SEATTLE – A White House website referencing undocumented immigrants as “aliens” who “walk among us” has drawn strong pushback from civil rights advocates. Critics argue the platform uses rhetoric that dehumanizes non-citizens and misrepresents regional immigration data.

The site, which details millions of immigration encounters nationwide, features a tracker showing local arrest figures, including 542 in Seattle, 487 in Tukwila, and 716 in Yakima. Though the online interface attributes these statistics directly to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

When FOX 13 Seattle reached out to federal officials regarding the data, they said the inquiries went back to the White House, stating the numbers reflect more than just ICE operations.

Human rights advocates warn that the website’s framing ignores the real-world demographics of immigration enforcement and uses rhetoric designed to isolate non-citizens.

Rhetoric and dehumanizing framing

The federal platform frames non-citizen populations as a covert threat, using language that mimics sci-fi tropes. Civil rights groups caution that referring to immigrants in this manner actively feeds public hostility and xenophobia.

“Honestly, it’s the same sort of dehumanizing rhetoric that we’ve seen from this administration over and over again, and it’s disgusting and incredibly troubling,” said David Montes, staff attorney at the ACLU of Washington. “Immigrants make up an integral part of our community and are important members of the fabric of our society, and they should not be dehumanized by this.”

Montes noted that the administration’s messaging relies heavily on division.

“They’re trying to make it seem like these folks are just totally different than people who are citizens, and it’s just not true at all,” said Montes. “As I said, immigrants are an important part of our community who have the same values as all of us.”

Dissecting criminality and data surges

While the administration’s digital site associates localized arrest counts with criminal charges, legal experts and independent studies reveal a vastly different picture.

“We know that 60 or 70% of the people that they have arrested for immigration violations do not have any criminal history,” Montes said. He points out that the administration often manufactures arrests by targeting individuals in administrative settings, such as immigration court hallways.

Recent findings support these concerns. According to data analyzed by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, immigration enforcement in the Pacific Northwest experienced a sharp surge, recording nearly 2,250 arrests in the final three months of the year. The research indicates that the majority of those targeted during this enforcement spike had no prior criminal records.

Concerns over hotline and vigilantism

The website encourages members of the public to report “suspicious aliens” and features closing remarks assuring readers that apprehending non-citizens ensures they are in “good hands” before deportation.

Legal defenders argue these statements obscure documented mistreatment inside detention centers and promote dangerous racial profiling.

“They’re trying to reach an arbitrary quota, and this is a piece of, frankly, propaganda that’s meant to make that more palatable to people,” Montes said. He warned that soliciting public tips encourages vigilantism, retaliation, and aggressive tactics that endanger both citizens and non-citizens alike.

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SEATTLE — Sinclair’s AMP Sports announced Tuesday the launch of The Dark Side, a new podcast featuring Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl champions Derick Hall and Byron Murphy II, alongside KOMO News Sports Director Niko Tamurian.

Each week, The Dark Side will go beyond traditional game analysis, with Hall and Murphy offering a firsthand look at life inside their NFL season, the preparation, the locker room camaraderie and the moments fans don’t typically get to see, with Tamurian bringing his deep knowledge of Seattle sports and the Seahawks to the conversation.

The podcast, presented by the Western Washington Toyota Dealers, premieres Tuesday, Sept. 8, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast platforms, with extended video versions available on YouTube. New episodes will be released weekly.

The Dark Side will also air on KOMO and KUNS, including a special airing on KOMO Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 3 p.m., ahead of the Seahawks opening the NFL season in a Super Bowl rematch with the New England Patriots.

“Fans rarely get the opportunity to hear directly from active players as they experience an NFL season in real time,” said Pete Gianesini, Director of Network Programming, Podcasts.

“Derick and Byron have incredible chemistry, strong personalities and a perspective that only comes from being inside that locker room. After giving fans an inside look at their lives on Hard Knocks, The Dark Side gives them an opportunity to go even deeper and hear directly from them throughout the season. Pairing Derick and Byron with Niko and the reach of KOMO and KUNS creates a unique destination for Seahawks fans all season long.”

The Dark Side is produced in partnership with Sinclair’s KOMO and KUNS in Seattle and is part of AMP Sports’ growing portfolio of national and local sports podcasts, bringing together high-profile athletes, coaches, broadcasters and personalities to give fans distinctive perspectives on the teams and sports they follow.

Fans can follow The Dark Side and watch exclusive clips across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at @seattledarkside and on X at @darksideseattle.

The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Friday, alleging in federal court that the tech companies copied the newspapers’ journalism without permission to train their AI systems.

The suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft scraped the newspapers’ websites, including content behind paywalls, and incorporated articles into datasets used to train and operate products including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI features.

The newspapers, based in Seattle and Long Island, New York, said the companies’ AI products can reproduce passages from their reporting, closely paraphrase articles and provide users with answers that reduce the need to visit their websites or buy subscriptions.

Government Backs OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Case

“We feel strongly that we must defend our content – which we spend millions of dollars a year to produce – from being used without our consent or compensation,” Seattle Times President and CEO Alan Fisco wrote to employees, according to the newspaper.

A spokesperson for San Francisco-based OpenAI said its models are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use, without commenting specifically on the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for Microsoft, based near Seattle in Washington state, said in an email: “While we’re surprised by the lawsuit, we appreciate the importance of local journalism and we’re always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.”

The Seattle Times and Newsday are seeking an order requiring the destruction of copies of their works as well as training datasets or AI models incorporating them.

The lawsuit echoes a case filed by the New York Times in 2023, which accused OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of newspaper articles without permission to train OpenAI’s popular chatbot. The case is ongoing, and is one of dozens brought by copyright holders against tech companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta for what they say is misuse of their material to train AI systems.

(Reporting by Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Natalia Bueno Rebolledo in Mexico City; Editing by William Mallard)