Does a video show people in January 2025 fleeing from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid? No, that's not true: The video shows men running near a construction site in 2024 or earlier. The building seen in the video was finished before September 2024, according to images on Google Maps.
The implied claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok on January 21, 2025, under the on-screen Spanish title "LES CAYÓ MIGRACIÓN," which translates to "Migration fell on them." Another on-screen caption in the video said:
Les cayó inmigración al trabajo. [Immigration fell on them at work.]
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 22 18:40:29 2025 UTC)
This post provided no evidence to support the implied assertion that the people in the video were fleeing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in January 2025, following Donald Trump's inauguration as president.
Trump promised mass deportations and ICE raids once he took office on January 20, 2025. An executive order (archived here) issued that same day pledged to remove "promptly all aliens who enter or remain in violation of Federal law."
Geolocation
Taking images from the video, Lead Stories identified the men's location at the intersection of Westpark Drive and Westbranch Drive in Tysons, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C., by using Google Maps (archived here). The side-by-side images below compare the corner seen in the video (left) with the same spot on Google Maps (right), showing matching features in the landmarks (red ovals):
(Source: TikTok and Google screenshots taken on Wed Jan 22 2025 UTC)
A critical bit of information in Google Maps is when the image at the intersection was last updated. Circled in yellow above, it says, September 2024, well before the January 2025 timeframe implied in the social media video.
Another clue: The building shown at the intersection is under construction in the video and had already been completed in the September 2024 image. Looking at earlier Google images from the intersection, it appears the video was taken sometime between September 2022 and August 2023, based on the status of the construction site:
(Source: Google screenshots taken on Wed Jan 22 2025 UTC)
Read more
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning U.S. immigration can be found here.
