Media Driven Story About ICE Secretly Deporting Pennsylvania Man to Guatemala is a Hoax
“The family of the individual allegedly told reporters he was handcuffed and taken by federal officers at a green card appointment in Philadelphia. This claim is completely false.”
A media outlet in Pennsylvania ran a story about an elderly Pennsylvania man being secretly deported to Guatemala by ICE. It got picked up and pushed by other media outlets which are more interested in confirming their anti-ICE bias than confirming a story.
The whole thing was a hoax.
Original Viral Story: 82-year-old grandfather from Chile kidnapped by ICE while trying to renew his Greencard and illegally deported to Guatemala. ICE then told his family he was dead, but they found him in the hospital in Guatemala.
Reality:
– ICE had no record of detaining
-… https://t.co/2wonOV0NeN— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 22, 2025
The Post Millennial reports:
DHS refutes media ‘hoax’ that Trump admin deported ‘Allentown Grandpa’
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a statement refuting that immigration authorities ever deported an “Allentown Grandfather,” or that he died in ICE custody, a claim that has been spread in the media.
A press release from DHS stated on the case of the “grandfather,” Luis Leon, 82, “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set the record straight on misleading and false reporting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ‘secretly deported’ a so-called ‘Allentown grandfather’ to Guatemala. Additionally, reporting claimed he ‘died’ in ICE custody.”
DHS cited a report from The Morning Call, which was titled, “Allentown grandfather’s family was told he died in ICE custody. Then they learned he’s alive—in a hospital in Guatemala, they say.”
The report cited comments from family members who claimed that Leon was thought to be dead by the family and “disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system” about a month ago.
The family claimed that the 82-year-old had been handcuffed and taken away by ICE in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. DHS said in the release that the claim was “completely false,” and that “there is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20, 2025.”
The tweet below, which helped to perpetuate this hoax, has been viewed 8.6 million times:
BREAKING: ICE secretly deported Luis Leon, an 82-year-old torture survivor and U.S. legal resident of nearly 40 years, after he walked into an immigration office to replace a lost green card.
Instead of processing the request, ICE handcuffed him, detained his wife for 10 hours, and later told the family; through a fake “lawyer,” that he was dead.
Turns out, ICE quietly transferred him through a Minnesota detention center and dumped him in Guatemala, a country he has zero ties to. There’s no deportation paperwork, no public record. His family only found him alive after relatives in Chile tracked him to a Guatemalan hospital.
Leon suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart issues. The DOJ is now under fire, but this is the Trump-era immigration machine still in motion—cruel, unaccountable, and lawless.
If they can disappear an elderly, law-abiding U.S. resident…
They can disappear anyone.
🚨 BREAKING: ICE secretly deported Luis Leon, an 82-year-old torture survivor and U.S. legal resident of nearly 40 years, after he walked into an immigration office to replace a lost green card.
Instead of processing the request, ICE handcuffed him, detained his wife for 10…
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 20, 2025
Bill Melugin of FOX News reported this on Twitter/X:
NEW: It appears another hoax has been attempted. Family members of an 82-year-old Chilean man in PA went to the media claiming ICE arrested him while renewing a green card in Philly, that he died in ICE custody, then that he was secretly deported to Guatemala. The story went… pic.twitter.com/a1jRXT6qBu
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 22, 2025
The Department of Homeland Security addressed this in a press release:
DHS Sets the Record Straight: ICE Never Deported Media’s “Allentown Grandfather”
Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set the record straight on misleading and false reporting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “secretly deported” a so-called “Allentown grandfather” to Guatemala. Additionally, reporting claimed he “died” in ICE custody.
The Morning Call, an Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper published the following headline on July 20, 2025, without any facts from DHS about major allegations made against law enforcement…
The family of the individual allegedly told reporters he was handcuffed and taken by federal officers at a green card appointment in Philadelphia. This claim is completely false. There is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20, 2025.
Furthermore, ICE has not deported Luis Leon—a Chilean national—to Guatemala, as his family members have said. ICE’s only record of this individual entering the U.S. is in 2015 from Chile under the visa waiver program.
Just days ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pushed a similar story about ICE that turned out to be a hoax.
When it comes to this subject, Democrats and the media don’t care about the truth. They care about trying to advance a narrative.
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Comments
The individual in question probably also died in 2019 in Chile.
and the death certificate probably blames COVID
The first word and last word of the title are synonyms.
epstein >>drama hoax
illegals >>”disappeared…hoax
pete hegs>>>drama hoax
dont let lefty control the narrative
the djt admin proving they know not to let lefty control the narrative
The way to control the narrative is to get in front of the story with full transparency to eliminate/mitigate rumors, innuendo and speculation b/c all the facts/evidence has been made public. Folks were still carping about the full context of the JFK assassination through this year b/c the Gov’t didn’t come clean on all aspects leading up to it, the day of and gov’t actions in the aftermath. When gov’t decides that X, Y or Z piece of the puzzle shouldn’t become public then folks will continue to theorize about the missing pieces, why they are refused info, what ‘secret cabal behind the curtain’ is pulling the strings. Putting the whole enchilada out into public fills the information void denying whackos the empty space to plant their favorite theories.
From Snopes of all places,
“An updated report by The Morning Call on July 21 also said that a Chilean journalist found no record of Leon at the hospital his family said treated him for pneumonia. Furthermore, the journalist found that a man with the same name and date of birth died in Santiago, Chile, in 2019.
According to The Morning Call, the family of Luis Leon said on July 20 they were no longer speaking to the media.”
