The White House’s Aliens.gov Site Brags That ICE Arrested More Than 700 US Citizens | WIREDSkip to main contentMenuSECURITYPOLITICSTHE BIG STORYBUSINESSSCIENCECULTUREREVIEWSMenuAccountAccountNewslettersSecurityPoliticsThe Big StoryBusinessScienceCultureReviewsChevronMoreExpandThe Big InterviewMagazineEventsWIRED InsiderWIRED ConsultingNewslettersPodcastsVideoLivestreamsMerchSearchSearchMaddy VarnerDell CameronSecurityMay 29, 2026 4:53 PMThe White House’s Aliens.gov Site Brags That ICE Arrested More Than 700 US CitizensThe website, which compares human beings to extraterrestrials, touts arrest numbers from the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown. But some of its details are really out there.Photograph: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyA space-themed White House website that mocks immigrants and compares them to extraterrestrials claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested almost half a million people in nearly 12,000 cities and towns in the United States. In 715 of the locations listed, the site identifies at least one of the people arrested as being born in the United States. In 83 of the locations, every single arrestee is reported to be an American.The White House unveiled the website, Aliens.gov, on Thursday after teasing the launch on X with a 10-second video captioned “They walk among us,” leading many users to suspect an announcement about UFOs—the subject of an ongoing Trump administration disclosure effort that produced two releases of declassified files earlier in May. The site turned out instead to be a piece of political theater aimed at dehumanizing immigrants and casting those the Trump administration has arrested as the secret extraterrestrial visitors of UFO conspiracy lore.The site includes information about arrestees’ alleged criminal offenses for each location. People in 3,159 locations are accused of “Immigration.” In 1,082 locations—including Chicago and Minneapolis—at least one of the crimes supposedly committed by the arrestees is “Public Peace,” a category of convictions that includes unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct.In more than one-fifth of the locations the site flags as the site of an arrest, no criminal charges are recorded. Puerto Rico, a US territory whose residents are American citizens, is mapped on the site as a separate jurisdiction; in one row, the site lists Puerto Rico itself among the foreign countries the arrestees came from.The White House said WIRED’s request for comment did not reach its inbox until two hours after it was sent by reporters. It did not address WIRED’s questions.The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that ICE is going after the “worst of the worst,” but that framing has collapsed under the weight of ICE’s own data, pried loose by a range of government watchdog organizations, such as TRAC and the Deportation Data Project. An April report from the Deportation Data Project found that ICE arrests of people without any criminal convictions has skyrocketed compared to the six months prior to the start of the Trump administration. In October, ProPublica reported that immigration agents have held or detained more than 170 US citizens.Some of the locations listed on Aliens.gov don’t appear to be cities or towns at all. One “neighborhood” in the dataset is an address in Ohio that corresponds to that of a state-run prison.The website was originally registered by the Executive Office of the President in March, according to 404 Media. At the time, there was speculation that the website would host records about extraterrestrial life and UFOs, since President Trump had promised to release new information in a February Truth Social post. In anticipation, WIRED set up a script to monitor when the site went live.One of the first things visitors to the site see is a counter labeled “encounters,” ostensibly indicating how many undocumented immigrants federal agents have arrested since Trump took office. The counter is fake. The starting number—3,129,580—is hand-typed into the website, and its upward motion is generated by a timer initiated by the visitor’s own browser, according to a WIRED analysis of the site’s code. The figure does not correspond to any enforcement total published by immigration authorities and is roughly seven times larger than the actual ICE arrest count since January 2025.Visitors to the site are meant to be greeted by the opening notes of the X-Files theme song, WIRED discovered, set to play beneath a stylized “TOP SECRET” stamp and a warning that immigrants have “shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences.” The music has gone unnoticed because nearly every browser in the past 10 years has blocked autoplay audio by default.The music track contains metadata indicating the file was created using late-2000s-era CD-ripping software. Disney Music Group, which has owned the rights to the music since its parent company’s acquisition and merger with Twentieth Century Fox in 2019, did not immediately respond to questions about whether it had given the White House permission to use the recording. The White House did not respond to questions about how it obtained the files and whether it had permission to use it.Ripping a copyrighted track from a CD to score a website is, on its face, precisely the kind of unauthorized reproduction the FBI’s notorious Anti-Piracy Warning Seal program exists to deter.The bureau did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.CommentsBack to topTriangleYou Might Also LikeHow to find us: Add WIRED.com to your preferred sources in GoogleHow the Canvas hack threatened thousands of schoolsBig Story: I've covered robots for years—this one is eerily lifelikeOrbs, saucers, and flashes on the moon—here’s what’s in the UFO filesTake our survey: What does “home” mean to you?Maddy Varner is a senior reporter for WIRED. In the past, she was an investigative data journalist at The Markup, where she brought numbers to stories about labor, education and politics. Before The Markup, she was a researcher at ProPublica, where she was on a team that won a Loeb ... Read MoreSenior Writer, InvestigationsblueskyDell Cameron is an investigative reporter from Texas covering privacy and national security. He's the recipient of multiple Society of Professional Journalists awards and is co-recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. Previously, he was a senior reporter at Gizmodo and a staff writer for the Daily ... 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The website Aliens.gov, launched by the White House, functions as a piece of political theater that draws comparisons between human beings and extraterrestrials while simultaneously presenting data derived from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests. The site attempts to leverage this comparison to frame the arrests made by the Trump administration as the capture of secret extraterrestrial visitors related to UFO conspiracy lore. The site reports arrests across nearly 12,000 cities and towns in the United States, claiming that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested more than 700 US citizens. The details presented, such as the identification of US-born individuals among arrestees in many locations, are presented in a manner intended to dehumanize immigrants.

The presentation of the arrest data within Aliens.gov is scrutinized for its accuracy and intent. The site lists accusations of "Immigration" in 3,159 locations and "Public Peace" in 1,082 locations, which encompasses charges like unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. Furthermore, the site indicates that in more than one-fifth of the flagged locations, no criminal charges were recorded, and Puerto Rico is mapped as a separate jurisdiction within the dataset. This narrative structure is countered by data provided by watchdog organizations, such as the Deportation Data Project, which suggests that the framing by the administration regarding ICE's actions does not align with the underlying data.

Further analysis of the website reveals manipulations concerning the reported statistics. A counter labeled "encounters" is featured, ostensibly to indicate the number of undocumented immigrants arrested, but this figure is not based on official enforcement totals. A detailed analysis of the site’s code indicates that the starting number is hand-typed, and the observed upward movement is generated by a timer initiated by the visitor’s own browser, meaning the displayed figure does not correspond to any official ICE enforcement total and is significantly inflated compared to actual arrest counts.

The aesthetic elements of the website also carry significant implications. Visitors are greeted by thematic elements, including the opening notes of the X-Files theme song displayed beneath a stylized "TOP SECRET" stamp, suggesting a connection to UFO narratives. The music used in this context was derived from late-2000s-era CD-ripping software, which raises questions regarding unauthorized reproduction and copyright, as the FBI's Anti-Piracy Warning Seal program is designed to deter such actions. The lack of response from the White House regarding the source and permission for using these copyrighted files adds to the complexity of the site’s creation.

In summary, Aliens.gov operates as a complex digital artifact that merges immigration data, conspiracy theory tropes, and manipulated visual presentation. It represents an attempt to recontextualize law enforcement activities through a spectacle of extraterrestrial comparison, while simultaneously utilizing and distorting numerical data to support a specific political narrative regarding immigration enforcement.