The Department of Homeland Security has circulated a “Be on the Lookout” alert to law enforcement nationwide, targeting a comedian whose satire of US immigration enforcement went viral.
The subject of the alert, known as a BOLO, was Ben Palmer, a Nashville-based stand-up comedian and prankster who created a parody anti-immigration tip website. His revealing videos of calls with members of the public who thought they were reporting immigrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have garnered millions of views on TikTok and YouTube.
The DHS bulletin was issued by the department’s Nashville field office in February, about a week before The Washington Post profiled Palmer after a kindergarten teacher reported one of her student’s parents to Palmer’s supposed tip page on spurious grounds, thinking she was communicating with the government.
The BOLO, obtained by Injustice Watch through a public records request, was then shared by the Illinois State Police to a distribution list of state and local law enforcement agencies. It was not immediately clear how many other law enforcement departments around the US may also have shared the federal alert.
The alert was headlined “online immigration impersonation” and noted that Palmer, who is a U.S. citizen, “operates a satirical website impersonating a submission form, which acts as a mechanism for reporting suspected illegal aliens.” The BOLO included a screenshot from Palmer’s spoof tip website and two screenshots from his YouTube channel, which had 807,000 subscribers at the time it was captured, along with his photograph.
While Palmer’s site does use language such as “official report form” and says reports are “submitted through official federal channels,” the comedian doesn’t claim to work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the privacy policy contains a disclaimer that the site is “for parody.”
Near the bottom of the alert, DHS acknowledged the comedian did not pose a danger. “At this time, there appears to be no direct threat to life or infrastructure,” the alert reads.
In an email responding to questions, a DHS spokesperson told Injustice Watch, “There is no ‘investigation’ into this individual — this document is an internal memo shared for awareness purposes only,” adding that “law enforcement and civilians should be aware of potential websites and individuals impersonating federal law enforcement.”
The spokesperson didn’t explain how civilians would be made aware of intelligence in an internal document.
Palmer said he didn’t know about the BOLO until an Injustice Watch reporter told him about it. He described being singled out by the government for his comedy as a mark of distinction, though he also expressed some concern that the monitoring on him could escalate into something more serious, such as being arrested.
“In my line of work I always look at these things as more like certificates, badges of honor,” he said.
Darius Reeves, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office director, said BOLOs are usually reserved for serious threats to public safety. They commonly include terms such as “‘considered armed and dangerous,’ ‘approach with caution,’ or ‘do not approach at all’” reflecting the seriousness of the threat they describe, he said.
Reeves said he understands why federal immigration authorities would be wary of a fake tip line but added that issuing a BOLO for a comedian seemed unusual.
“Maybe someone screwed up and created that,” he said.
The Illinois State Police Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center shared the alert about Palmer to its email list “for situational awareness purposes.”
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly did not respond to questions about why his agency shared the BOLO about Palmer. But a spokesperson for the agency, Melaney Arnold, said in an email that the intelligence center regularly shares alerts from other law enforcement agencies “with the understanding that the originating agencies have done their investigative due diligence to disseminate credible and important information.”
Arnold said the agency is “consistently evaluating” its Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center’s practices and “will keep doing so as instances such as this arise.”
Palmer isn’t the first comedian targeted by DHS under the Trump administration for satirizing immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, federal officers took down and detained Rob Potylo while he was wearing a giraffe costume and demonstrating against ICE in Minneapolis. Potylo, a musician and comedian, was also detained by camouflage-clad federal officers in Portland, Oregon, last year. In 2018, DHS agents showed up at the Brooklyn home of comedian Jake Flores after he posted a series of satirical tweets about ICE.
Esha Bhandari, who directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said the BOLO about Palmer could be understood as part of a pattern of DHS targeting private citizens who are critical of the agency.
The federal agency has to know, Bhandari said, “that by taking any official law enforcement action against someone, that they’re intending to scare people away from speaking out against them.”
Palmer said he hopes to rally support from First Amendment attorneys now that he knows his name has been distributed to law enforcement agencies nationwide. But he said it won’t dissuade him from his work.
“I don’t want to get arrested,” Palmer said. “But it would be nice to have a footnote in the history of comedy.”
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