ICE Seemingly Altering Press Releases To Make It Look Like Old Operations Are Part Of Trump's Crackdown

ICE is seemingly altering old publications to bump them up search engine results, making it look like law enforcement is conducting far more operations as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown than it really is.

The supposed move was detected by an immigration lawyer, who saw that timestamps from operations going as far back as 2010 had been updated in late January. Speaking to The Guardian, the lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ICE is likely seeking to "game" Google search.

Google told the outlet that people doing searches will find a "range of sources and information, including recent news articles," but that the engine aims to "reflect the last time a page was updated." However, she clarified that systems are "not designed to boost a page's ranking simply because they update their timestamp." ICE did not comment on the matter.

When searching for operations in every state, ICE releases from its website show up on Google's first page, the outlet added. All old posts were updated on January 24. The agency is conducting several operations, but so far there have been three high-profile ones in New York City, Chicago and Aurora, in Colorado.

The most recent one was at the latter, when agents conducted a series of raids in the city on Wednesday specifically targeting members of Venezuelan-born gang Tren de Aragua.

"100+ members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were targeted for arrest and detention in Aurora, Colo., today by ICE and its partners," the agency said on its X account. ICE had postponed an operation in the city last week claiming knowledge of the effort had spread throughout the community and agents could be affected.

The Department of Homeland Security detailed this week the amount of detentions and deportations through the first two weeks of the Trump administration. Concretely, it listed the detention 8,784 undocumented immigrants and the deportation of 5,693.

The department used the video to reveal further information about the immigration crackdown. For example, enforcement operations took place in 19 regions including in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, and New York.

While the administration keeps the issue at the top of its agenda, some analysts have noted that the numbers remain below historical highs. David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute, highlighted a discrepancy in enforcement trends on his X account upon the release of the aforementioned video.

"Even as ICE arrests increase, there has been a precipitous decline in ICE removals and returns. The FY 2025 average was 856/day as of November 30. They are reporting 407/day here"