Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Bay Area Social Media Post Claims ICE Cannot Enter Library, Fuels Misinformation

Bay Area Social Media Post Claims ICE Cannot Enter Library, Fuels Misinformation

South Novato Library, California

Pricila Flores

Bay Area community advocates are cautioning community members to be wary of what they see, interact with, and post on social media regarding information about the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and immigration, following a rumor that targeted the Marin County Library.

‘South Novato Library has safe rooms that cannot be accessed by border patrol or ICE without a court order,’ an Instagram story post reads, with photos of a room in the library next to the text alongside the library address. The graphic claims Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not have the right to enter the pictured room without a court-ordered warrant.

Despite the graphic becoming a popular share among the local community of Novato, a Marin County city located just north of San Francisco, the information is false.


“I am extremely concerned that people have taken the information that I shared in a specific meeting out of context and used it erroneously,” Héctor García, Bilingual Community Library Specialist, said in an email statement.

García believes whoever created the post took information he shared earlier in the year from a meeting in which he relayed information given to the library staff by the county. At the time of the meeting, the staff spaces at the South Novato Library were considered off-limits to ICE agents, he stated.

“Someone took a screenshot of this chat and shared it on their social media,” he said. “However, as we agreed in all our meetings concerning Immigrants Rights and Justice is that everything is changing at a fast speed during this administration and that we need to make sure before sharing that we are not misinforming people.”

South Novato Library’s Media Manager, Andre Clemons, said after looking at the post, a few things stood out to him.

“The quality of the image is not something we would produce, and there is no way to verify this information on who to call, but it did have our address, and it was written in a tone as if we wrote it, but that's not something that we write,” he said.

Clemons says he wishes people would call the library before reposting.

Despite the social media post’s claims, ICE agents do not need a court-ordered warrant to enter the South Novato Library. There is an ongoing investigation over the social media post, according to Clemons.

“The hope will be that we are able to protect our voice from being misused in a way that causes confusion and just creating more fear unnecessarily,” Clemons said.

The post became a popular share on social media platforms during a time of unrest and high tension across California after President Donald Trump’s order in April to go after sanctuary cities that “obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws.” Tensions escalated in June when ICE began raiding parts of Los Angeles, and the city began to heavily protest all ICE activity. But it wasn’t just Los Angeles; protests erupted all throughout California in support of the immigrant community.

And for those who didn’t see it on their streets, they saw it on their screens. Social media apps like TikTok and Instagram are used to post sightings, videos of protests, and even videos of people getting detained by ICE.

However, local leaders warn that misinformation is flooding social media platforms at an increasing rate. Lisa Bennett, Executive Director of the nonprofit Multicultural Center of Marin, says misinformation is growing even beyond mainstream social media apps and manifesting in apps like ICEBlock and People over Papers. ICEBlock and People over Papers allow the public to post ICE sightings, confirmed or not.

“It’s difficult [to differentiate between fake and real content], we can’t even differentiate sometimes,” Bennett said. “There are people who do this maliciously, and so I have to look out for that.”

The Multicultural Center of Marin County hosts the Marin Rapid Response Network, a 24-hour hotline that serves immigrants by providing resources and assistance if they are faced with ICE. Bennett says they receive about 10-15 calls a day with people reporting or inquiring about ICE sightings. The network verifies in two ways: by sending trained observers or receiving a call from a community member whose family member has been detained.

Bennett says the most helpful action people can take is to call the Marin Rapid Response Network's 24-hour hotline and relay what they have heard or seen, allowing them to verify the information.

The Multicultural Center of Marin is working to create a mass alert system using its hotline. The hotline will notify the community about ICE's presence and debunk false sightings.

Above all, Clemons and Bennett advise that the community should not repost information regarding ICE without verifying it with the hotline or contacting entities directly, especially if the online content ties entities to specific information, such as the library.

Pricila Flores is a journalist in Northern California. Flores is a UC Santa Barbara alumna with a degree in Language, Culture and Society with a minor in Professional Writing under the Journalism track.

Read More

An illustration of AI chat boxes.

An illustration of AI chat boxes.

Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

In Defense of ‘AI Mark’

Earlier this week, a member of the UK Parliament—Mark Sewards—released an AI tool (named “AI Mark”) to assist with constituent inquiries. The public response was rapid and rage-filled. Some people demanded that the member of Parliament (MP) forfeit part of his salary—he's doing less work, right? Others called for his resignation—they didn't vote for AI; they voted for him! Many more simply questioned his thinking—why on earth did he think outsourcing such sensitive tasks to AI would be greeted with applause?

He's not the only elected official under fire for AI use. The Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, recently admitted to using AI to study various proposals before casting votes. Swedes, like the Brits, have bombarded Kristersson with howls of outrage.

Keep ReadingShow less
shallow focus photography of computer codes
Shahadat Rahman on Unsplash

When Rules Can Be Code, They Should Be!

Ninety years ago this month, the Federal Register Act was signed into law in a bid to shine a light on the rules driving President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal—using the best tools of the time to make government more transparent and accountable. But what began as a bold step toward clarity has since collapsed under its own weight: over 100,000 pages, a million rules, and a public lost in a regulatory haystack. Today, the Trump administration’s sweeping push to cut red tape—including using AI to hunt obsolete rules—raises a deeper challenge: how do we prevent bureaucracy from rebuilding itself?

What’s needed is a new approach: rewriting the rule book itself as machine-executable code that can be analyzed, implemented, or streamlined at scale. Businesses could simply download and execute the latest regulations on their systems, with no need for costly legal analysis and compliance work. Individuals could use apps or online tools to quickly figure out how rules affect them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Microchip labeled "AI"
Preparing for an inevitable AI emergency
Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images

Nvidia and AMD’s China Chip Deal Sets Dangerous Precedent in U.S. Industrial Policy

This morning’s announcement that Nvidia and AMD will resume selling AI chips to China on the condition that they surrender 15% of their revenue from those sales to the U.S. government marks a jarring inflection point in American industrial policy.

This is not just a transaction workaround for a particular situation. This is a major philosophical government policy shift.

Keep ReadingShow less
Doctor using AI technology
Akarapong Chairean/Getty Images

Generative AI Can Save Lives: Two Diverging Paths In Medicine

Generative AI is advancing at breakneck speed. Already, it’s outperforming doctors on national medical exams and in making difficult diagnoses. Microsoft recently reported that its latest AI system correctly diagnosed complex medical cases 85.5% of the time, compared to just 20% for physicians. OpenAI’s newly released GPT-5 model goes further still, delivering its most accurate and responsive performance yet on health-related queries.

As GenAI tools double in power annually, two distinct approaches are emerging for how they might help patients.

Keep ReadingShow less