The gleeful thuggery that ICE deploys in its mass deportation efforts is degrading, not just to the evacuees and Americans generally. And as we’ll soon see, ICE has been playing Internet games to make its migrant-rousting seem vastly more pervasive than it is, no doubt to try to scare as many as possible into self-deporting.
The New York Times recently reported that the US has 1.4 million undocumented immigrants who have received final deportation orders and are not complying, consistent with other accounts. It should not be controversial to remove them. An additional 655,000 have been criminally convicted or charged. The “or charged” part matters, since anyone on US soil has due process rights. But ICE is taking the position that merely having been arrested and not having a visa is sufficient grounds for deportation. And the image suggests the Times believes ICE can make possession, here incarceration, into 9/10th of the law.
1.4 million to >2.1 million does not strike me as “few”. So why does the New York Times use that word? Because the 2 million ballpark figure is well below recent estimates that 14 million US residents are in “without legal status” or temporary waiver category, and thus represents the number the Trump Administration wants booted.
But in reality, in addition to members of the PMC who want to keep their cheap picked berries and compliant nannies and yardmen, many businessmen are loath to give up low wage, no bargaining leverage immigrant laborers. So the Administration has incentives to look as ferocious and as omnipresent as possible, in part because even getting that 2 million gone will be awfully hard. So getting credit for more serves them well.
And that is what ICE is doing! In a neat bit of reporting, the Guardian caught out widespread insertions of metadata into old articles describing deportation raids to make them look current. Although the sources could not prove whodunit, given how systematic this effort was, it’s hard to think it was not an official undertaking. From the Guardian in US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations:
News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.
But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story.
That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – Ice press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008.
All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”.
The story then describes how the immigration lawyer, who had noticed ole ICE old raids coming at the top of searches, and then started systematic queries like “ICE raid Nebraska” and plotting the results on a map. She regularly found results that showed in the search results as 1/24/2025, when the actual report was from long ago.
And all were ICE press releases.
As the Guardian explained:
After dealing with all of the outdated Ice press releases, the immigration lawyer called up her tech expert friend to help get to the bottom of what was going on.
The tech expert, who likewise spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said she was initially skeptical that anything unusual was happening….
She then started a forensic examination of Ice’s web pages by inspecting the front-end code to look for clues.
What was interesting, she said, was that Ice had marked all of these press releases as old. The agency displayed a message at the top of every page the Guardian reviewed noting it contained “archived content” that was “from a previous administration or is otherwise outdated”.
But when the tech expert looked at the code of these online press releases, she saw a new element had been added – a time stamp. “Every article was updated on the 24th, which was causing the Google SEO to interpret that as a recently updated article, and therefore rank it higher,” she said.
To exhaust all possibilities, the tech expert did the same test with several other government agencies. She crosschecked with the websites of the Department of Labor, Department of Defense, Department of the Interior and Veteran’s Affairs and found no evidence of new time stamps.
“[With Ice] these are old articles that are now appearing at the top of the Google and Bing search results as recent headlines, where no other government agency is doing this,” she said. “As someone in tech, I would interpret that as an intentional play to get more clicks, essentially on these misleading headlines.”
Not only did these bogus updates initially freak out the immigration lawyer, and no doubt, lots of already-nervous immigrants by making the raids appear far more extensive than they are, they also serve to crowd out reports of deportation setbacks:
CBS reports that ICE is releasing hundreds of people arrested in the mass deportation theater of the first couple weeks of the Trump admin. I hate to say that "I told you so" but… I told you so, and I told you so, and I told you so, and I told you so. pic.twitter.com/1OojhozqbU
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) February 5, 2025
There have now been four days of anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, as well as in Denver and some Texas cities. With all of the Trump envelop-pushing, they don’t seem to be getting more than local-media-level attention. But this campaign is far from over. And contra Trump. Cate Blanchette, as Elizabeth I, once intoned: “I do not like wars. They have uncertain outcomes.” But one certainty is Trump will declare victory irrespective of actual results.
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“But in reality, in addition to members of the PMC who want to keep their cheap picked berries and compliant nannies and yardmen, many businessmen are loath to give up low wage, no bargaining leverage immigrant laborers.”
Indeed. They have to keep the rotation going to keep the labor price down. So the import/export game will continue.
Biden, upon taking office essentially announced the border was open to economic migrants. Other than the fact that I generally disapprove of lying/bloviation, I don’t see the harm in announcing that the period of tacitly ignoring illegal economic migrants is over.
People wanting cheap berries should try the H2A program, https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers#:~:text=Temporary%20Agricultural%20Workers-,H%2D2A%20Temporary%20Agricultural%20Workers,to%20fill%20temporary%20agricultural%20jobs.
