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[The unnamed Mexican immigrant] said nights have haunted him since Jan. 20, 2025. That was when a group of assailants entered a house he shared with other immigrants in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a hooded man shouting “ICE! ICE!” kicked down his bedroom door.
“I raised my hands, and he asked, ‘Where’s the money?’ That’s when I realized it was a robbery. It wasn’t ICE. It wasn’t the police,” the Mexican immigrant said.
The assault, which local police have not yet solved and for which no arrests have been made, happened the same day Donald Trump returned to the White House for his second term, vowing to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in the nation’s history. Since then, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has swelled by thousands of agents and has carried out waves of arrests and deportations in cities across the country.
Although neither the federal government nor local authorities publish specific records of people impersonating immigration agents, an analysis by Noticias Telemundo, based on court records, police reports and news articles, suggests that the number of such crimes has increased over the past year.