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But the Department of Homeland Security immediately flagged the story as suspicious. The Morning Call had published serious allegations — without bothering to get a single official comment from DHS or ICE.
According to an official DHS statement, the newspaper’s article went live “without any facts from DHS about major allegations made against law enforcement.”¹
While the media was still fueling the fire, federal officials were already working to uncover what had really happened.
The first major red flag came from the Guatemalan government. Officials at the country’s migration agency — which works directly with ICE — said they had no record of anyone named Luis Leon being deported from the United States. Nothing matched his name, age, or nationality.²
Then came a devastating discovery.
Chilean reporter José María del Pino with Canal 13 decided to investigate the mystery himself. Using public records, del Pino located a man named Luis Guillermo Zúñiga León — with the same birthday — who had died in Chile back in 2019.
Del Pino didn’t speculate. He produced the man’s death certificate and handed it over to authorities.
Meanwhile, Chilean diplomats launched a full search of Guatemala City hospitals. Not a single medical record or patient even remotely matched the missing man.
By July 21st, the Department of Homeland Security had seen enough. Assistant Secretary Kristie Canegallo McLaughlin issued a direct and damning statement:
“ICE never arrested or deported Luis Leon to Guatemala,” McLaughlin declared.¹ “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.”
McLaughlin revealed that ICE had no record of Leon attending a green card appointment on June 20. In fact, the only record of this individual entering the U.S. was in 2015 under a Chilean visa waiver — and nothing after that.
“This was a hoax peddled by the media who rushed to press without pausing to corroborate the facts with DHS,” she said. “This was journalistic malpractice.”¹
After DHS dismantled the narrative, the same outlets that ran the original story without fact-checking began quietly editing their headlines and issuing corrections.
Newsweek was forced to rewrite its headline and insert multiple disclaimers noting that DHS flat-out denied the deportation ever occurred.
Even The Morning Call published a follow-up that contradicted their own reporting. By then, the Leon family had stopped speaking to reporters altogether.
DHS also revealed that the family had been contacted by someone pretending to be an immigration attorney — a woman who told them Luis Leon had died in ICE custody. To this day, no one knows who she is or how she knew about the case.¹
Despite the overwhelming evidence, progressive groups like the Lehigh Valley Emergency Response Network doubled down. They bizarrely claimed ICE was “sowing confusion” — even though they couldn’t produce a single shred of proof that Leon was ever arrested.
The facts didn’t matter to them. The narrative did.
This wasn’t just sloppy journalism — it was a coordinated disinformation campaign designed to smear Trump’s immigration enforcement and stir up hate against law enforcement officers.
And it came at a dangerous time.
ICE agents are already facing an 830% rise in physical assaults — a shocking statistic that makes phony stories like this not just irresponsible, but downright reckless.
Legitimate immigration cases were drowned out. Resources were diverted. America’s reputation abroad was dragged through the mud by media outlets that ran with a lie.
This is part of a growing trend where left-wing media pushes unverified claims so long as they serve an anti-Trump narrative.
They don’t wait for the facts. They don’t contact officials. They publish now and “correct” later — because they know the damage is already done.
The Morning Call never even contacted DHS before publishing their bombshell. That’s journalism 101.
The American people deserve better than weaponized lies. They deserve a media that reports facts — not one that manufactures fake scandals to take down a President working to secure the border and protect the country.