Not that I know much about it, but no one talks about it.
Anyway…I would like to see some well to do tourists who overstay their visas to be publicly arrested with publicity. 20 maybe…just to demonstrate that it might happen. I assume that the EU will enforce the 90/180 day rule. “The EU 90-day visit rule, also known as the 90/180-day rule, limits the amount of time non-EU citizens can spend in the Schengen area without a visa. The rule states that visitors can stay in the Schengen area for up to 90 days within a 180-day period. ” They at least act like it is real.
seems so – https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Enforcement_of_immigration_legislation_statistics – although for Americans I could find no specific cases, which could be an effect that the new rules did not go into effect until January 17. One would think it would be newsworthy when this happens, right?
Are you saying the Schengen rules are not enforced? Can you supply a source? I would love to overstay my visit with impunity.
No…just saying I assume they enforce their rules. If you are actually visiting, 90 days is a long trip.
I’ve worked with h2a, undocumented and refugee workers. H2a workers may have the worst deal. The program has a higher wage floor and some basic protections, but long hours, poor working conditions and substandard housing are the norm. Abuse is common. With the threat of deportation and blacklisting, there is no hope for organization. Liaisons from donor countries – ostensibly in place to help protect worker from abuse – generally serve the interests of farmers and donor country elites. Labor recruiters connecting workers with farms (sometimes former liaisons) provide another layer of protection for farmers from pesky DOL fines and lawsuits. These programs do keep a few struggling family farms afloat, but they also keep wages low and conditions ugly for the rest of us.
Doesn’t the Google algorithm rank by “most popular” rather than “most recent”–at least in theory? The time stamp discovery does hint at the article’s conclusion but on the other hand with Trump barely started you would expect any Google search to bring up old articles. It also depends on the search terms.
So far I haven’t seen many articles about deportation flights but the ones I have seen generally mention that the deportees have been sitting in holding for several months. There have been other articles saying that the Trump pace is so far not even close to that of Biden–something the Biden admin in a flip of the above may have been eager to conceal.
Of course as with his wall Trump is famously the trash talker who doesn’t follow through. Guess we’ll see.
*Sigh*
If this were not due to ICE manipulation, you’d expect to see other articles, particularly by MSM outlets, which would have been much more popular at the time of publication than an ICE press release, also featured prominently. They weren’t.
We’ve been on top of Google algo changes since they have seriously whacked our traffic, and the recency prioritization is strong. I see it multiple times a day in searches. I regularly have to put in time limits to get around them.
I have also been told by CalPERS contacts, but have not been able to get CalPERS to cough up the Public Records Act goods, that they hired a reputation defender firm to suppress our results with respect to a lot of our work, such as our efforts to get CEO Marcie Frost ousted over her background fabrications. We also saw our extensive work on private equity fees and costs, as well as other private equity critiques, go from being prominent to obscure, and expert contacts similarly believe this was done by “reputation defender” hired guns.
The point is that this activity is far more common than you seem to recognize.
I don’t know if ICE is gaming the search engines as much as it is gaming illegal immigrant criminals. If the bad guys see a bunch of scary headlines about ICE raids, get panicky and self-deport, that saves ICE time, money and resources. In fact it seems like a classic Trump move — generate free headlines that help accomplish what he wants to do anyway.
That’s what the post said. Please read more carefully.
Well, except for your gratuitous “criminal immigrants” smear. Immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than natives. And the data I provided shows that out of 14 million undocumented migrant or those with only temporary waivers, only 655,000 at most out of 14 million are criminals. That 655,000 is convicted + charged, and we do have a presumption of innocence in this country.
Even though I agree we’ve let in way too many immigrants, crime is not the main problem they cause. It’s the competition for low-end housing, the wage suppression and lack of bargaining power, which allows employers to engage in abuses like running dangerous workplaces.
Entering the country outside of immigration laws that allow legal entrance is supposedly a felony. The US is not as harsh about it as Russia which punishes it with 3 years hard labour or North Korea which applies the death penalty.
Staying in the country after your visa expired may or may not be depending on the person’s situation, again according to the above link.
655,000 / 14 million ~ 5% which presumably applies to crimes above and beyond unlawful entry, but as you say, not all of them have been convicted.
The figure I could find for the national crime rate is ~2%.
Immigrants have due process rights. Most have not been charged with anything. They have to be charged and found guilty for any alleged entry offense to amount a crime.
The ACLU disagrees with your claim and your math. Many migrants enter legally and overstay.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/FINAL_criminalizing_undocumented_immigrants_issue_brief_PUBLIC_VERSION.pdf
Have reported crime statistics been undercounting?
