The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is employing smart messaging to debunk the fake news stories about ICE raids and illegal alien detainees that have been peddled by the legacy media. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategic Communications Micah Bock is this week's face and artfully narrates and exposes the lies, language, and laziness that the majority of news outlets employ. In this X video, Bock said he is "here to set the record straight on a few of the fake news stories that we received from the media this week."
WATCH:
🚨DHS DUNKS ON THE FAKE NEWS
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) July 28, 2025
We are debunking some of the media’s biggest lies and hoaxes this week. Get the TRUTH here!@MicahBock pic.twitter.com/LyzFCouOYa
My colleague Nick Arama wrote about Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pushing the narrative about this poor "L.A. Mother." Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon is a Mexican illegal alien who fabricated a story that she was taken by "masked men in an unmarked vehicle…when she was on her way to work.”
According to an affidavit filed with the complaint filed Wednesday, an attorney representing Calderon’s family held a press conference on June 30 to announce that Calderon had reportedly been kidnapped five days earlier at a Jack in the Box restaurant parking lot in downtown Los Angeles and brought to San Ysidro, where “she was presented to [a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] staffer” and “presented with voluntary self-deportation paperwork.” The attorney then said Calderon refused to sign the paperwork and demanded to speak to a judge and a lawyer. In response, “she was punished” and was sent to a warehouse in an undisclosed location.
The press conference garnered media attention and stoked fear in the community. Meanwhile, Calderon’s daughter set up a GoFundMe page, requesting $4,500 and stating that Calderon “was taken by masked men in an unmarked vehicle…when she was on her way to work.” According to the complaint, this entire story was fabricated.
Calderon was subsequently found and charged with "orchestrating a phony kidnapping – which she blamed on federal agents or people working with federal agents – to generate public sympathy and solicit donations." As of this writing, the benighted L.A. mayor still has not taken down her X posts or issued a retraction for her bizarre, fact-free, and fraudulent statements.
Read More: Karen Bass' Bizarre Take About Fruit Sellers and What's 'Unconstitutional' Is Raising Eyebrows
Mayor Karen Bass says the woman selling fruit illegally on the sidewalk, who is in the US illegally, isn’t a criminal.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) July 24, 2025
She’s actually a federal criminal and will be deported along with every other illegal in America.
Bass can gaslight all she wants. Deportations are happening. pic.twitter.com/Yl3s92FPVG
Bock's debunking of "The Allentown Grandpa," Luis Leon, was also chef's kiss.
Allentown grandpa who was granted asylum in 1987 after surviving torture at the hands of Chilean dictator Pinochet was disappeared by ICE. The family was then told he died. Now they learned that he's alive, was deported, and is in a hospital in Guatemala.https://t.co/vHorb1IEnX
— Devin Burghart (@dburghart) July 19, 2025
Bock not only mocked the left's wording, like "disappeared" and "kidnapped," to tear the narrative down, but he also pointed out how these hysterical, fake news stories only serve to put ICE agents and their families in danger. One outlet, "The Morning Call," at least had the decency to print a retraction of their breathless story, which is archived here.
Photographs purported to be of Luis Leon — who a woman claiming to be his granddaughter said was a Chilean national taken into custody by ICE and ended up in Guatemala — are actually of a man with a different name who died four years ago, according to media reports in Chile.
The Morning Call published the photos in two stories July 18 and July 20 after they were provided by the woman, Nataly, who asked that her surname not be used because she said she feared retribution against herself and her relatives. The Morning Call has since unpublished those stories based on additional information that has come to light.
After the reports went viral, Guatemalan immigration authorities said they had no record of a man with the name Luis Leon — who Nataly said lived in Allentown — being deported to Guatemala from the United States. The Department of Homeland Security later called the story a “hoax.”
DHS "later called the story a 'hoax'" because it is one! You cannot hate legacy media enough.
Many on the left try to frame the ICE raids as only targeting brown people, and Fake News CNN ran away with it in one of their pieces about Alligator Alcatraz occupants Gaetano Cateno Mirabella Costa and Fernando Artese, who will be deported back to Italy. Bock ended the Debunking of the Week by naming and shaming the outlet for not bothering to report that these illegal aliens had not only overstayed their B2 tourist visas, but both had criminal backgrounds. Bock ended the video by confirming:
On June 26 of 2025, Martin County Sheriff's Office arrested Artese for having an outstanding warrant relating to a failure to appear in court for a criminal offense. If these so-called reporters had even thought to ask, we would have let them know that, so they could have spent their time talking about the victims of illegal alien crime instead of victimizing illegal alien criminals.
Word. At the end of the video, Bock said, "We'll see you next week," indicating there is more fun to be had, particularly since legacy media will continue to be as terrible as it is.
This move by DHS is both epic and smart. Controlling the narrative means you can turn sentiment, as well as get low-information Americans who only hear what the legacy media parrots, to maybe pay attention to what is truly going on.
More of this, please.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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