ICE: Social media rumors of checkpoints and sweeps are "false, dangerous and irresponsible"

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday night, February 15th that widespread reports on social media of roundups and checkpoints designed to arrest illegal immigrants are not true.

On Wednesday afternoon, FOX6's sister station Q13 News in Seattle began receiving a number of tips from viewers claiming there were ICE checkpoints in Burien, Kent, Federal Way and Lakewood, Washington.

A Q13 crew went to a commonly cited location in Burien and didn’t see any checkpoints or other federal law-enforcement activity.

“Reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps or “roundups” are false, dangerous and irresponsible,” the agency said in the first of several tweets.

Widespread fear of deportation has sparked false rumors like this since President Donald Trump took office, and that those have escalated since Daniel Ramirez, a "DREAMer," was arrested and detained in Seattle late last week.

Federal authorities are reiterating that the 23-year-old Mexican man who was arrested at his father's house in the Seattle area faces the possibility of deportation despite his participation in the program to protect those who arrived in the U.S. illegally.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that Medina is a gang member and has been transferred to a detention Center in Tacoma to "await the outcome of removal proceedings."

His lawyers have denied he is a gang member.

The statement said that participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program can have their status revoked if they're found to pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Of the more than 750,000 people who have been granted deferred action status since 2012, about 1,500 have had it revoked because of criminal convictions or gang affiliations.