The White House’s new website highlighting arrests of undocumented immigrants lists the United States as a country of origin for some of those arrested in many cities across the country.
The White House teased the Aliens.gov website as if it were dropping UFO files, but it turned out to be a map compiled by the Trump administration of ICE arrests, searchable from areas across the country — after nearly a whole minute of unskippable intro text in the style of the TV show “The X Files.”
When NOTUS asked why the United States was listed for arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the White House said it was an error.
“The site aggregates directly from arrest reports and pulls data directly from DHS, which initially included a handful of non-immigration [Homeland Security Investigation] arrests. This has been updated,” a White House official told NOTUS on Thursday night.
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As of Friday afternoon, the “United States” was still listed as a country of origin for people arrested by ICE in many cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and more.
The website also features many misspellings of locations from ICE arrest reports: One arrest in “New Orleabs,” Louisiana; another in “Baltomore,” Maryland; one in “Minneapolois,” Minnesota.
There’s another arrest for “gambling” in the “District Of Colombia, DC,” and two more arrests, respectively, in “Miamimi” and “West Palm Beacj,” Florida.
To be sure, the vast majority of arrest reports aggregated on the website are attached to correctly spelled cities on the map — though the names of locations can be inconsistent. For example, 28 arrests were listed for the “District of Columbia, DC,” three were listed for the “District Of Columbia, WA,” and 1,827 arrests were listed in “Washington, DC.”
The administration has made errors in its reports and on its websites before. Last year, NOTUS first reported that the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” report cited studies that don’t exist and misinterpreted others. The White House released an app earlier this year that was full of security vulnerabilities for users, according to cybersecurity experts. And in February, the White House posted and deleted a photo to social media of an immigrant and linked him to child sex crimes that he hadn’t been accused of.
Many of the White House’s new, unconventional websites are built by the National Design Studio, a team created by President Donald Trump through an executive order to modernize federal government websites. Some of the websites have launched with accessibility issues and poor coding practices.
The website includes a counter ticking up to more than 3 million “encounters” listed above the map of arrest data. And the website offers Americans a way to anonymously report people who are in the country illegally.
Just above a button near the bottom of the Aliens website that links to the ICE tip line, the website reads: “If you’ve witnessed an Alien abduction, do not be alarmed. The Alien is in good hands. We will take care of it… and return it safely to its place of origin.”
The administration has been under scrutiny for deploying ICE and National Guard agents to American cities. Immigration agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis this year. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was returning to a longer training program for ICE recruits after drastically shortening the timeline last year.
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