U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is allegedly altering publication dates on old press releases in order to skew Google results for mass deportations, according to an investigation by the Guardian.
First documented by an immigration lawyer who spoke to the publication under anonymity, first page Google results for state specific deportation searches have been surfacing outdated press releases from the immigration agency, exacerbating an environment of fear as federal officials threaten ICE incursions in spaces like schools and workplaces. Later confirmed by the Guardian, thousands of ICE press releases describing deportation operations across the 50 states have been manipulated with new publication timestamps, with the earliest going as far back as 2008.
While most of them are labeled as “archived content” on the ICE website itself, all of the press releases now bear the date of Jan. 24, 2025, implying, on first glance, a much broader immigration sweep touted by the Trump administration in its first 100 days.
“When people do these searches on Google, they’ll find a range of sources and information, including recent news articles” a Googles spokesperson told the Guardian when asked about the apparent SEO workaround. The company added that the search engine’s results “reflect the last time a page was updated” and that its “systems are not designed to boost a page’s ranking simply because they update their timestamp.”
Similar search results also appeared on Bing, according to a tech expert who evaluated the claim. “These are old articles that are now appearing at the top of the Google and Bing search results as recent headlines, where no other government agency is doing this. As someone in tech, I would interpret that as an intentional play to get more clicks, essentially on these misleading headlines,” the expert told the Guardian.
President Donald Trump has pledged to crack down on immigration in what he hopes will be the “largest domestic deportation operation in the nation’s history,” including relocating migrant detainees to controversial military detention camp Guantanamo Bay.
Big Tech, meanwhile, has been bowing to many of Trump’s demands, including the removal of content and policies related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Trump’s new righthand man and leader of DOGE, Elon Musk, has forcibly taken over several government databases, laid off employees, and shut down entire agencies in the last week.
