White House Photo Of ICE Protester Flagged By AI Detector For Digital Manipulation

The White House is under fire for allegedly posting an AI-altered image of activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, the woman arrested on Thursday along with two others in connection with the Sunday demonstration in St. Paul, Minnesota. The arrests were confirmed by US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who announced them on social media.

In a report by The Guardian, Kristi Noem, homeland security secretary, initially posted a photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong's arrest on Thursday morning, where a handcuffed Armstrong was being escorted by a law enforcement officer, her face blurred out.

Though the photo showed a calm and collected Armstrong, she appeared once again in an image posted 30 minutes later by the White House. The image showed Armstrong in tears instead. Further analysis by the Guardian confirmed it had been altered.

When reaching out to the White House for clarification on the alteration of the image, the White House responded with Deputy Communications Director and Deputy Assistant to the President Kaelan Dorr's post on X (formerly Twitter).

The post read, '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.'

AI-Driven Messaging

US President Trump's administration has used the platform - and AI - to spread messages. According to Poynter, the White House X account has over a dozen posts that use AI-generated images.

In the report, Rutgers University associate professor of communication Katherine Ognyanova refers to Trump's AI approach, saying, 'While presidents have been known to distort reality in the past, there is no precedent for this regular dissemination of deepfakes from the Oval Office. This lack of concern matches President Trump's general approach to AI — hands-off, anti-regulation.'

Since January of 2025, the US President's X account, currently with over three million followers, has seen a spike in AI posts. These posts include a deepfake video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. in a sombrero and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. saying, 'Nobody likes Democrats.' Another post on Trump's X account showed him cartoonised, telling Jerome Powell, 'You're fired.' His posts even featured former US President Barack Obama.

Armstrong's Arrest

Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, and William Kelly were arrested following Sunday's protest. NBC News reports that protest organisers said the three were calling for pastor David Easterwood to resign, citing his ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

According to FBI Director Kash Patel, Armstrong is facing charges for violating a federal law barring physical obstruction of houses of worship. Jordan Kushner, who is representing Armstrong, said in a statement to NBC News that Armstrong was 'arrested for doing a peaceful nonviolent protest in a church," and that the demonstrators at the protest "were engaged in an exercise of free speech.'

Protests have surged in Minnesota following the shooting incident of Renee Nicole Good, which resulted in her death at the hands of an ICE officer three weeks ago. Vice President of the United States JD Vance said of the current protests, 'If you go and storm a church, if you go and assault a former law enforcement officer, we're going to try very hard, we're going to use every resource of the federal government to put you in prison.'