Immigration

You might have seen or heard rumors about ICE agents being deployed at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, to help provide security. The Lead Stories Rome office looked into what is actually happening, so you know what is going on if you see social media posts about it. Agents from the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),…

Was Alex Pretti fired over complaints of inappropriate conduct with patients three months before federal agents fatally shot him on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The claim was started by a spam factory based in Vietnam that uses artificial tools to publish fake articles promoted by Facebook pages also managed from Vietnam. The article named the wrong hospital…

Did a projector cast onto Trump Tower a cartoon of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino spilling blood? No, that's not true: The video was created by an artist who told Lead Stories the drawing was theirs, but the montage superimposing it on Trump Tower is AI-generated. The artist previously published the same image of Bovino on their website and on…

Does a high resolution image of the scuffle between immigration officers and Alex Pretti provide a more clear picture of what happened just before Pretti was shot? No, that's not true: This AI-enhanced image was created from an extremely blurry still taken from a video. AI-hallucinated flaws appear as crisp visual details where the original image was indistinct. The resulting…

Did President Trump post on his Truth Social account a call for cellphone companies to add software kill switches to phone cameras so ICE and "my SS" could "kill" video recording and sharing? No, that's not true: The image, which also contained the signature catchphrase "Thank you for your attention to this matter," did not show a real post from…

Was Evan Kilgore the federal agent who shot and killed U.S. citizen and registered nurse Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement raid in Minneapolis? No, that's not true: Kilgore denied he worked for immigration enforcement agencies and threatened to sue those who spread the claim on social media. Lead Stories found nothing suggesting that the conservative commentator had built a…

Does video show a federal immigration agent taking a gun away from Alex Pretti two seconds before another agent began shooting Pretti? A frame-by-frame look at the first viral video of the incident shared on social media does show a federal agent in a gray coat reaching down with his right hand and then standing up with something in his…

Are tow trucks impounding ICE vehicles in Atlanta because the U.S. Constitution's 10th amendment does not allow ICE to drive on state roads? No, that's not true: The claim is a satirical post from a known satire account. The 10th amendment simply gives to the American states powers that are not specifically delegated to the federal government elsewhere in the…

Is a five-year-old Minnesota boy's father a "criminal illegal alien" who abandoned him in a running car at their home, running away when confronted by Immigration & Customs Enforcement officers? Here's what we know so far: School officials who were at the scene Jan. 20, 2026 when the boy and his father were taken into custody say that's not true.…

Is a video showing an ICE agent entering a classroom at California State University, San Bernardino, legitimate? No, that's not true: The clip was generated using AI. A Sora watermark appears several times, indicating it was created with the generative AI tool. There are no credible news reports that an ICE agent entered a California university classroom as part of…