Image of pro-Bears, anti-ICE message on Chicago building is altered
- Published on January 21, 2026 at 20:09
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
An image spreading online purports to show the US city of Chicago cheering on its National Football League team and cursing out the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in a message lit up on its skyline. But the picture was altered via Photoshop, the social media user who created it told AFP.
"We see you Chicago! This is beautiful," says a January 18, 2026 post on Facebook.
The image -- which shows a building's windows lit up to cheer the Chicago Bears and curse ICE -- also circulated across Instagram, Threads and X.
The posts spread as protesters in Minnesota have rallied in opposition to President Donald Trump's surge of federal agents to Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer on January 7. Similar demonstrations have taken place in Chicago, Illinois -- one of several Democratic cities where Trump deployed National Guard troops to support his mass deportation policies before a series of legal setbacks led him to withdraw the unprecedented use of the military on American soil.
But the image is fake.
AFP found photos on the Chicago Bears' website and Instagram account of the same building -- the Blue Cross Blue Shield tower -- with its lights arranged to say "Bear Down" (archived here and here). The Bears shared them amid the team's playoff run, which ended with a 20-17 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Rams on January 18.
The authentic photos do not say anything about ICE, however.
Other pictures and videos shared on social media captured the same "Bear Down" message on display. The phrase, according to the Chicago Tribune, refers to the 1941 fight song penned for the American football team. It has been broadcast across Blue Cross Blue Shield's building in previous years, as well.
'Digital art'
Reverse image searches traced the altered version of the photo to the Instagram and Threads user "@healthcare_should_be_free."
The user's January 18 Instagram post carried a caption saying the image was "digital art, not a real photograph."
On Threads, where he also said in his caption that the image was "art," he added and pinned a follow-up post that clarified: "Literally, it's digital art, it's not a real photo" (archived here).
The user told AFP in a January 20 Instagram direct message that he created the image himself, using Photoshop to alter an existing shot he found online.
"I just pulled a picture from a web search, which looks to be the one the Bears shared," he said. "Worked up the text in Photoshop to appear like the lights."
AFP also contacted the Bears and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois for comment, but no responses were immediately forthcoming. According to reports from local news outlets and social media influencers, the building's staff manually lifts and closes the buildings shades to spell out its messages.
Live webcams of the building from various angles are widely available online, allowing for easy cross-checking of similar claims about what is displayed.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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