No raids, many rumors: In Nebraska immigrant communities, fear and lack of ICE info fuel fake news

The Facebook post was straightforward: “ICE and other federal agents are doing sweeps and raids in Schuyler, Nebraska TODAY,” a Columbus-based law firm posted Jan. 27. 

Within hours, the post amassed more than 700 shares. It sparked news articles and press releases. 

“People were panicking,” said Nina Lanuza, a Center for Rural Affairs organizer who lives in Schuyler. “Over 80% of our population is nonwhite. That’s something that will always put us as a target.” 

Lanuza got in her car and drove around the northeast Nebraska town of 6,528, scoping the streets for evidence of a raid. 

She found no government vehicles. No people in handcuffs. No buses waiting to haul people to detention centers. Nothing.

Days later, a Nebraska media outlet reported 110 people had been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Schuyler. The article credited a single, anonymous source.

ICE officers had been in the area, the Schuyler Police Department confirmed in interviews. 

But they hadn’t arrested 110 people, Sgt. Ryan Andel told the Flatwater Free Press.

They’d arrested one.

“You hear about it, but did you see it?” Lanuza said. “It’s not that I don’t trust what you’re saying, but it’s really easy to spread fake news.” 

Nearly a month into the second Donald Trump presidency, Nebraska immigration crackdown specifics are hard to come by.

Immigration arrests nationwide have ticked up. And in Nebraska, the few county jails that hold detainees for ICE reported seeing an increase in the number of people being detained. But most of those detainees have criminal records and have been targeted individually, they said. 

So far, there have been no documented raids in Nebraska.

But the uncertainty here, paired with the lack of information, has allowed chaos and misinformation to thrive online.

Posts in Facebook groups and WhatsApp chats chronicle rumored ICE sightings in communities like Schuyler, Lexington, Fremont, Omaha and Lincoln – frantically typed out with siren emojis and all-caps warnings to avoid certain streets and businesses. 

Nebraska immigration advocates and law enforcement officers alike report a much different, more nuanced, reality. ICE presence and arrests in Nebraska have increased, they say. 

But so far, the federal agents have been targeting specific people, mainly those with criminal records – some already sitting in county jails. 

Shrouding the process in mystery, and making it hard to access information about local ICE arrests, is intentional, said Anna Deal, legal director with the Omaha-based Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement. 

“Part of what the administration knows will help them accomplish their objective … is to freak people out and make people feel unsafe, so that they choose to leave,” Deal said. “Repeating rumors, repeating sightings, to some extent, does that work for them. It keeps fear circulating.”

“Let them wonder” 

Hours before Trump was even inaugurated, the texts and phone calls started coming. 

“My phone started blowing up with rumored ICE enforcement,” Deal said.

In early February, the White House reported more than 8,000 arrests stemming from immigration enforcement actions since Jan. 20. ICE averaged 787 arrests daily from Jan. 23 to Jan. 31, more than double the daily average of 311 arrests during former President Joe Biden’s last year in office. The Obama administration averaged 636 daily arrests in 2013. 

But ICE doesn’t release detailed local numbers. The ICE field office in Grand Island directs questions to national hotlines. Advocates at CIRA and other nonprofits find themselves calling local law enforcement to try and confirm rumors. “Right now, they’re super scared, because they’re seeing Chicago and New York footage,” said Juan Carlos Garcia, a board member for Omaha Welcomes the Stranger, a shelter for asylum-seeking families. 

A raid at a car wash in Philadelphia ended with seven arrests. There have been reports of collateral arrests in Texas – people who just happened to be present when targeted individuals were arrested by ICE. The week after the inauguration, NBC News reported that 100 agents were fanning out across Chicago, looking for people with criminal convictions.

The fear helps the misinformation thrive, said Garcia, who also works as director of Hispanic outreach for the Missionary Society of St. Columban. 

Before Trump’s reelection, Facebook groups geared toward Omaha Latinos were mostly filled with posts about events, job openings and food sales, Garcia said. 

“It was more community building,” he said. “When he won, they were all conspiracy theories. And then after he came in until now, it’s all ICE.”

 A few days after the inauguration, his Facebook and WhatsApp feeds were filled with posts about a rumored ICE presence on South 24th Street, in the heart of Omaha’s Latino community. 

He called the police to try and confirm. It wasn’t ICE, they told him. It was Omaha police responding to a call about a person found dead. 

Garcia now finds himself constantly monitoring Facebook posts. He flags and hides fake news posts in the local Spanish Facebook group he runs. He hops into the comments in other Facebook groups, calling out what isn’t true, telling people to take down false or unverified  information. 

It’s even worse on chat platforms like Messenger and WhatsApp, where it’s harder to moderate and report misinformation.

“That’s where the fake news is rampant,” Garcia said. “It’s exploding.” 

In Columbus, Karina Perez will hear rumors from people who think they’ve seen something suspicious – unusual cars, unmarked government vehicles, anything that looks out of place in small communities like Schuyler or Madison or on nearby farms. 

Perez, executive director of Centro Hispano, said she can’t blame people for feeling that anxiety of the unknown. Most of the Facebook posts and rumors that come her way are from people posting for the sake of protecting their community. 

“We would be consumed with that all day every day if we were listening to every rumor that came through,” Perez said. 

