In July and August 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the owner of Trump Burger, a Texas hamburger chain named for U.S. President Donald Trump, would be deported after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revoked his green card.
A popular version of the claim showed a Houston Chronicle image of a Trump Burger location in Bellville, Texas, with the caption, "The owner of Trump Burger is being deported. His green card was revoked. You can't make this s*** up."
The claim also circulated on Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), X (archived), Bluesky (archived), Reddit (archived) and TikTok (archived).
The claim likely originated from reporting by the Fayette County Record in early July 2025. According to this report, a lease-termination letter featured in a lawsuit brought by Roland Beainy, the restaurant leaseholder for Trump Burger in Kemah, Texas, claimed Beainy was in ICE custody in early June 2025. The Fayette County Record reported in July that Beainy had been able to post bond and had an immigration hearing scheduled in Houston in November, citing the landlord who sent the lease-termination letter.
However, a report by the Houston Chronicle in 2022 claimed Beainy was born in the U.S. and described him as Lebanese American, suggesting he might be a U.S. citizen by birthrigh
Due to these conflicting reports, Snopes could not independently verify whether Beainy had a green card (an immigration status that allows the holder to legally live and work in the U.S.) or citizenship, whether ICE revoked either or whether Beainy was facing deportation. Though U.S. citizens have not historically been deportable, the Trump administration has looked into this possibility as part of its deportation.
We reached out to Beainy, his lawyer Geoffrey Binney and ICE to confirm Beainy's immigration status and the Fayette County Record's report that he had an immigration hearing scheduled in November. We await replies to our queries.
Claims said Beainy caught in Trump's immigration push
Despite describing himself in January 2025 as a "huge" Trump supporter, Beainy appeared to have gotten himself tangled up in the president's promised deportation push by the summer of that year.
A lease-termination letter that was featured as an exhibit in a June 2025 lawsuit claimed that Beainy was in ICE custody at the time his landlord, Archie Patterson, sent that letter on June 9. Beainy filed the lawsuit after Patterson evicted him from the Trump Burger Kemah premises.
The letter read, "We have been notified that Roland Beainy is currently detained by ICE and his Green Card has been revoked. He is no longer recognized as a leaseholder or authorized representative of Trump Burger Kemah LLC."
Beainy sued Patterson for an undisclosed amount after he alleged Patterson breached the lease contract for 409 Bradford Ave., the location of Trump Burger Kemah, by failing to give Beainy adequate notice before forcing him and his staff off the premises and rerouting payments meant for the business to his own accounts. Patterson countersued, and both suits remained unresolved at the time of this writing.
Patterson told the Fayette County Record on July 7 that Beainy had been in ICE detention for seven weeks and had "recently" posted bond. We reached out to Patterson to ask how he knew Beainy's immigration status and await a reply.
According to the Fayette County Record, Beainy had an immigration hearing scheduled in Houston on Nov. 18, 2025. We contacted ICE to confirm this date. Immigration hearings do not always result in deportations, though they are often part of a process that ends with that result.
Beainy built burger chain but questions over ownership remain
According to media reports, Beainy came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 2019 (though accounts differed as to whether he had been in the U.S. before). Beainy claimed he founded the original Trump Burger restaurant in Bellville, Texas, in 2020 — not to be confused with the former Trump Cafe in Bellville, which an Israeli-born couple, Eddie and Sue Hawa, opened in 2016.
Local media reported in the spring of 2025 that Beainy would expand the number of Trump Burger locations from two to four throughout that year. Trump Burger in Kemah and Houston opened with fanfare and a visit by Trump impersonator Michael MJ Falato, who is often seen on Trump Burger's Instagram page.
However, an April 2025 lawsuit cast doubt on the actual ownership of the Trump Burger chain. According to the Fayette County Record's report, Beainy sued Hawa, half of the couple that founded the Bellville Trump Cafe (named in the suit as Iyad Abuelhawa) in April 2025, claiming he paid Hawa for a 50% ownership of Trump Burger LLC.
Fayette District Court, where the Fayette County Record said Beainy filed his lawsuit against Hawa, does not make documents from lawsuits available to view online. Therefore, Snopes could not independently verify the Fayette County Record's reporting.
Beainy faces legal woes apart from deportation
Though it was unclear whether ICE was considering deporting Beainy at the time of this writing, the entrepreneur was not short of other legal troubles related to his business.
Along with Hawa's reported countersuit over ownership of the Trump Burger chain, Patterson also countersued Beainy for the fees that he said led to the June 9 lease termination letter that effectively evicted Beainy from Trump Burger Kemah.
Hawa reportedly sought damages of $1 million, while Patterson sought to recover damages of at least $39,000.
Meanwhile, the Fayette County Record reported that Trump Burger in Bellville (which Beainy said he founded in 2020) received a cease and desist letter from the Trump Organization in February, demanding that it stop using "the Trump name, brand and trademarks and to remove all references to the Trump name in all websites, social media, marketing and communication materials."
Snopes asked Binney, Beainy's lawyer, for a copy of this letter but had not independently verified its contents or existence at the time of this writing. We reached out to the Trump Organization to confirm the existence of this letter and await a reply.
In sum ...
In conclusion, at the time of this writing, it was hard to say anything for certain about Beainy's legal status in the U.S. or his ownership of Trump Burger LLC. Conflicting reports cast doubt on whether Beainy might be a U.S. citizen, and reports that ICE allegedly detained him came from a man Beainy had sued. A separate, unresolved lawsuit arose from disputes over Beainy's degree of ownership of Trump Burger LLC.
Regardless of who did own the chain, the restaurants appeared to be operational under the Trump name at the time of this writing — despite a reported cease and desist letter from the Trump Organization.