Comedian Ben Palmer isn’t an ICE officer ― but he’s gotten a pretty good sense of the kinds of anonymous tips the Department of Homeland Security must receive from the public.

That’s because, since January 2025, Palmer has been running an elaborate prank: a fake tip line people can call to report undocumented immigrants. He then posts the calls on YouTube and features some of them in his stand-up comedy.

A year and a half into the gag, the Nashville-based comedian says he’s received hundreds of calls: people reporting their neighbors who side-eyed them, their friend’s immigrant nanny, even someone in the neighborhood who’s driving a car they think is way too nice for them to own.

“Yes, I’ve seen a 20-something-year-old immigrant female driving, like, a brand new Corvette,” the woman says in the clip. “I’m driving a ’95 pickup that’s about halfway running right now, and all these illegals are out here are driving nice cars, buying up properties, stuff like that. I’m, like, what in the world is going on?”

In another call, a man wants to see about getting his estranged wife deported.

“My wife came here. She came here on spouse visa. I’ve got issues with her and she left me,” the man says. “She filed [for] a divorce, and I wanted to know if you could help me to file that back.”

“You want to get your wife deported?” Palmer deadpans.

“I don’t know if that would be possible or not,” the man says.

“So, if it is possible, would you like us to go ahead and deport her?” Palmer inquires.

“Yes,” the man admits.

DHS has its own anonymous tip line; these callers just so happen to find the wrong one. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Washington Post that it was “aware of a fraudulent YouTube page falsely representing ICE” and said the agency “strongly [condemns] any actions intended to mislead the public or impersonate official government entities.”

“Most of the people calling say they think they are supposed to do this,” Palmer told HuffPost. “That it’s their American duty to report people. Then there’s people who want revenge on their enemies and are using the hotline to carry it out for them.”

While the Department of Homeland Security has emphasized that its agents are focused on deporting the “worst of the worst” undocumented immigrants with criminal records, a number of high-profile cases ― including the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in January ― have made the U.S. public skeptical of that claim.

More than half of Americans say they think President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is “too aggressive,” according to a poll from Politico last month. About 26% said that they think his immigration agenda is “about right” and 11% said it’s “not aggressive enough.”

Palmer’s fake tip line shows how far some Americans will go to police one another. In one jarring call, a woman who says she’s a kindergarten teacher in the suburbs calls to report her U.S.-born student’s parents, who are from Central America.

In that call, Palmer, playing the unfazed DHS government worker, runs back what she’s requesting.

“Teaches at school, wants kindergarten child’s parents deported,” he says.

The teacher laughs. “You make it sound terrible!”

With each call, Palmer messages the caller back to say officials looked into the person or family they reported and confirmed they’re in the country legally. Then, in his trademark deadpan, he slips in a joke at the caller’s expense ― usually the moment the prank becomes obvious.

In response to the woman complaining about her Latina neighbor driving a nice car, Palmer quipped: “We did ask her if she could sell it and downgrade to just a bicycle … she wasn’t up for that.”

“Sometimes they don’t want to believe it when I call back,” Palmer said. “Others accept it and seem to be OK with it, and other times they seem a little annoyed.”

“But one person found the video I posted of her and now she calls and leaves me voicemails filled with expletives,” he said. “They are pretty funny. I listen to them before I go to sleep at night.”

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