Icy roads ahead: The creative — and controversial — ways people are warning of immigration raids

CNN

3 days ago

It's summer in south Florida, the land of eternal warmth. Driving in Palm Beach County — home to Mar-a-Lago — the windows are up, and the AC is blasting to counter the oppressive heat and humidity outside. A warning pops up on the Waze navigation app: 'Icy road ahead.'
There is no actual danger of frozen water — instead, this is one of the ways communities are getting the word out of potential deportation operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, universally known by their acronym, ICE.
User-driven services like Waze and Ring camera alerts as well as more traditional social media like Facebook and WhatsApp groups are being used across the United States to warn of government agent activity amid the ongoing crackdown on people living here without documentation.
It's a phenomenon that's grown since the second inauguration of President Donald Trump and his administration's focus on mass deportations, first of those already in ICE custody and then arresting hundreds of people every day.
'I heard from a friend that it's pretty icy over by Mission Donuts today,' one user posted on Reddit, in Oceanside, southern California in June. 'Icy conditions 🧊 🥶 SIZE: between 4-7 officers,' someone commented in another forum for Cleveland residents. Chicagoans are used to icy roads in winter, but the sudden number of alerts in spring and summer led to a whole thread explaining what was going on.
A CNN poll conducted by SSRS last month found a majority of Americans — 55% — said the president has gone too far when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the US illegally, up 10 points since February.
And while the genesis of these reports on social apps may have been people trying to be helpful, both the government and migrants' advocates say there can be issues.
'This sure looks like obstruction of justice,' Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a statement to CNN. 'Our brave ICE law enforcement is already facing a nearly 1000% increase in assaults against them. If you obstruct or assault our law enforcement, we will hunt you down and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'
Any prosecution, however, would run up against a considerable body of legal precedent saying that it is First Amendment-protected speech to warn people of potential arrest.
The concern of Francisco Aguirre, an immigrant applying for asylum in Oregon, was that public apps can have misinformation about ICE operations that can spread anxiety needlessly.
'We make sure that the information up there is truthful,' he said. If it's not, 'We alert our community, 'Hey, stop sharing this post. It's not true. This is not happening.''
The goal is to lower the temperature, avoid unnecessary animosity toward ICE officials, and ensure warnings focus on factual events rather than fueling hysteria.
Social media is a key platform as is a radio show that Aguirre hosts from the basement of a church in Portland where he once sheltered from authorities. When he hears of a raid or a detention, he said he heads to the location to broadcast, even though his own status could put him at risk.
'I am afraid,' he said. 'I will lie if I say no, I'm not afraid. But I have no option. People are getting attacked by these people in masks. And there are kids that they woke up asking for their dad, their moms, and their mom's already in custody, you know? So I have to do it.'
Aguirre has lived undocumented in the US since the mid-90s, having fled violence in El Salvador. After prior arrests, he and his supporters say he is a reformed character now, a family man and stalwart of the community, who's studying to become a pastor and is already helping lead his Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church's Spanish language services.
And he says despite his activism, he is not opposed to all the work of ICE.
'We are OK with the government enforcing the law and detaining those who come and do bad in the country,' he said. 'But that's not what is happening. We are detaining families who sustain this country.' CNN reported in June that internal data showed less than 10% of immigrants taken into ICE custody since October had serious criminal convictions.
Aguirre said immigrants would continue to monitor his radio, social media, and community-driven apps, along with other methods he did not detail. In his view, keeping those channels private is important because, he said, 'no matter how hard those authorities try, our community also is strong, powerful, and they will do whatever they can to defend their families. But let's be clear. We're not in favor of violence. We are not a violent community. We are a community of peace and love and unity. We will never use violence.'
The reaction of Aguirre and others to the immigration crackdown has been ongoing and evolving for months.
In the days after the 2024 presidential election, immigrants, their employers and groups that work with them started gearing up ahead of Trump's second term, believing that his promises of mass deportations would arise.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center all said they were preparing funds and lawyers for legal battles.
LULAC said it saw platforms like Waze and social media as digital lifelines that could give real-time information. 'Far from being a disruption to law enforcement, this kind of digital organizing is an act of survival — a modern expression of the right to community defense,' said Brenda Bastian, the group's chief content officer, in an email to CNN.
She continued: 'This is more than a digital issue. It's about civil rights. And we won't let the digital space become another tool of oppression — we're making sure it remains a tool of resistance.'
For its part, Waze said in a statement to CNN: 'Intentionally submitting false reports in Waze is against our policies. People can flag inaccurate reports by downvoting or submitting a support ticket – once they're identified, we'll remove them from the map.'