That was raised as an issue over the past few years.
Methodology changes explain some of the issue. Those occurred with the 2021-22 transition from the Summary Reporting System to the National Incident-Based Reporting System within the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting. Prior to that there were gaps and incomplete data sets due to inconsistent reporting by numerous jurisdictions around the country.
I find comments like this to be disappointing in light of the considerable weight of many many studies, using a variety of data sources, including state-level ones considered to be more reliable than the Federal data.
And that is before getting to the fact that undocumented migrants have every reason to avoid the police, which means not getting in trouble. Even in my 2x as a legal visa holder overseas, I would be loath to involve police, and other expats I know with visas have offered that as advice.
From NPR:
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find
And Reuters:
We lived for many years in California’s Central Valley. What it’s best known for is “Big Ag,” My mate worked for many of these huge Food Packaging Corporations as a System’s Analysis.
During the summer months, when the crops had to be picked, my son & I transported to those sites payments/debts that my mate needed.
You NEVER saw white people picking cotton, strawberries, corn, or any other produce. They were ALL immigrants from different parts of Latin America.
Very low wages, and horrible dilapidated homes housed thousands of them.
If Trump thinks he can eradicate all that low wage people throughout the entire US, he’s got another thing coming. The Central Valley Big AG folks were multi-billionaires. And they STILL are.
Why can’t Trump do something beneficial to Americans such as wiping out the Billions of $$$ in DEBT owed by US citizens via Banks, Auto Loans, Credit Cards, Home loans.
Same in Germany. Just replace the Latinos with Eastern Europeans in the fields of asparagus, e.g. Or slaughterhouses. Or famously vegetable plantations in Italy and Spain. There you find your Africans. Would you see anybody go out to protest against that? Of course not. To protest against AfD as the new III. Reich is much easier.
bad guys don´t get panicky because of such news
this scaremongering is crazy and harmful on every level
hm, wonder who else will pick this story up.
It reminds me of my own thingy with overestimating NATO´s capabilities and then see such a faux report used by the good guys for good protest, decent disputes and so on. But should one operate with falsifications and incorrect data for something that superficially only (in the case of immigration) is s good cause. Of course not. But it will eventually bite back at the organizers and those immigrants they want to protect. If you do protest you need to confine your goal and understand what is achieveable and what is not. Of course most of the protest that is visible is intended for visibility. But how will that turn out in helping anyone in the end? Just because something is in the media it´s not gonna change anything for the better unless the support is instutionalized. Which in this case it is rather not. And its not going to get any better with search engines developing their completely independent hermetic realities. Puh.
Thanks for this article.
As to jugging the numbers, this is the first thing you do – standard practice in corporate world when mandates come down from above to do anything. Make the numbers look good. Of course, it could be a little lie or a huge lie. Depends on your boss, but not hearing the truth, that’s the system now – you will not hear the truth.
Here’s a report from one of the epicenters of immigrant problems that might give one a clearer picture:
Trump Said Immigrants Ruined This City. Who’s Really to Blame?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI66d8e74nM
All I can say is immigrants didn’t wreck America, they didn’t move our industrial base over seas. They didn’t raise the cost of healthcare, universities, vehicles, food.
Here’s my thing: undocumented workers *do* have a degree of leverage and at least the ability to take other work in most cases. On top of that, many are long-term residents of the US. The bosses hope to replace them with H2A and H2B “guest worker” visa holders who have neither of those things: they are tied to their employers, are much more easily deported if they get uppity about “workers rights” (since the government knows where they live), and are only here for short periods of time before returning to their home countries where massive PPP differences usually mean working for much less than Americans and “roughing it” for a few years while scraping by as guest workers and saving money can pay off greatly.
The other group the ruling class is replacing undocumented workers with is prisoners (something Dictator Elon is keen for). This is pure slavery, and it will be disastrous in a country with an already out-of-control police state to expand this grave injustice any further. Given that California has been using child slaves to fight fires, it’s clear we have crossed into a moral and ethical deadzone as a nation.
In other words, undocumented workers are being replaced with indentured servants on the one hand and slaves on the other. That’s not a boon to the working class but a loss. Ultimately, it’s the bosses who benefit from the state exercising control over labor since it’s the bosses who control the state. They want capital to flow freely and labor to move only when told to.
JACOBIN
The Democrats Also Want to Deport You
By Levi Vonk
On immigration policy, Donald Trump isn’t as radically different from Barack Obama and Joe Biden as his inflammatory rhetoric suggests. Each has built upon his predecessor’s efforts to make border militarization and mass deportations the norm.
https://jacobin.com/2025/02/democrats-trump-immigration-deportation-guantanamo