Fact Check: Did 2K ICE officers walk off their jobs in protest against Trump's policies?
WASHINGTON, DC: A claim has been circulating online that thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrendered their guns and walked off the job to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration polices. The claim gained traction on social media, prompting questions about its authenticity. Let us fact-check the claim.
Claim: Thousands of ICE agents resign from job in protest against Donald Trump
The claim spread this month that more than 2000 ICE agents surrendered their guns and resigned their jobs in protest against Trump’s immigration polices.
The claim spread on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
The claim surfaced amid the intensifying protests in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent identified as Jonathan Ross during an immigration crackdown in the city.
Fact Check: The claim is false
But a Google search for the keyword generated no results on a crediblity of the report posted by a news outlet. If more than 2,000 ICE agents had indeed walked off the job, the event would have made headlines.
Also, the earliest version of the claim available online was not from a credible source, and the different versions of the claim showed clear signs of AI-generated content.
Hence, it is clear that the claim is not true.
The claim appeared to originate from a YouTube page called 'Defeat Trump Network', which was posted on January 11, with the title, 'WOW: 2000 ICE Cops SURRENDER THEIR GUNS and WALK OUT ON TRUMP this afternoon?!'
However, the actual content of the video does not include anything about ICE officers supposedly surrendering their guns and walking off their jobs in protest of Trump's immigration policies.
Rather, the video is a remix of legitimate footage by reputable news outlets that did not concern the claim.
The description of the video included an MSN link to an op-ed that claimed 'a growing number of former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are coming forward, exposing the disturbing work conditions and internal pressure that led to their resignations.'
However, nowhere in the MSN story did the author state anything about the claim in question.