White House Forced to Admit It Wrongly Accused Man of Child Sex Crimes
The error was made as the Trump administration touted the “worst of the worst” immigrants arrested in Minnesota.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
The White House has made an embarrassing U-turn after falsely labeling a man a child sex offender on social media.
The official White House X account, which has more than 3.6 million followers, posted a series of images featuring alleged undocumented immigrants the administration claimed were among the “worst of the worst” arrested in Minnesota.
One of the men featured was Victor Manuel Carranza, a Honduran national convicted of larceny and identity theft. However, a graphic shared by the White House falsely indicated that Carranza had committed child sex crimes.
The White House deleted all of the images it posted on Jan. 26 after NOTUS inquired about the error, in which the crimes of another individual appeared to have been displayed on a graphic featuring Carranza.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt listed the "Worst of the Worst” immigrants arrested in Minnesota during a Jan. 26 press conference.
Brendan Smialowki/AFP/Getty Images
In a statement, the White House acknowledged the mistake but offered no apology to the Honduran man it had falsely suggested was a child sex offender.
“In the process of highlighting the dangerous criminal illegal aliens arrested by law enforcement, two images of criminal illegal aliens were mistakenly swapped,” a White House official told the Daily Beast. “The error has been corrected and the Administration will continue publicizing the dangerous criminal illegal aliens being removed from our streets.”
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The names of and alleged crimes of the immigrants, including Carranza’s, were also released in a Jan. 27 press release from the Department of Homeland Security.
The Trump administration has repeatedly pushed false and misleading information as it carries out its hardline immigration policies in Minnesota.
That includes immediately attempting to label Renee Good and Alex Pretti—two Minneapolis residents killed by federal immigration agents—as “domestic terrorists” who wanted to harm or kill agents, despite video evidence of both shootings clearly contradicting those claims.
The White House was also condemned after it posted a digitally altered image of a woman arrested at an anti-ICE protest in St. Paul, Minnesota, last month, making it appear as though she was crying while being detained.
The suspect also appears to have darker skin in the altered image shared by the White House.
@Sec_Noem and @WhiteHouse/X
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem had shared the original photo of suspect Nekima Levy Armstrong being arrested before the White House reposted the AI-generated version showing her sobbing.
Kaelan Dorr, the White House deputy communications director, defended the decision to share the fake depiction of Armstrong’s arrest online.
“YET AGAIN, to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country, I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue,” Dorr posted on X. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
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