White House posts digitally altered picture of woman arrested after ICE protest and says ‘the memes will continue’

Human Rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong was one of three people arrested yesterday in connection to a demonstration that disrupted church services in St Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday.

Protesters alleged that one of the pastors, David Easterwood was the acting field director of ICE.

Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem posted an image of Armstrong being arrested at 10.21am on Thursday. The image shows a law enforcement agent, face blurred out, escorting Armstrong, who appears to be handcuffed. Armstrong has a blank facial expression in the image.

Around 30 minutes later, the White House shared another image in which she is in floods of tears, it is exactly the same shot as the initial image but with Armstrong’s face distorted into tears.

Asked whether the image had been digitally altered, the White House responded by sending a post on X from Kaelan Dorr, the deputy communications director.

“YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

It comes as the US administration faces fury after a five-year-old child was detained by ICE after attending pre-school.

JD Vance claimed the ICE agents were making sure the boy didn’t get cold.