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In recent days, President Donald Trump’s administration has proudly trumpeted early attempts to deliver on a campaign promise of aggressive immigration enforcement and mass deportation. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has touted the arrest of thousands of immigrants on social media, including some people accused or convicted of serious crimes like rape, murder, and terrorism offenses, alongside suspected members of violent criminal gangs.
But the crackdown is also blurring the lines between reality, rumor and performance — reshaping daily life in immigrant communities, even when enforcement never arrives. To some observers, that appears to be a “feature, not a bug,” as an old Silicon Valley saying goes. CNN reported this week that the administration urged agents to be “camera-ready” while conducting raids, and invited media along to maximize coverage. Some officials and agencies have shared their own social media posts from enforcement efforts.
Dara Lind, a senior fellow at the nonprofit immigration advocacy group American Immigration Council, told The Boston Globe that the publicity around ICE raids is meant to scare immigrant communities, alongside impressing those who want Trump to make good on his campaign promises. “The sense of — it could be you next — can be a really powerful chilling effect,” Lind told the paper.
Some speculate that Trump’s decision to send ICE detainees to the infamous prison at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, in Cuba, is rooted in this kind of performance. “Is he using this facility because it has the stain of the name Guantánamo? And, of course, the answer is yes,” legal commentator Ben Wittes told Oregon Public Broadcasting. He added that it would be cheaper and easier to hold migrants somewhere in the continental U.S.
Immigration arrests have undoubtedly spiked under the new administration, but the scale of the increase is difficult to measure. While ICE has released some initial numbers, immigration data experts have expressed skepticism, noting that the agency is releasing the information much faster than usual, without clear explanations on how the data has been processed, the locations of arrests, or even whether those arrested are being detained, deported or released.
Taking the available numbers at face value though, ICE announced an average of 828 arrests per day in the first 10 days of the new administration, according to a Boston Globe report. That’s higher than the 597 daily arrest average for January 2023 and more than twice the 282 daily arrest average of January 2024 under then-President Joe Biden. A New York Times analysis found that over the last eight years, which includes the first Trump administration and most of Biden’s presidency, immigration arrests averaged around 300 a day, a far cry from the new administration’s stated minimum daily quota of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests. The low and high annual marks of the last eight years both came under Biden, in 2021 and 2023, respectively.
One of the ways ICE appears poised to increase numbers is by conducting more “collateral arrests” than in the past. These occur when ICE agents arrest people who are not their primary target but who are found at the same location without documentation of legal permanent status. In many cases, this means conducting raids aimed at arresting those with criminal records and also detaining others nearby — like family — who do not have any previous arrests. NBC News found that on a 1,200-arrest day in late January, nearly half of those arrested had no criminal record.
The real increase in enforcement has triggered a wave of rumors, misinformation and fearmongering on social media, much of it specifically directed at immigrant communities. In San Francisco, a report that a middle school student had been confronted by an immigration agent on a city bus turned out to be false. The same goes for rumors of an ICE raid on a North Carolina grocery store. Store management described the incident as a “malicious hoax,” and there have been others: On Thursday, The New York Times reported that at least three people across the country have been arrested for impersonating ICE agents.
The owners of a popular Salvadorian restaurant in New Jersey, meanwhile, are reeling after a viral and false TikTok post about a raid there has virtually wiped out their business. Owner Elio Barrera said his core customers — Latinos from mixed-status families — have been “understandably fearful” about the threat of raids. He lamented to NJ.com that “on social media, there’s a lot of bad actors capitalizing on that fear for views and likes.”
The mix of real increased enforcement, higher visibility raids and swirling rumors have combined to disrupt the daily activities of immigrants across the country who are trying to limit their exposure. From Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, California, there are reports of immigrants avoiding public spaces, including work, school, and social services like food pantry access.
That’s partly because immigration enforcement officials generally need a judicial warrant signed by a judge to enter a private residence, whereas, in public spaces, officials can make an arrest with an administrative warrant, which ICE officials can sign themselves.
In Chicago, The Guardian reports that some immigrants are avoiding public spaces, while others are more defiant. “We are afraid, but fear hasn’t paralyzed us,” Yess Gómez told the news outlet. “My kids don’t deserve to see their mother hiding. And I’m not going to do it.”
Gómez is from Mexico and said she has lived in Chicago for two decades. She has a work permit, but not permanent legal status. She described her efforts at contingency planning: a safety check-in system with her husband and children in case one of them gets picked up.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has expressed frustration with how well Chicago immigrants have been educated on “how to hide from ICE,” something Gómez takes pride in.
The administration has found Chicago so difficult for enforcement that late Thursday the Department of Justice sued the city, along with Cook County and the state of Illinois, for “affirmatively thwarting” federal enforcement efforts. Local and state officials rejected the accusation, and multiple legal scholars told WBEZ Chicago they are skeptical of the suit’s chances.
