Homeland Security video mislabels Chicago footage as 'Antifa terrorists' in Portland
- Published on November 3, 2025 at 23:09
- 4 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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A dramatic promotional video from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims at one point to show harrowing footage captured "in Portland, Oregon, as Antifa terrorists have surged against federal facilities." But at least two of the clips framed as scenes from Portland were actually captured by journalists in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where protesters have repeatedly gathered outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building.
With DHS deputy assistant secretary Micah Bock narrating, the 3-minute news-style video charts the agency's mission of safeguarding the United States from foreign threats back to the nation's Founding Fathers before championing various operations and closing with a recruiting call.
"In Portland, Oregon, as Antifa terrorists have surged against our federal facilities, our officers have survived their attacks and worked swiftly to round up and arrest these violent criminals," Bock says in the middle of the video, his words transcribed in text overlaid across the screen.
In the upper-left corner, a location tag that briefly appears reads: "Portland, Oregon."
The agency posted it to X on October 19, 2025, racking up hundreds of thousands of interactions.
The video came as Trump has surged federal agents to Democratic-led cities to support aggressive immigration raids and a supposed crackdown on Antifa, a diffuse movement of left-wing "anti-fascist" activists that his administration has designated a "domestic terrorist organization."
The Republican president has tried to send National Guard troops to the "war-ravaged" Oregon city as well as Chicago following similar moves in Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis, but his efforts have been tied up in courts.
A federal judge on November 2 extended an order blocking the deployment in Portland for five days pending a final ruling.
But while protests have dominated an area outside an ICE detention facility, two of the four scenes said to show Portland in the DHS video are mislabeled.
AFP verified using reverse image searches that the clips were, in reality, recorded during September anti-ICE protests outside Chicago in Broadview, Illinois.
A previous AFP investigation revealed that a separate White House video claiming to show that "Chicago is in chaos" was packed with outdated footage of drug busts, arrests and deportation raids in other states, including Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska.
AFP contacted DHS for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
Mislabeled clips
The clash between federal agents and protesters that DHS labeled as footage from Portland is actually a clip that independent journalist Ford Fischer recorded in Broadview and posted to X on September 19 (archived here).
The agents were firing tear gas and sting balls to disperse protesters attempting to block vehicles from exiting an ICE facility, Fischer wrote.
In an October 30 email, Fischer told AFP that he discovered the misuse of his footage while scrolling through DHS's videos on X.
"I actually almost missed the moment that had pulled my footage because of the mislabeling," he said, adding that his watermark had also been cropped out of DHS's zoomed-in version.
He eventually recognized one protester wearing a "Captain America" costume and posted to X October 22 to point out the inaccurate portrayal (archived here).
"I was bothered by it because I intend for my footage to be a very raw, visual, factual accounting," Fischer told AFP. "To see my footage mislabeled is concerning both for the fact of misleading the public about it now, but also in the future."
"I am concerned about the possibility of historians and researchers decades from now not having the benefit of my correction."
The Washington Post previously reported on the miscaptioning of Fischer's footage in an investigation that outlined several similar mischaracterizations in other DHS publications (archived here).
The subsequent clip shown in the DHS video -- as Bock continues speaking about Portland -- is also misrepresented.
The frame comes from footage that Fox 32 Chicago, a local news station covering the Illinois city and surrounding area, posted to YouTube September 19 (archived here). The video's title and caption says it showed flash bangs hurled at protesters outside the same Broadview ICE facility.
Other clips
AFP could not independently verify every frame in the DHS video.
But some other clips that were featured without labels elsewhere did, in fact, show Portland, such as one shot of a protester accused of spitting in an officer's face (archived here).
Scenes that DHS labeled as operations from the "Pacific Ocean," meanwhile, accurately showed the US Coast Guard interdicting a suspected drug smuggling vessel in September. The footage is available via the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, under the newly renamed US Department of War (archived here)
Another scene displayed as Bock discusses operations in Chicago is truly from Broadview, as well (archived here).
Other moments in the video appear illustrative, including one shot of a different Coast Guard interception in 2019, which plays as Bock talks about "radical influences and individuals who seek to undermine the cultural fabric of our republic" (archived here).
Read more of AFP's fact-checking related to US politics here.
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