On social media, immigrants and their allies are working together to track ICE officers in real time.

When Sheidriany Pomales was scrolling TikTok during a break from her job at a kindergarten, she came across a video that made her stomach sink. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were hanging around the entrance to the subway on 125th Street and Lexington — right next to where Pomales, her mother and many of their friends live.

She quickly exited the app and called her mom with a warning and a request that she pass the information along. Her mom used WhatsApp to reach out to undocumented friends and co-workers who made plans to take alternate routes to work or skip errands such as grocery shopping. Pomales made her own video about the alleged sighting on her go-to social platform, TikTok, using the algospeak code phrase “ice cream truck” instead of ICE or the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

“I get my news from TikTok, so if I learn something about ICE, I’m going to share it there,” said Pomales, 20, who immigrated legally to the United States in 2014.

Amid a crackdown on illegal immigration by the Trump administration, immigrants and their advocates are using social media platforms to share real-time locations of ICE vehicles and officers. The social media effort is helping some people avoid run-ins with ICE, but it’s also led to a flurry of unverified reports as well as backlash from activists who favor President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach.

In the first two weeks of March, conversations surrounding ICE amassed almost 300,000 mentions on platforms X, Reddit and YouTube — a more than fivefold increase compared with the same period in February, according to data from analytics firm Sprout Social.

“These organic online networks and movements have now become as impactful as community organizations,” said Julia Jean-Francois, co-executive director of the Brooklyn-based social service organization Center for Family Life.

A spokesman for ICE referred to the Justice Department when asked whether tracking ICE activity online is against the law. The Justice Department declined to comment.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump “was elected with a resounding mandate to secure our borders and mass deport criminal illegal migrants,” adding that the administration plans to fulfill that mandate and send a message that U.S. immigration law must be enforced and respected.

People online are rushing to post and re-share alleged sightings. Martin Alfaro, 33, uses Facebook and WhatsApp groups to keep track of ICE activities in Philadelphia where he lives. In the group “PHI Latinos,” he has seen many reported sightings, including one that claimed ICE agents were staking out a popular row of restaurants on Ninth Street.

The sighting was debunked by a local immigration nonprofit, which posted a fact-check on its own Facebook page, Alfaro said. But when he went down to Ninth Street the next day to check things out, many businesses had posted signs prohibiting anyone from entering without checking in with restaurant staff. The row was nearly deserted, he said.

The unverified reports intensify fear and confusion for immigrants in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, advocates say. That fear is part of the Trump administration’s strategy, said Murad Awawdeh, president of the nonprofit New York Immigrant Coalition.

“We don’t want to have mass fear and panic in our communities,” Awawdeh said. “So it’s important that people who are sharing also share the responsibility of putting out the right information.”

For individuals and families who are undocumented, the cost of a run-in with law enforcement is so high that it’s often better to sift through dubious information on social media than risk an encounter. For undocumented people living in smaller communities with strong taboos around immigration status, TikTok and other platforms might be the best resources they have, legal experts said.

On Reddit, people across the country have flocked to r/LaMigra, a forum dedicated to documenting and discussing ICE activities. Some name specific sightings — “ICE at Market Basket in Chelsea,” says one post re-shared from r/Massachusetts. Others funnel users toward nationwide tools such as Juntos Seguros, a shared map where people could report ICE sightings and attach photos. But Juntos Seguros shut down in mid-March — its owners left a message on the site saying they could “no longer maintain this project in the way it deserves.”

Ryan Bates, 41, regularly checks his local subreddit, r/AnnArbor, for mentions of ICE. Bates said he spent from 2009 to 2011 running a rapid response network in Michigan — people called in with alleged ICE sightings, and volunteers would show up to confirm the reports, ensure officers followed the law and support detainees. Since then, efforts to track ICE have changed with social media users boosting alleged sightings just by watching or commenting on posts. A significant chunk of the reported sightings turn out to be fake.

Sometimes, digital counterattacks are successful at sabotaging online efforts to track ICE. The LaMigra subreddit, for instance, temporarily shut down in late January after the Instagram account Libs of Reddit shared one of the forum moderator’s name, face and address publicly, its organizers said. The moderator was allegedly flooded with death threats and anti-immigrant and antisemitic attacks, according to a statement shared with The Washington Post. She stepped down to protect her safety, according to the statement. A person who identified themself as the account holder of Libs of Reddit said they were merely sharing information from a public post.

Nonetheless, efforts to track and delay ICE have ballooned on social media while traditional rapid response networks operate on smaller stages. People Over Papers, a collaborative map that shows alleged ICE sightings across the country, has received more than 12,000 reports since it went viral on TikTok in late January, according to one of its organizers, Celeste, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of retribution from the government.

People Over Papers has no established system for verifying reported sightings, with a team of about 30 volunteers skimming submissions for signs of fraud, Celeste said. She spends about 35 unpaid hours a week coordinating and monitoring the project. But the task is big, the resources are few and the onlookers are many.

Celeste was at lunch with her partner this Valentine’s Day when texts started pouring in: The right-leaning X accounts Libs of TikTok and Wall Street Apes had shared her face and handle, saying that People Over Papers was allegedly helping criminals evade law enforcement. Volunteers reached out saying the map was being bombarded by false reports, some of which appeared to be generated by bots, Celeste said.

“The reason this took off is because there’s a need for it,” said Celeste, who intends to continue growing the People Over Papers map, even in the face of harassment and false reports. “Sure, there’s a rush when you post [ICE sightings] to social media. But this is many people’s main way of helping.”

As for Pomales, the kindergarten teacher in Harlem, she said she’ll keep posting TikToks about ICE movements to help her loved ones — and thousands of online strangers — avoid detention or deportation.

“As long as people are engaging and your content is getting out there, you’re doing your part,” she said.