In a bid to generate sympathy in the hate-Trump media, and swindle money out of gullible hate-Trumpers, illegal aliens are perpetrating hoaxes about deportations by vicious Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, or worse, “kidnappings” by ICE-affiliated “bounty hunters.”
Two recent cases highlight the problem. Just yesterday, The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, kinda-sorta confessed it was hoaxed by a tale of woe. ICE had whisked away a Chilean grandpappy for no reason.
Before that, a Mexican illegal claimed she was kidnapped and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass swallowed it whole. Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon now faces charges of conspiracy and lying to federal agents.
Nut of the story: Claims of ICE “kidnapping” innocents off the streets are false.
Chilean Not Deported
The Morning Call claimed that a beloved Chilean grandpa had “disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system a month ago” and hadn’t been seen since. They even “thought he was dead.”
Luis Leon, 82, and his wife supposedly went to Philadelphia on June 20 to renew his green card, the newspaper reported. He “was handcuffed by two officers, who led him away without explanation. His wife, who speaks little English, was left behind and kept in the building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family says.”
There followed the usual lachrymose yarn about the poor, put-upon grandfather.
Citing Leon’s granddaughter, Nataly, the newspaper then reported that he was in a hospital in Guatemala.
Then came this interesting detail:
However, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration, which tracks migrants sent to that country, said it has not received anyone of South American origin, and said there is “no person who matches the name, age and nationality mentioned by the media.”
The Associated Press found that out.
Finally, the Morning Call published the truth, but not a correction or retraction. ICE says Allentown grandfather Luis Leon was never taken into custody, calls family’s story a ‘hoax,’ the paper wrote.
The story included the facts from the Department of Homeland Security.
“The family of the individual allegedly told reporters he was handcuffed and taken by federal officers at a green card appointment in Philadelphia,” DHS reported:
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.
Suddenly, the family clammed up, The Morning Call reported:
Leon’s granddaughter, Nataly, told The Morning Call she had visited him in a hospital in Guatemala City. He was in his sixth day of treatment for pneumonia and traumatized by the events of the past month, she claimed.
She did not respond to further requests for comment Monday, a day after her family issued a statement saying they would no longer speak to the media and were asking for privacy.
Citing the AP report again, the newspaper also disclosed that Jose Del Pino, a Chilean journalist, “said a doctor at the Guatemala City hospital where Nataly claimed to see her grandfather had no record of him”:
Additionally, Del Pino said, a man by the same name and date of birth died in Santiago, Chile, in 2019. Chilean citizens are issued national identification numbers and none matches another person with that name and birthday, he said. Del Pino provided a copy of the death certificate to The Morning Call.
Fake Kidnapping
In early July, a 41-year-old illegal called Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon staged her own hoax, the Justice Department alleged last week. This one involved an attorney for the family who claimed she was kidnapped.
The attorney “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.” There “she was presented to [a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] staffer” and “presented with voluntary self-deportation paperwork,” DOJ explained:
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.
Of course, the false claims received the usual hate-Trump hysteria. They also just happened to provide Calderon’s daughter the chance to make mucho dinero.
She “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.’ … [T]his entire story was fabricated,” DOJ alleges.
There followed a probe by Homeland Security Investigations. On July 5, agents found Calderon in Bakersfield, yet she continued to claim that “masked men” kidnapped her.
In fact, video “video surveillance — including video of Calderon leaving the Jack in the Box parking lot and getting into a nearby sedan — as well as telephone records demonstrate Calderon fabricated the entire story,” DOJ alleges:
Calderon and her family knew that law enforcement was searching for her and feared for her safety, but Calderon and her family did not come forward. Instead, Calderon created what law enforcement believe to be fabricated photos of her “rescue,” made to look as if she was abused while in ICE custody and planned to hold a press conference on July 6 to increase donations to the GoFundMe page and to obtain other benefits.
If convicted of the conspiracy and false statements charges, Calderon faces up to five years in prison for each crime.
DOJ did not say whether it was investigating or would charge the daughter and lawyer who spread the falsehood.
Among those pushing the hoax were, again, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Bass was once a leader in the Venceremos Brigade, a front for Cuban intelligence.
The hyperlink to the story Bass cited about Calderon no longer works.
