Misinformation and false rumors about raids purportedly being conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are fueling panic across communities in the U.S., prompting local leaders and immigration advocates to issue warnings about relying on noncredible sources of information, Axios reported Thursday.
The rumors are exacerbating the tension already felt by the immigrant community, one advocate said.
"Misinformation is really dangerous because it creates panic and it creates chaos in any community, and immigrant communities are no different," Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, told Axios.
On Tuesday, Boston Children's Hospital released a statement assuring the public that ICE agents did not raid the facility. School districts in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago — thanks in part to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker reiterating a false narrative — had to address rumors that ICE agents had raided schools there.
"I think that part of what is so difficult about this moment for so many immigrants around the United States is that a lot of the executive orders, a lot of the policy changes that are being announced are really not clear," Cruz added.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan has been clear since before President Donald Trump took office that deportation efforts were going to focus on violent criminals — "the worst go first" — in the country illegally, adding that collateral illegal migrants caught at the same time would be deported, too.
The dragnet will then widen to target and deport the millions of migrants who entered the country illegally under the Biden administration.
"We're looking for those public safety, national security cases. The big difference being, nobody has a free pass anymore," Matt Elliston, director of ICE's Baltimore field office, said recently.