In Lexington, Rocio Casanova is the secretary of the local nonprofit El Camino. She regularly gets calls from community members whenever someone thinks they’ve seen ICE. She’s gotten calls about ICE sightings in nearby Cozad. Then another call about ICE officers at the Lexington Walmart. 

She called Walmart – workers hadn’t heard anything or seen any ICE officers. 

The school has seen dips in attendance, she said. People have told her they’re trying to avoid places like restaurants and stores, and that they were scared to attend a Know Your Rights presentation at the library. Even with a change of venue, only about 10 families showed up, Casanova said. 

“Keeping everyone out of the loop is definitely part of the tactic,” Perez said. “Let them wonder.” 

Doubling down on detainers

After a day of panic over ICE in Schuyler, immigrant families gathered at the high school. Nebraska Law’s Immigration Clinic was holding its already-scheduled information session. 

Last fall, the same info session drew a handful of families, with questions about work permits and asylum cases. 

But last month’s meeting drew a crowd of about 50 people, wondering: What happens if we’re approached by ICE? What happens if we’re separated from our kids? 

That same night, a similar group gathered in Scottsbluff, passing out Know Your Rights cards printed in both English and Spanish, offering to hold information sessions privately in homes.  

Local law enforcement, statewide and local advocates all repeated the same thing in interviews: The ICE enforcement actions they’re seeing so far are targeted. There have not been any mass sweeps or raids in the state. 

“ICE was conducting enforcement actions on a targeted scale (already),” said Ariel Magaña Linares, an attorney with CIRA. “They were going after specific people, they were going to jails to pick up specific people they had issued detainers for … that’s always been part of ICE’s practice.” 

But law enforcement officers around the state confirmed that kind of targeted enforcement is happening more often. 

“Absolutely there’s an increase,” said Penny Gregg, jail administrator for Phelps County Corrections. “These are people that have come out of jails. They’re not people that they’re just picking up.” 

One of the few ways to get a pulse on ICE arrests in Nebraska is to look at the jails with contracts to hold ICE detainees. Phelps County is one of them. And they’ve seen a sharp increase. 

A year ago, the Phelps County Jail held 20 detainees for ICE. In 2018, midway through the first Trump presidency, it held 12. In 2012, during the Obama administration, it held 22. 

On Feb. 10, 2025, the Phelps County Jail held 38 ICE detainees – more than three-quarters of the jail population. 

Twenty-five of those people had been booked since inauguration. 

On that same day in February, the Lincoln County Jail held four people for ICE; Dakota County held three; and Pottawattamie County in Iowa held six. 

The number of county jails that contract with ICE could increase. Douglas and Sarpy counties have both said they’re in talks to potentially allot the agency beds. 

“That is one of their top priorities right now, to expand their detention capabilities across the country,” said Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson. “And they’re willing to pay for it.” 

In Hall County, the jail doesn’t contract with ICE, but they do have beds where U.S. Marshals can bring people charged with federal crimes. That includes illegal re-entry into the country.

The jail is seeing more people brought in for that reason, said Todd Bahensky, director of the Hall County Department of Corrections. 

ICE has checked in with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office at least once since Trump’s inauguration, telling local officers that ICE agents are now “authorized again to basically do their job,” said Chief Deputy Josh Berlie. 

ICE agents might be around town looking for people they’d previously placed detainers on, Berlie said – a detainer is an ICE request for local law enforcement to hold someone for up to 48 hours after their jail release date. That’s meant to give ICE time to decide whether to take the person into federal custody. 

But the detainer isn’t mandatory, and sometimes local jails release a person before ICE arrives to pick them up. 

Gregg and Hanson both said the Trump administration appears to have lowered the threshold of crime required for ICE to place a detainer compared to past administrations. Gregg has seen people brought in by ICE after being arrested for driving without a license.

In Grand Island, police officers can already see the fear of ICE affecting their relationship with residents, said Capt. Dean Elliott. Recently, a plainclothes local officer knocked on someone’s door to ask questions for an investigation. The people inside refused to open the door. 

“You’re not here for immigration reasons?” the residents asked. 

“No, we’re here to find out who owns this car,” the officer replied. 

“We are the Grand Island Police Department,” Elliott said. “We are not Immigration. We don’t enforce immigration.” 

NBC News reported weeks after inauguration that Trump is angry at ICE’s low deportation numbers. At the start of his administration, ICE would post daily arrest numbers on its X account. Those posts stopped Feb. 1. 

Since then, the agency has focused on sharing individual arrests and their associated crimes.  

Nationally, there has been an uptick in ICE arresting people without criminal histories, according to recently released ICE data. From Jan. 26 to Feb. 9, the number of people arrested solely for immigration violations – with no prior criminal record or pending charges – increased from 945 to 2,758, a 14% increase. 

The thing advocates and immigrants are left wondering: When will these increases start to affect immigrants living in Nebraska? 

“We’re trying to conserve and preserve our energy to be prepared to respond effectively when that comes,” Deal said. “And I think, unfortunately, we do expect it to come.”

FFP’s Joshua Shimkus contributed reporting to this story. 

The Seacrest Greater Nebraska reporter covers issues across the state of Nebraska. It is named in honor of philanthropist Rhonda Seacrest and her late husband James, who proudly led several Nebraska newspapers through Western Publishing for 40 years.