at a Riverside Plaza restaurant in June were actually members of the city’s homeless outreach team, said Officer Ryan Railsback, a Police Department spokesman. Another time, an undercover officer staking out a stolen car was mistaken for an immigration-enforcement officer.
Community members organizing a “No sleep for ICE” protest at a hotel in Rancho Cucamonga mistook the federal employees staying there for ICE officers, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.
In Fontana, community members surrounded undercover police investigating a narcotics case, Police Chief Michael Dorsey said.
In response, “We are now bringing marked patrol units to undercover operations to hopefully dissuade folks from believing we are immigration enforcement,” Dorsey said.
Another time, Fontana officers in full uniform investigating a trespassing case were reported as ICE officers going door to door asking for citizenship paperwork, Dorsey said.
“It’s a safety issue for the officers because their attention is being diverted to things other than the task at hand,” Dorsey said.
In another case, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and other officers showed up in unmarked vehicles at a Hesperia home and were mistaken for ICE.
“Loud noises reported by residents were the result of flash-bang grenades used during the operation, not gunfire,” the department said. “A command post set up behind the Target and Planet Fitness on Main Street is also unrelated to ICE, despite public speculation.”
It gets worse.
San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said a civilian employee in an unmarked fleet vehicle was run off the road by a driver who believed the employee was an ICE officer. The department, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to provide more details, such as why the agency believes the driver decided its employee was an ICE officer.
“All white vehicles are not ICE,” Dicus said.
Kenny Joseph, an assistant professor and associate director at the University at Buffalo’s Institute for AI and Data Science, said he believes there will continue to be false reports until there is more transparency and better identification by federal law enforcement officials.
“There is always reason to be skeptical about what is going on on the web,” Joseph said. “Just make sure you do your due diligence on any information you get on the web and be a responsible producer and consumer.”