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TikTok Is Fueling Fears of a Rise in ICE Raids, Even When They Aren’t Happening

Social media platforms like TikTok have seen a surge of videos claiming to show ICE raids conducted under Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.

Rommel H. Ojeda

Feb 04, 2025

Graphic by Rommel H. Ojeda for Documented.

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V. T., 32, was preparing a meal at her home in Queens when she was scrolling through TikTok and came across a disturbing video: a highway car chase shot through the bodycam of a police officer. An eerie melody in the background only amplified the tension and chaos of the pursuit. 

V.T. told Documented that the video used the hashtags #ICE and #deportación (deportation). Since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, she said videos claiming to show ICE raids have been appearing more often in her feed. 

“When I come across those videos I try to skip them as fast as possible so that it doesn’t show in my feed,” she said. Like all the immigrants Documented interviewed for this piece, V.T. asked to be identified by her initials, fearing identification and possible repercussions. 

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Also Read: Misinformation on TikTok: How Documented Examined Hundreds of Videos in Different Languages 

With Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, social media platforms like TikTok have seen a surge of videos claiming to show ICE raids conducted under Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. According to analytics reviewed by Documented, 92,000 TikTok videos using the hashtag #ICE have been posted in the past 30 days, 37% higher than the previous three months combined that totaled 67,000. 

Experts say these videos, which depict interactions between authorities and civilians, often lack context or verification, misleading viewers to believe there is a rise in ICE raids. Immigrants who spoke with Documented said the videos have succeeded in heightening fear in their communities, and have sometimes affected their day-to-day behavior and way of life. 

Although V.T. has attempted to skip the videos, she says her family and friends still send them to her, including her 58-year-old mother. “I tell her to stop watching them, or if she sees [videos] in TikTok or Facebook to at least try to verify the source.”

Also Read: TikTok Videos Spread Misinformation to New Migrant Community in New York City

V.T., who emigrated from South America 17 years ago, said the ICE raid videos have increased panic among her community, similar to how the immigrant community felt eight years ago. 

In 2017 she would encounter videos on Facebook about raids in Jackson Heights, Queens, where she worked. “Imagine my uncertainty to leave my home and go on with my life. I would still go but I had so much fear and sometimes I would not even want to go out.” 

She said she began looking for trustworthy news sites to confirm any claims she came across. “I didn’t want to live in fear,” she said, adding that this time around she learned that not every video she saw was true. Though, as she began researching, she noticed those posting and reporting these videos were in fact immigrants themselves. “It is our own people, our own Latino people that are generating panic and that is not good.”

Van Tran, professor of sociology and international migration studies at the City University of New York graduate center, said that immigrants sharing these videos are perhaps trying to be helpful in increasing awareness of possible ICE raids, without verifying them in the first place. 

However, he also believes that the spread of these videos can be a projection of how people are feeling. “I’m almost certain that there is… someone or some organizations stuck in the fear, and that is aiding and amplifying the fear we see across the country,” he said. 

Blurred reality and perception

Videos about raids have always circulated in social media, but Tran explained that the political climate affects their reach and impact on immigrant communities. “Under the Biden administration there was some misinformation about ICE raids circulating [in Colorado],” he said. “The ICE office sent out a statement saying let’s be clear, we do not do any patrols, raids, sweeps, looking for illegal aliens. To rectify the misinformation.” 

But, given the current anti-immigrant agenda of the administration, Tran says that the world is different. “We are now in the opposite moment,” he said. “ICE operations are perceived to be everywhere and there is no way and no hope that the government will issue a statement to rectify the misinformation.”

L., a migrant from Mexico living in Yonkers, said she has seen videos online similar to those described by V. T. Most recently she encountered a video of a young man being detained by ICE at a McDonald’s. “In the video the young man was resisting, and I asked myself: why resist? Instead he should have remained calm,” she said. (Note, Documented could not confirm any recent ICE arrests occurring inside a McDonald’s. )

Also Read: He Found the American Dream on China’s TikTok, the Reality Was More Complicated

L. said she recognizes that the misinformation videos are created to increase fear and can be hard to distinguish between real ICE raids. However, she explained that even real ICE raids reported by reputable newspapers have also contributed to confusion and panic by leaving details out of the raids taking place and by highlighting the raids more now than during the Biden administration. “I know that it is their job, but they should also understand that the most impacted people are the parents who have underage children, and who panic due to the uncertainty of what will happen with their kids.” 

On Tuesday, L. was getting ready for her routine trip to an elementary school in Yonkers to pick up her 5-year-old daughter when she got a call from her nephew. He told her that the ICE had checkpoints at Waverly St., a block from the school.

L. stopped her tracks and immediately called her eldest daughter, 20, who is a U.S. citizen. “I told her that she has to pick up her sister because ICE was near the school,” she said, explaining that she is undocumented and that she was afraid of being stopped and deported to Mexico by immigration authorities.  

She said her eldest daughter confirmed that she heard ICE was in town. L., for safety reasons, decided to remain in the house for the day. “I am hoping they do not send me back, but you never know,” she said. 

L. was afraid that ICE would stop her in the middle of the street and ask her for documentation if she had gone to pick up her daughter from school, but experts last week told Documented that ICE does not have the capacity or budget at the moment to conduct random raids and stop random people on the street. They explained, however, of the possibility of collateral detentions from ICE raids that target specific individuals in the community.

On Tuesday, hours later, ICE confirmed they were stationed in multiple locations in New York City to look for specific individuals, including an alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang that Trump had designated as a “terrorist organization” in an executive order last week.

V. T. said that she is aware that there are targeted raids happening all over the country, just as it happened during the Biden presidency.  “[The videos] only adds to the fear,” she said. She has taken it upon herself to fact check any video her family sends her. “The word I used yesterday was powerless,” she said referring to a video her family had shared with her. “There is a bit of powerlessness in adults who believe a video to be true when they clearly are not.”


Have you also questioned the content you have seen? Documented wrote some recommendations on how to navigate online content and become more proactive in how to seek the information you need. See the full guide here.

Rommel H. Ojeda

Rommel is a bilingual journalist and filmmaker based in NYC. He is the community correspondent for Documented. His work focuses on immigration, and issues affecting the Latinx communities in New York.

@cestrommel

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