Claim:
A police chief in Bloomington, Minnesota, said that when law enforcement arrested an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee in an underage sex sting, the suspect said, “I’m ICE, boys.”
Rating:
Context
The ICE employee worked as a civilian auditor, not as an officer.
In mid-November 2025, a rumor spread online that law enforcement in Bloomington, Minnesota, arrested an Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee on suspicion of soliciting a minor for sex — and that employee, according to a police chief, said, “I’m ICE, boys,” during his arrest.
The rumor circulated on X, Instagram, Facebook and Reddit.
It was true. Minnesota police announced during a Nov. 18 news conference that they arrested 16 men who allegedly attempted to solicit a minor for sex. According to Bloomington police Chief Booker Hodges, who called the sting “Operation Creep,” one of those men works for ICE and flaunted his credentials during his arrest.
Some of the claims used the word “agent,” possibly implying the suspect was a uniformed ICE officer. Hodges, however, said the suspect works as a civilian auditor for ICE. Snopes reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and, which oversees ICE, to confirm the suspect’s employment and await a response.
Here’s what Hodges said during the news conference (emphasis ours):
So what I’m going to talk about today, is starting on Nov. 5, us, along with the [Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension], Eden Prairie Police Department, Roseville Police Department, Airport Police Department and Richfield Police Department, conducted “Operation Creep,” which we were looking for individuals who were trying to purchase sex from a 17-year-old girl.
We have the very best detectives here in the city of Bloomington. And I, for the life of me, don’t understand why people want to come here and do this, or do it just period anyway, but especially coming here to the city of Bloomington.
Everybody worked so hard in this operation, and we arrested 16 people.
Hodges then went on to list the suspects, before getting to the ICE employee at timestamp 9:14 (emphasis ours):
This is a tragedy, in many respects. People at the Department of Homeland Security — I know there are great people there that come to work every single day and do their jobs and do it admirably. Unfortunately, “Mr. Recently-Married-Back” here is not one of those people. He works for ICE and he is an auditor for them, a civilian employee. When he was arrested, he said, “I’m ICE, boys.” Well, you know, unfortunately for him, we locked him up, put him in our jail. He got reappropriated to our jail.
And my understanding is, he helped send people to send federal authorities. I think he’s going to see some federal authorities because I think the feds are going to take this case.
Hodges said he believed the ICE employee was the only arrestee who could face federal charges, but law enforcement “still had to verify that” (see 15:37).
The full video of Hodges’ news conference is available on Minneapolis-St.Paul’s TV station KMSP’s YouTube page:
