A rumor that circulated online in October 2025 claimed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago rescued seven missing children while raiding a warehouse to detain immigrants in the country illegally.
Without providing evidence to substantiate the alleged event, popular social media posts claimed, "ICE raided a warehouse in Chicago and found 7 missing children! Why does the left hate this?" For example, one Facebook user's Oct. 11 post with the claim (archived) received around 100,000 total reactions, comments and shares.
(Noah's Nation/Facebook)
The rumor circulated during President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and efforts to deploy National Guard troops in U.S. cities including Chicago.
Snopes readers searched our website for information about the claim; that ICE agents supposedly found seven missing children while raiding a warehouse in Chicago. Numerous users shared the claim on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), TikTok, Threads (archived), Truth Social (archived) and X (archived).
Some social media posts alleged the same raid resulted in officials locating "83 unlicensed weapons" or "83 unregistered firearms."
There was no evidence of those things happening. Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo located no news media outlets or independent blogs, including conservative-political websites, confirming the claims. If ICE agents had located missing children while raiding a warehouse in Chicago, local journalists would have widely reported on the event.
In short, users who shared the claims misrepresented genuine news events. In early October, news outlets reported authorities found seven missing children and seized 83 firearms in Memphis, Tennessee — not Chicago — as part of a White House initiative to curb crime. No available reports mentioned ICE agents being involved in the effort.
Authorities discovered the children and weapons in Memphis over days, presumably in various locations, as evidenced by rising numbers in local news outlets' near-daily reports.
Snopes has yet to independently verify those news reports about authorities locating seven missing children and seizing 83 firearms in Memphis, which cited the Trump administration for the information.
We contacted the White House to confirm the reporting, as well as to inquire whether ICE played a role in any missing children cases in Memphis. Snopes also emailed the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, as well as the Department of Justice. We will update this report if we receive additional information.
The rumor's origin
TikTok user @benhadthew appeared to be the first user who posted about the alleged ICE raid in Chicago, sharing two videos on Oct. 8.
In one video, the user said of authorities, "It turns out, they found 83 unlicensed firearms." He added, "On top of that, they found seven missing children." (We reached out to that TikTok user to learn the basis for the videos, and we will update this report if we learn more.)
Two days before those TikTok videos posted,
One week later, the
News events in Washington D.C. could have also inspired the rumor about ICE agents in Chicago supposedly finding seven children.
On Sept. 4
They range in age, as you mentioned. But you know, we had a 14- and a 16-year-old that are persons of interest in a sex-crimes investigation where a 41-year-old is being accused of using a 16-year-old girlfriend, that is luring these other young girls to them. All five of our missing children found are women, are females, and they're all, as you said, under the age of 17.
Days later, on Sept. 8, the Washington-based ABC affiliate, WJLA, reported officials rescued seven, not five,
There have been 2,120 arrests since the start of President Donald Trump's federal operation to lower crime in Washington, according to new data from the White House on Monday.
[...] Two hundred fourteen firearms have been seized, seven missing children were rescued and 50 homeless encampments have been cleared during the operation.
In our inquiry to the White House, we asked whether ICE agents played a role in finding those children, as well as for information on missing-children cases in Chicago that could have led to the false rumor.
On Sept. 22, Serralta reported in a news release that authorities in Chicago found a missing New York child "in the company of two adult men in the country illegally."
For further reading, we previously investigated a claim alleging federal agents zip-tied children to restrain them during a Chicago-area immigration enforcement action on Sept. 30.