The Legend Of Luis Leon: The Media Embraces Another Anti-Ice Hoax

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“When the legend becomes fact…print the legend.” Those words from an editor to a young reporter in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” still appear to be the modus operandi of the media. That was demonstrated this week with the legend of Luis Leon after The Morning Call in Allentown, PA, printed yet another harrowing account of ICE agents “disappearing” an immigrant. According to a story quickly picked up by other eager outlets, the 82-year-old grandfather, a legal asylum holder, was roughed up and then deported to Guatemala. The problem is that there appears to be no proof supporting the story of the “family members” cited by the reporter.

According to The Morning Call, Luis Leon, a Chilean national, was trying to replace his lost green card at a local USCIS office when he was suddenly deported to the wrong country, Guatemala, and he ended up in a hospital with pneumonia. The story further recounted how Leon’s wife was kept in custody in brutal conditions for 10 hours before she was released.

Media, including The Guardian, eagerly picked up the story of another “disappearing” of an immigrant.

As the story went viral, a few people decided actually to look into the case and found that it not only made no sense but there is no evidence of such a deportation.

For its part, The Morning Call changed key facts but did not withdraw the story as a hoax.

Guatemala states that there is no record of Leon entering the country. While the granddaughter claimed he was sick in a Guatemalan hospital with pneumonia, a doctor at the hospital claimed that there is no record of him being there. At the same time, Chilean authorities are saying that a man with the name Luis Leon with the same birth date as the Luis Leon died in their country in 2019.

Then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) became involved and stated that there was no record of any such arrest or deportation. It also mentioned that there was no green card appointment in Philadelphia or arrest at the location cited by the family. It clarified that the only record of this man is from 2015 under a waiver program, not an asylum program, as alleged.

Chilean journalist Jose Del Pino confirmed that there is no record to support the U.S. media’s claims and that a man by the same name and date of birth died in Santiago, Chile, in 2019.

Nevertheless, The Morning Call continued to run claims by “Nataly,” the supposed granddaughter.

The DHS issued a statement slamming the media for another hoax without a modicum of effort to confirm the facts:

The Morning Call, an Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper published the following headline on July 20, 2025, without any facts from DHS about major allegations made against law enforcement:

The family of the individual allegedly told reporters he was handcuffed and taken by federal officers at a green card appointment in Philadelphia. This claim is completely false. There is no record of the man appearing at any green card appointment in or around the area of Philadelphia on June 20, 2025.

Furthermore, ICE has not deported Luis Leon—a Chilean national—to Guatemala, as his family members have said. ICE’s only record of this individual entering the U.S. is in 2015 from Chile under the visa waiver program.

According to reporting by the Associated Press, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration—which coordinates with ICE on all deportations from the U.S. to Guatemala—claims they have not received anyone matching the name, age or nationality of Luis Leon back into Guatemala.

According to the report, the family alleges a woman claiming to be an immigration lawyer called and offered to help them but did not disclose how she knew about the case. The family claims this individual also told them Leon died in ICE custody.

“ICE never arrested or deported Luis Leon to Guatemala. Nor does ICE ‘disappear’ people—this is a categorical lie being peddled to demonize ICE agents who are already facing an 830% increase in assaults against them. This was a hoax peddled by the media who rushed to press without pausing to corroborate the facts with DHS. This was journalistic malpractice,” said Assistant Secretary McLaughlin.

The story had the same feel as the widely reported whipping of migrants by border agents. The media went into a frenzy over a false story accusing mounted officers of whipping undocumented migrants near Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 19, 2021. Reporters like CNN’s April Ryan continued to peddle the false story for years despite being debunked.

Like this story, it could have been immediately refuted by any reporter. Indeed, the photographer captured the scene, which showed agents using bridle reins to guide their skittish horses. The entire videotape clearly shows the agents using the reins on their mounts, not on the migrants. Not only did the photographer quickly deny seeing any officers whip migrants, but the videotape clearly refuted that allegation. However, for many in politics and the media, it did not matter because it played into a racial-justice claim of the “whipping (of) Haitian asylum seekers.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) condemned “the inappropriate use of what appear to be whips by Border Patrol officers on horseback to intimidate migrants.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) decried “images of inhumane treatment of Haitian migrants by Border Patrol — including the use of whips.” Vice President Kamala Harris emoted on “The View” about how the brutality “invoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, it has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.” Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) described the incident as “worse than what we witnessed in slavery” and “white supremacist behavior.”

President Biden rushed to express his own revulsion and rage, too: “It was horrible what — to see, as you saw — to see people treated like they did: horses nearly running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay.”

The Administration delayed the results of the findings but eventually admitted that there was no such whipping. It still said it would punish the agents for other violations in what some of us viewed as a face-saving measure for President Biden.

In reading the original story, there was little support outside of the claims of the family and key elements of the story appeared to change as others challenged the account.

Frankly, I am still mystified by this controversy. It is hard for me to believe that a family would fabricate such facts while supplying pictures and details of this kind. Yet, the changes in the story and the fact of corroborating material undermine the account. Perhaps the family can produce further evidence in the coming days but, at a minimum, the newspaper ran with a story that lacked such foundation.

In the end, it does not matter that the story may be false. After all, you can get a Pulitzer prize for a debunked story funded by a political campaign.  It fits the preferred narrative of many in the media. It is the scourge of “advocacy journalism” where reporters pursue social or political agendas in framing the news.

If there is support for its story, The Morning Call needs to publish those facts. If not, there is a story in all of this on how a hoax went viral, but it is not the one that most reporters would relish.