A fake ICE tip line reveals neighbors reporting neighbors

A Nashville comedian’s deportation hotline, set up as a joke, has gone viral among viewers who say it shows the “banality of evil personified” in the U.S. immigration crackdown.

Ben Palmer, a stand-up comic in Nashville, has built a following online with his signature style of elaborate deadpan pranks, stumbling his way onto court TV shows and pyramid-scheme calls to poke fun at the latent absurdities of American life.

Then last January, he had an idea for a new bit: He’d set up a fake tip line that people could use to report anyone they thought was an undocumented immigrant. It was darker than his other stunts, but it felt topical, the kind of challenge he wanted to try. At the very least, he thought, he might get a few calls he could talk about at his next show.

Instead, his website has received nearly 100 submissions from across the country: people reporting their neighbors, ex-lovers, Uber drivers, strangers they saw at the grocery store. One tip came from a teacher reporting the parents of a kindergarten student at her school.