Of course they’re no longer speaking to the media. Maybe they should be speaking to Congress instead.
Forgot to include the link to “The Morning Call” article
https://www.mcall.com/2025/07/21/luis-leon-allentown-grandfather-story-hoax-ice-says/
You can’t hate the media enough.
How can anyone say it’s false when it is one man’s lived thruthieness?
He died six years ago, so it’s not his lived anything. Also, he didn’t come here as a refugee in the ’80s, he came as a tourist in 2015 and presumably went back home when (or before) his visa waiver expired, and four years later he expired.
The pronoun “he” (neuter) referred to a confabulating family member, not the grandfather. Some people confuse a pronoun’s antecedent. You confuse it with a decedent.
“One man”? The only purported family member quoted in the original news story was a woman claiming to be Leon’s granddaughter. It would appear that she invented the story, and that she uses a female name and pronouns. So who is this “one man”?
It is a conceptual statement. Open your mind, bro. You need to turn off the music videos and start reading
for a change. Better yourself, woman.
“The Morning Call repeatedly requested information from ICE during its reporting; an ICE spokesperson previously refused to confirm details, including whether or not Leon was even at the Philadelphia office, and said Monday that ICE investigators were not able to contact the family.”
So ICE could have prevented this from ever becoming a story, by telling the newspaper exactly what it’s now telling the world. What changed? Why was it previously unable to provide this information but now it can?
I guess you have never been a federal government employee. Such an ingenue
Of course.
According to Milhouse, the leftist lie is the fault of ICE.
They have to be sure that story isn’t true. They don’t want to come out reflexively with a denial, only to find out it’s true. Next they have to track down the truth, so the story can be refuted. How long does this take? Even if it took only, say, four hours, how many times is the original story retweeted in that time? How many news organizations are able to take it up and disseminate it their X accounts? Once the cat is out of the bag, rushing to provide an inaccurate and/or incomplete refutation or simple denial, not backed by adequate facts, can make the situation worse. In a situation like this, the government can’t afford to get its story wrong, for fear of lending credence to the original story.
You can’t hate the media enough.
Depends what’s meant by “The Morning Call repeatedly requested information from ICE during its reporting; an ICE spokesperson previously refused to confirm details, including whether or not Leon was even at the Philadelphia office, and said Monday that ICE investigators were not able to contact the family.”
Was this a legitimate request or is this leaving two voicemails at 525 pm and saying you have to go to press at 530? Is it an actual refusal or is it the reporter gave a vague description or just a name and the ICE spokesperson said “I’ll look into it and let you know.” Or “I can’t find anything.” Or “We don’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”?
Did the reporter even call the correct person or office?
Also the can you imagine the reporter’s question? “Did ICE illegally and secretly deport someone without going through the immigration system or writing reports?” How do you even answer that? The very premise of the question is that the spokesperson wouldn’t know and wouldn’t be able to find the answer.
I’d say the media is destroying it’s credibility, but it hasn’t any credibility left to destroy.
Been twenty-five years since I’ve partaken of any media – television, radio, newspapers…
Only 25 years?
Heh. I used to have CNN on nearly 24/7, listened to talk radio in the car and at work. Subscribed to both city newspapers (back when there were two papers). Subscribed to Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. Also subscribed to Scientific American and National Geographic.
The breaking point came when I spotted a basic technical error in an Associated Press story. I called to local office of AP to report the error, only to be told – and I quote – “Few of our readers would notice it anyway.” In that instant, the press went from being a primary source of information to being wastepaper. I cancelled my cable service that day, turned off the car radio (and have never turned it back on – that was four cars ago). Canceled my newspaper subscriptions. Let my magazine subscriptions run out without renewal.
I have never watched TV news, listened to radio news or read a newspaper or newsmagazine since.
There’s a reason this stuff sells. A large segment of their audience loves the narrative more than the truth. It’s a sick and deranged thing, but true. The truth buys them nothing and may leave them with the “sads” about their world view, but they get a huge dopamine rush over the non stop drip of “injustice porn”
Just more fake news from the Fake News. And you wonder why they get upset when they are called fake news.
I wish they (whoever they is) would stop using the word disappear.
“They can disappear anyone” “He was disappeared” Stop it!!!
Also, long story short, fast forward.
Nothing wrong with the word, it’s just using it as a verb that grates me.
It is a verb. I suppose you mean to object to its use as a transitive verb, but that dates back decades. It came into common use in the late 1970s, in reference to Argentina under the Generals. But Joseph Heller used it in Catch 22 in 1961.
I heard on The View that it was even worse — they deported the poor guy to San Francisco.
In my view, hoaxers should be prosecuted for the crimes that they allege. It won’t stop unless the hoaxers are held accountable. Jussie Smollett got off and never retracted his story though he was made out to be a fool.
I was going to suggest the same thing. This hoaxter should prosecuted. Irrespective of the outcome, the process is often the punishment.
Prosecuted for what? The Supreme Court has already said that the first amendment protects false speech as well as true. So why should it be a crime to tell people made-up stories? Now making a false police report is indeed a crime, but no one did that here.
Let’s return to the full context of the 1A at founding re telling lies about someone. Bring back dueling, to include social ostracism for refusing to meet a challenge when made over your insults. Make that a presumptive display of ‘moral turpitude’ resulting in immediate firing from any Gov’t job or other position requiring ‘public trust’. Employers would be free to designate any/all their employees comply.
I have to admit, I did not expect to read “Let’s fold firearms use into the 1st Amendment” today. 2nd Amendment, sure. First? That’s a new one.