The White House’s Aliens.gov Site Brags That ICE Arrested More Than 700 US Citizens

A space-themed White House website that mocks immigrants and compares them to extraterrestrials claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested astir fractional a cardinal radical successful astir 12,000 cities and towns successful the United States. In 715 of the locations listed, the tract identifies astatine slightest 1 of the radical arrested arsenic being calved successful the United States. In 83 of the locations, each azygous arrestee is reported to beryllium an American.

The White House unveiled the website, Aliens.gov, connected Thursday aft teasing the motorboat connected X with a 10-second video captioned, “They locomotion among us,” starring galore users to fishy an announcement astir UFOs—the taxable of an ongoing Trump medication disclosure effort that produced 2 releases of declassified files earlier successful May. The tract turned retired alternatively to beryllium a portion of governmental theatre aimed astatine dehumanizing immigrants and casting those the Trump medication has arrested arsenic the concealed extraterrestrial visitors of UFO conspiracy lore.

The tract includes accusation astir arrestees’ alleged transgression offenses for each location. People successful 3,159 locations are accused of “Immigration.” In 1,082 locations—including Chicago and Minneapolis—at slightest 1 of the crimes supposedly committed by the arrestees is “Public Peace,” a class of convictions that includes unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct.

In much than one-fifth of the locations the tract flags arsenic the tract of an arrest, nary transgression charges are recorded. Puerto Rico, a US territory whose residents are American citizens, is mapped connected the tract arsenic a abstracted jurisdiction; successful 1 row, the tract lists Puerto Rico itself among the overseas countries the arrestees came from.

The White House said WIRED’s petition for remark did not scope its inbox until 2 hours aft it was sent by reporters. It did not code WIRED’s questions.

The Trump medication has repeatedly claimed that ICE is going aft the “worst of the worst,” but that framing has collapsed nether the value of ICE’s ain data, pried escaped by a scope of authorities watchdog organizations, specified arsenic TRAC and the Deportation Data Project. An April study from the Deportation Data Project recovered that ICE arrests of radical without immoderate transgression convictions has skyrocketed compared to the six months anterior to the commencement of the Trump administration. In October, ProPublica reported that migration agents person held oregon detained much than 170 US citizens.

Some of the locations listed connected Aliens.gov don’t look to beryllium cities oregon towns astatine all. One “neighborhood” successful the dataset is an code successful Ohio that corresponds to that of a state-run prison.

The website was primitively registered by the Executive Office of the President successful March, according to 404 Media. At the time, determination was speculation that the website would big records astir extraterrestrial beingness and UFOs, since Trump had promised to merchandise caller accusation successful a February Truth Social post. In anticipation, WIRED acceptable up a publication to show erstwhile the tract went live.

One of the archetypal things visitors to the tract spot is simply a antagonistic labeled “encounters,” ostensibly indicating however galore undocumented immigrants national agents person arrested since Trump took office. The antagonistic is fake. The starting number—3,129,580—is hand-typed into the website, and its upward question is generated by a timer initiated by the visitor’s ain browser, according to a WIRED investigation of the site’s code. The fig does not correspond to immoderate enforcement full published by migration authorities and is astir 7 times larger than the existent ICE apprehension number since January 2025.

Visitors to the tract are meant to beryllium greeted by the opening notes of the X-Files taxable song, WIRED discovered, acceptable to play beneath a stylized “TOP SECRET” stamp and a informing that immigrants person “shopped successful the aforesaid stores, attended the aforesaid classes arsenic our children, and lived seemingly mean quality existences.” The euphony has gone unnoticed due to the fact that astir each browser successful the past 10 years has blocked autoplay audio by default.