An unverified rumor that Venezuelan gang members were preparing to kill police officers spread like wildfire through US law enforcement agencies last year, internal records reveal, only for federal officials to later quietly acknowledge the claim was mistaken.

The intelligence report, which appears to have first been disseminated by a local New Mexico police department in July 2024, suggested that the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang had directed its members to “fire on or attack” law enforcement. The vague assertion quickly traveled among law enforcement agencies. It even made its way into a formal proclamation by Texas governor Greg Abbott, and was repeated by Republican Congress members as evidence of the dangers of Venezuelan immigrants and Democrats’ border policies.

There is a long history of US officials falsely painting immigrant groups as criminal and violent to justify crackdowns on migration, said Deep Gulasekaram, professor of constitutional and immigration law at the University of Colorado, noting how propaganda about the dangers of Chinese immigrants, including claims that they threatened white women, was used to justify the Chinese exclusion act in the late 1800s.

“It is so easy in this country to sell a story about immigrant danger, and the claims have such staying power,” he said, noting no study has ever credibly found a link between immigration and crime. “It’s amazing how fast falsehoods about noncitizens and their danger will make its way through every media channel.”