Video of NYPD arresting ICE agents is AI-generated
- Published on November 24, 2025 at 21:54
- 2 min read
- By AFP Mexico
- Translation and adaptation Mia DOUGLAS , AFP USA
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Since returning to the White House, US President Donald Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a top priority. Videos of confrontations with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials can be found across social media, but one clip, widely celebrated for purportedly showing New York City police officers arresting two federal agents, was generated using artificial intelligence.
"I've never been prouder of the NYPD! Bye bye ICE!" said a November 4, 2025 post on Threads with more than 37,700 likes. It shared a short clip appearing to show ICE agents in handcuffs being led to a New York Police Department (NYPD) vehicle.
The same video spread elsewhere in posts cheering the purported arrest of immigration agents on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and in Spanish.
In October, ICE conducted a raid on New York City's Canal Street it said was focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods. Nine men were arrested (archived here).
Migrants and citizens have expressed anger and fear following the raid.
In New York state, jurisdictions have a variety of laws that limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with immigration officials. New York City considers itself a "sanctuary city" -- with policies that help protect people from being detained or arrested solely because of their immigration status.
Newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani said he opposes the deployment of federal immigration officers in the city, which Trump continues to push in what he says is a crackdown on crime.
As of November 16, 2025, ICE is holding more than 65,100 people in detention -- the majority of which do not have a criminal conviction -- according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (archived here).
Several images related to ICE raids have been misrepresented on social media and the video of the NYPD purportedly arresting agents is also false.
A reverse image search in Google revealed the video originated on TikTok (archived here). The user claims he is the founder of "FunnelStreams.AI" and multiple videos on his page features NYPD officers arresting ICE agents (archived here).
Studying the deatils of the video revealed visual inconsistencies. At the end of the clip, one police officer moves to open the trunk as he leads the agent to the car, but it is the back door that appears to open instead.
Moreover, the uniform of the NYPD agents is inconsistent with their official uniform, which does not say "police" across the back.
An analysis using Hive Moderation -- an online detection tool for AI-generated content -- assessed with high probability the video was generated artificially.
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