White House aliens.gov website lists US citizens among arrested

The Story

The White House launched a website called aliens.gov on Thursday that mocks immigrants and compares them to extraterrestrials, claiming Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested almost half a million people. The site lists 715 locations where at least one person arrested was born in the United States, and in 83 locations every arrestee is reported to be an American. The site includes a counter that WIRED found to be fake, with a starting number hand-typed and motion generated by the visitor’s browser.

Key Facts

• Aliens.gov was unveiled on Thursday by the White House after a teaser video on X captioned “They walk among us.”
• The site claims ICE arrested almost half a million people in nearly 12,000 cities and towns.
• In 715 of those locations, at least one arrestee is identified as born in the United States; in 83 locations, every arrestee is reported to be an American.
• Puerto Rico, a US territory, is mapped as a separate jurisdiction and listed among foreign countries on the site.
• A counter labeled “encounters” shows a starting number of 3,129,580 that is hand-typed into the website and increases by a timer initiated by the visitor’s browser; it does not correspond to any official enforcement total and is roughly seven times larger than actual ICE arrests since January 2025.
• The White House stated that the site “pulls data directly from DHS, which initially included a handful of non-immigration HSI arrests” and that “this has been updated.” WIRED’s review of updated data found 270,214 fewer arrests listed.
• The site was originally registered by the Executive Office of the President in March.
• The site’s code includes an X-Files theme song track, but autoplay is blocked on most browsers. Metadata indicates the file was created using late-2000s-era CD-ripping software. Disney Music Group, which owns the rights, did not respond to questions about permission. The White House did not answer questions about how it obtained the files or whether it had permission.

Conflicting Reports

No conflicting reports identified in the source article.

Still Unclear

Whether the White House had permission to use the X-Files theme music; why the arrest counter does not match official ICE totals; why US citizens appear in the arrest data.

Misconceptions

No widespread misconceptions addressed in the source article.

Key Figures

No specific individuals named in the source article.

Sources: Wired