Critics of the deportations ordered by President Donald Trump made a story go viral that tried to garner sympathy for a migrant scooped up in a deportation operation, but the story went up in flames after the truth came out.
The video shows a migrant who was going to self-deport but instead gets detained by federal agents as his pregnant wife looks on in tears and begs them to stop.
‘Wow. US is really turning into a facist [sic] country.’
The story was meant to show the heartlessness of the Trump administration and the mass deportation policy.
“ICE abducted Justin Chung on June 12th. He had plans to self deport but ICE abducted him & put him in a concentration camp w/ terrible conditions before he got a chance to leave America, he had a flight booked and everything,” the post reads. “His wife, Neftali, is 6 weeks pregnant.”
It garnered more than 7.1 million views and elicited strong responses against President Donald Trump.
“Wow. US is really turning into a facist [sic] country,” reads one response.
“Destroy ICE and every person who worked for them must be reprogrammed,” reads another reply.
“America is literally all the worst things in the world,” said another detractor.
A community note then unraveled the campaign.
The note detailed that as a teenager, Chung had joined a gang and was convicted of murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced to 82 years in prison but served only 14 years. He married a U.S. citizen in Oct. 2023 but was notified by ICE to report for deportation on June 12. He was detained unexpectedly as he was preparing for voluntary departure from the U.S.
In 2022, he spoke to KTLA-TV to ask the governor for a pardon in order to avoid deportation. He had been checking in with ICE at that time.
Chung was reportedly brought to the U.S. from South Korea when he was 2 years old, according to the Korea Daily. After release from prison, Chung had worked to mentor at-risk youth and spoke out on gang prevention.
“My husband has lived a changed life after serving time for a crime he committed in his youth,” wrote Neftali Chung in a post on GoFundMe. “Deporting him would destroy our family.”
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