When ICE slips: Viral videos mock Border Patrol, ICE agents
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Photo illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios. Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
A Border Patrol agent slipping on ice in Minneapolis wasn't just a meme. It became a symbol of how viral videos are reshaping public perceptions of ICE and Border Patrol.
Why it matters: The clips — agents falling on frozen pavement, failing to catch suspects and retreating in vehicles with flat tires as crowds jeer — are being used online to question the training, preparedness and legitimacy of federal immigration enforcement amid a mass deportation plan.
- Alongside videos of deadly shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the short clips have been shared millions of times with captions mocking federal agents' coordination and crowd control while questioning tactics.
- "Folks, that's bush league policing," Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce in Maine said after cellphone video showing ICE agents detaining one of his corrections officer recruits and leaving his car running.
The other side: Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Axios in a statement before her departure that agents are facing "a coordinated campaign of violence" against them.
- "How gross to mock law enforcement officers as they put their lives on the line to arrest the worst of the worst including murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists."
- She shared images of agents with cuts, head injuries and damaged vehicles that she suggested were inflicted by protesters.
State of play: ICE and U.S. Border Patrol have been operating more visibly in U.S. cities as part of stepped-up interior enforcement.
- That visibility means routine operations are now being filmed, shared and reframed by bystanders and protesters who shape the narrative long before official statements land.
Zoom in: A viral Minneapolis video shows a federal agent slipping and falling on ice during a confrontation, drawing cheers and mockery online. Fact-checkers confirmed the video is real but clarified the agent was Border Patrol, not ICE.
- In Chicago, a widely-shared clip shows multiple ICE agents failing to catch a food delivery worker who pedals away on a bicycle, prompting jokes about tactics and fitness.
- In Rochester, N.Y., Border Patrol vehicles were filmed leaving a neighborhood with flattened or slashed tires as crowds shouted insults — footage that circulated on social media and local news sites.
- Another video showed dozens of agents getting outrun by a suspect on foot while protesters mocked out-of-breath, retreating agents. Others showed crowds using key fobs to sound off car alarms to warn of raids, while confused agents leave.
One viral video obtained by the Washington Post shows ICE agents leaving a Mexican restaurant in St. Paul, Minnesota, after patrons yelled expletives and body-shamed them.
What they're saying: "From what I've seen, they don't have the training. They don't have the situational policing experience for urban environments," Darren White, a Republican and former Bernalillo County sheriff in New Mexico, tells Axios.
- White says agents appear unprepared for crowd-heavy, camera-saturated city policing, repeatedly taking the bait from protesters who film, heckle and try to provoke reactions.
- "I do believe that there should be a pause, and they should go over all of the training that they've received."
Zoom out: From local police to federal agencies, viral video has become a parallel accountability system, amplifying moments that once would have been forgotten or never seen at all.
- Unlike body-camera footage, these clips are curated by the public, often stripped of context and propelled by humor, anger or both.
The bottom line: Viral moments involving ICE and Border Patrol erode authority by making agents look unprepared, reactive or outmatched, even when the underlying operation is legally sound, White said.
- That reputational damage matters as the Trump administration leans on ICE and Border Patrol for a politically fraught mass-deportation agenda that depends on public compliance, or at least acquiescence.
