Does a photo show a white American flying a Mexican flag while driving a truck through Minneapolis as a way to make ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents waste their time? No, that's not true: The photo shown in the social post making the claim that the practice is called "ICE fishing" was taken in Los Angeles by photographer Mark Abramson and published in The New York Times in June 2025. An online image search for "ice fishing" yielded only photos of people actually fishing through ice and no Mexican flags.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) shared by the @LePapillonBlu2 account on X on February 6, 2026, with a caption that read:
So apparently white Americans in Minneapolis are putting Mexican flags on their cars so ICE agents waste time pulling them over. They call it ICE fishing. 🤣😂
This is what the image shared in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of X.com)
A reverse image search found the same photograph used to illustrate this New York Times article (archived here) titled "The Mexican Flag Becomes a Potent L.A. Protest Symbol" published on June 8, 2025. The caption under the photo read:
Trump officials have homed in on Mexican and other Latin American flags that are flying at the protests in Los Angeles.Credit...Mark Abramson for The New York Times
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of NYTimes.com)
A Google image search (archived here) for "ice fishing" returned only photos of the winter fishing activity, with no Mexican flags visible.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google.com)
Lead Stories found no credible news reports of any 'ICE fishing' trend in Minneapolis or elsewhere in the United States. The term 'ICE fishing' typically refers to the winter activity of fishing through holes cut in frozen lakes.
