Mistaken reports of ICE raids are stoking fear, troubling law enforcement across Southern California

A photo posted to the website People Over Papers where U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are published presented a white van law enforcement officers and yellow crime-scene tape at a McDonald s in Riverside In Orange County the vehicles photographed en highway to a protest against ICE at Angel Stadium were presumed to be driven by federal officers Related Articles Worksite immigration raids are supposed to free jobs for citizens Here s what really happens ICE raids derail Southern California financial system as workers go into hiding Presence of ICE inside California hospital denounced by local leaders immigration activists US will try to deport Abrego Garcia before his trial prosecutor says Troops and federal agents briefly descend on park in LA neighborhood with large immigrant population And in another post on the social media site X a photo of law enforcement officers and a marked SUV shot from afar depicted the author wrote an ICE raid at a Jurupa Valley tire shop In none of those instances however were ICE officers or any other federal immigration-enforcement officers present In Riverside the officers were city police exploring an in-custody death In Orange County those were sheriff s deputies backing up Anaheim police on crowd control And in Jurupa Valley there was no raid at the tire shop in the Rubidoux neighborhood only a state Park Ranger getting new rubber on his work truck To be sure a number of sightings are legitimate reports as ICE Homeland Safeguard and the U S Demarcation Patrol make good on President Donald Trump s promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants But there is confusion among civilians as these law enforcement officers carry out their missions sometimes while driving unmarked vehicles in civilian clothes or uniforms lacking substantial identifying marks or that perhaps say only Police Personnel at Union del Barrio an independent political organization that promotes and defends the rights of Mexican Americans living in the U S mentioned thousands of reports about raids are posted every day and that majority turn out to be well-intentioned but false Others come from influencers seeking likes and malicious people who want to scare our communities the organization s website says Sharing every rumor of ICE migra activity may seem like a general amenity but it unnecessarily promotes fear within our neighborhood the website cautions Fear keeps people locked in their homes unable to work attend to their families go to classes go to the specialist church or worse unable to defend themselves or our communities So why the rush to post unconfirmed information Karen North a professor of digital social media at USC who holds a Ph D in psychology attributes that in part to uncertainty who is being targeted and where coupled with a distrust of ruling body that creates a societal paranoia Their ability to think they ve seen something becomes heightened North mentioned Frequently we see particular announcement that celebrities have died and often they have died years ago When people see spectacular news they want to share that information with friends and family Couple that with the fact that people really want to be seen as being in the know The OC Rapid Response Framework an organization of nonprofits civil rights attorneys and law school clinics encourages people to follow the acronym SALUTE when reporting sightings Size strength actions activity location direction uniform clothes time and date equipment weapons What s leading to a lot of misinformation is folks are not gathering all the information that they need mentioned Sandra De Anda the system s director of program and digital strategy Masked federal agents stage outside a gate of Dodger Stadium on June in Los Angeles A multitude of reports on tracking websites and social media of ICE raids are posted by people mistaking local police for ICE officers experts say Public members who then show up to protest what they believe is immigration enforcement inhibit the law enforcement exercises police chiefs say Photo by Mario Tama Getty Images An advisory on People Over Pages warns that the reports are not certified sightings but are reviewed by moderators Please take this information with caution and account for human error the website says Union del Barrio urges anyone considering reporting an ICE sighting to take precautions to ensure accurate posts Note the time and place Statement the number of vehicles and officers present with a description of their uniforms Share photos and videos Statement any arrests Homeland Safety has revealed little about how multiple officers are conducting the raids the number of raids and the number of arrests Los Angeles Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez noted on his website that from June to June people had been arrested with the intent to deport them citing Homeland Assurance input Messages seeking comment from federal bureaucrats were not returned But Tricia McLaughlin a spokeswoman for the U S Department of Homeland Prevention did say in a post on X that federal authorities say who they are with are flanked by vehicles that also say the name of the department and wear vests saying ICE ERO Enforcement and Removal Operations or Homeland Prevention Uncertainty doesn t have to exist North asserted There s an obligation on the part of executive agents to communicate clearly about their actions North mentioned If they are arresting mostly people who committed crimes why aren t they telling us that So much of the story so much of the narrative of the immigration raids are basically anecdotes that are being turned into a narrative we are accepting We don t know what s definitely happening That uncertainty is causing trouble for Southern California law enforcement agencies So much so that Los Angeles police Chief Jim McDonnell explained the Board of Police Commissioners in late June that he has ordered his officers to respond to reports of unidentifiable people who say they are making arrests In Anaheim employees speaking to region groups have begun toting Police Department badges patches and uniforms with them to help residents differentiate between Anaheim s officers and federal functionaries city spokesman Mike Lyster disclosed Anaheim police do not participate in immigration enforcement but they will perform crowd control Lyster revealed We have seen a lot of confusion fear and understandably misunderstanding about what people see in our population Lyster disclosed We see people well-intentioned trying to alert people to something they think is essential we see people unsure about something and we don t know it for a fact we believe it is realizable particular people do it to generate views Lyster disclosed he personally investigated chosen reports that immigration administration were present at the Disneyland Resort There was no basis in truth whatsoever Lyster noted Anaheim updates immigration enforcement events on a city blog anaheim net contigo Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell right announced the department now sends officers when someone says they are unable to distinguish between federal officers conducting immigration enforcement and kidnappers Photo by Jim Vondruska Getty Images Elsewhere the ICE officers seen eating at a Riverside Plaza restaurant in June were definitely members of the city s homeless outreach crew revealed Officer Ryan Railsback a Police Department spokesman Another time an undercover officer staking out a stolen car was mistaken for an immigration-enforcement officer Area members organizing a No sleep for ICE protest at a hotel in Rancho Cucamonga mistook the federal employees staying there for ICE officers the San Bernardino County Sheriff s Department revealed In Fontana public members surrounded undercover police exploring a narcotics event Police Chief Michael Dorsey announced In response We are now bringing marked patrol units to undercover operations to hopefully dissuade folks from believing we are immigration enforcement Dorsey noted Another time Fontana officers in full uniform studying a trespassing occurrence were revealed as ICE officers going door to door asking for citizenship paperwork Dorsey commented It s a safety issue for the officers because their attention is being diverted to things other than the task at hand Dorsey explained In another incident Los Angeles County sheriff s deputies and other officers established up in unmarked vehicles at a Hesperia home and were mistaken for ICE Loud noises shared by residents were the aftermath of flash-bang grenades used during the operation not gunfire the department announced A command post set up behind the Target and Planet Fitness on Main Street is also unrelated to ICE despite residents speculation It gets worse San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus disclosed a civilian employee in an unmarked fleet van was run off the road by a driver who supposed the employee was an ICE officer The department citing an ongoing review declined to provide more details such as why the agency believes the driver decided its employee was an ICE officer All white vehicles are not ICE Dicus reported Kenny Joseph an assistant professor and associate director at the University at Buffalo s Institute for AI and Figures Science mentioned he believes there will continue to be false reports until there is more transparency and better identification by federal law enforcement executives There is invariably reason to be skeptical about what is going on on the web Joseph explained Just make sure you do your due diligence on any information you get on the web and be a responsible producer and consumer