Fake Flyer Warning of SF Area ICE Raids Shows How False Rumors Spread Fear

Over the weekend, a flyer on a supposed Department of Homeland Security letterhead spread through social channels, warning of impending ICE raids around the Bay Area.

According to the undated notice, immigration officials would be visiting five locations — three schools and two malls in San Francisco and San Mateo County — at 1:30 p.m. “tomorrow,” looking for people who remained in the U.S. past their visa expiration and “jobs that smuggle immigrants.”

The notice was fake, but the rippling panic it spread through fearful immigrant communities wasn’t.

“It’s physically very draining for a lot of folks and mentally draining for a lot of folks to have to respond or get panicked by false reports,” said Gabriel Medina, the executive director of La Raza Community Resource Center. The center is one of 21 partner organizations that form the San Francisco Rapid Response Network, which verifies and responds to reports of immigration enforcement.

Medina said the number of calls coming into the network’s 24-hour hotline has soared since President Trump took office, calling for mass deportations and crackdowns on sanctuary cities such as San Francisco. On a day when the network might usually get five calls, it’s answering 50, he said.

The flyer that circulated over the weekend, which warned that so-called “415-650 Worksite Inspections” were coming, said agents would target Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco, Westlake Shopping Center in Daly City, and three San Mateo County schools. At the bottom, it said it was signed by Donald Trump, using a cursive typeface but not his actual signature.

A San Francisco Rapid Response Network infographic on Instagram debunked the message.

Some fake reports have been born of legitimate concern — the rapid response team hears from concerned residents every day, including when a San Francisco public school student told school officials they had seen an ICE agent on the 29 Sunset Muni bus last month. Though quickly squashed, the rumor prompted a district email to some school communities and a media frenzy.

Others have had more questionable intentions. Last week, a man wearing a windbreaker with “ICE Immigration” across the back and chest and a red baseball hat embroidered with “Trump Won” was spotted eating at a taqueria in the Mission District, which has significant Latinx and immigrant communities. The San Francisco Standard identified the man as Daniel Goodwyn — among those Trump pardoned in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, and a leader of a San Francisco conservative group — who also posted a photo on his Instagram account wearing the outfit in front of City Hall at a Lunar New Year event.

“This is a terrorist seeking to intimidate our immigrant community,” Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the Mission, wrote on Instagram after the man’s visit to the taqueria.

“Folks are trying to stoke fear with flyers, with jackets, with phone calls to different agencies, to different emails, letters,” Medina said. “That is their ultimate tool that has the most capacity, but it’s also the one that can be most easily defeated.”

While there has been some authenticated ICE activity around the Bay Area since Trump took office — including attempts to enter downtown San Francisco office buildings that Democrats and union officials said were in search of janitorial workers, as well as operations in San José — most of the reports haven’t been true. Medina said that during La Raza’s week on call for San Francisco’s rapid response hotline at the end of January, there were seven warrants issued and five arrests.

“These are all individual warrants for individual folks, specific locations, specific person. To date, no raid has taken place,” he told KQED.

Medina said people who think they see ICE activity should first inform the network so its trained workers can sift through and verify apparent sightings. Advocates say this is a better option than posting on social media or communicating through personal channels right away since that can cause unnecessary panic.

“We all have to take a little bit of a deep breath when we hear any of these calls and assess them,” Medina said. “We’re all impacted by it, but we also have to keep in mind who we represent, who we’re fighting for, and make sure to verify and give out good information and be extra careful and understand the impact of any information we share.”