A viral rumor that food delivery app DoorDash collaborated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spread across the internet in mid-June 2025. The claim purported that DoorDash was sharing information with ICE to crack down on illegal immigrants under the employ of the company operating as food delivery drivers.
The rumor was shared widely on social media, particularly through numerous posts on TikTok (archived, archived, archived), Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), Instagram (archived) and Reddit. The widespread nature of this particular rumor led many Snopes readers to reach out via email about the validity of the claim.
Many of the accounts sharing the claim featured an image of an alleged ICE agent arresting a female delivery driver along with text of the purported story.
The full text shared in some claims read:
Ice takeout is gone
[Break] ICE and DoorDash cooperate internally, and the delivery track of the delivery staff becomes a law enforcement "fishing net" — 36 people have been arrested in Southern California
LOS ANGELES, June 13, 2025 — According to multiple sources, the Immigration Enforcement Agency (ICE) has recently quietly launched a technical cooperation with DoorDash, a well-known food delivery platform, to obtain real-time positioning and order delivery route data of food delivery staff through the background, and implant fixed-point tracking and raids. At present, many food delivery staff have been arrested during food delivery.
DoorDash has reached "data sharing agreements" with some federal agencies as early as the end of 2024, the main purpose of which is to "assist law enforcement in combating illegal labor and identity fraud," but the plan has not been disclosed to the public.
The key law enforcement area is Southern California, including Los Angeles County, Orange County and the coastal area of San Diego.
According to statistics, only two days from June 12 to 13 …
However, the rumor that DoorDash is collaborating with ICE to deport its immigrant drivers is false. No credible news outlets reported on this claim, and a search for the alleged text in the claim turned up no results other than more posts sharing the same rumor.
A spokesperson for DoorDash also confirmed to Snopes via telephone that the rumor being shared online is not true and provided a statement via email saying, "The image and content are completely false — it's AI-generated misinformation designed to spread false information and create confusion. This shows how easily fake content can spread and why it's critical to verify information before sharing. Facts matter."
DoorDash also said it "does not have any special agreements with any law enforcement agency" and that "the claims made in the post are demonstrably false."
Further, DoorDash's webpage, titled, "Guidelines for Law Enforcement Authorities Requesting Information from DoorDash," stated that for United States law enforcement requests, the company requires "a subpoena, court order or search warrant issued in connection with an official criminal investigation."
The page continued:
For requests relating to the metadata or transactional information of specific communications between people using DoorDash (such as date and time of communication), we generally require either a search warrant or a court order issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 2703(d) or a state equivalent, and to obtain the actual contents of such communications or GPS location information, we generally require a search warrant. We may make exceptions to these requirements for emergency requests (as described below), or where other legal or regulatory standards apply.
An "emergency request," according to the company, involves "an immediate threat of death or serious bodily harm to a person."
DoorDash also requires extensive identity verification in order to be approved as a driver.
Finally, the purported article shared in the claims features an image that appears to be generated with artificial intelligence (AI). Running the image through HiveModeration and the WasItAI image detector both returned results that the image was most likely AI-generated.
(WasItAI)
Some clues to its fakery include the alleged delivery driver dressed as an Instacart worker — a competitor of DoorDash — and the Instacart logo appearing in the image does not align with the company's brand guidelines. Also, ICE agents do not typically wear a standard police uniform like the one depicted in the image and have been predominantly wearing masks during raids.
Further, the copy included in the claim gets basic facts and grammar wrong, further indicating its unreliability. For instance, the copy misnames ICE as the "Immigration Enforcement Agency" and offers no specifics about the "36 people" allegedly arrested. A search online for more information yielded no results.
DoorDash's social media team publicly responded to some of the posts circulating the claim online, such as their comment on a TikTok video (archived) that read, "The image and article circulating are both fake, AI-generated content. To be clear: this is entirely untrue. Please be careful of what you see online."
(DoorDash and JDash on TikTok)
The same comment (archived) was left in response to a post on X (archived) sharing the claim.
With the rumor beginning to circulate in mid-June 2025, it's possible its origins stem from various news stories circulating around that time. First, The Denver Post reported the release of a woman who was detained for nearly eight months "while attempting to deliver a DoorDash order to Buckley Space Force Base."
Another story that could have inspired the false claims was the arrest and subsequent deportation of Jesus Jose Carrero-Marquez, a New Mexico man who was working as a DoorDash delivery driver at the time of his arrest.
According to Source NM, "an independent, nonprofit news organization" servicing New Mexico that is part of the wider States Newsroom organization, Carrero-Marquez is described as "a father and husband who makes a living as a DoorDash delivery driver, while seeking asylum on behalf of himself and his family after being injured in a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro several years ago."
The Source NM article was published on June 13, 2025, the same date mentioned in the false news report in the claims.