For a few chaotic hours on Reddit this week, a short clip out of Manhattan’s Chinatown in New York seemed to confirm everyone’s worst fears about immigration enforcement under the current administration. Masked ICE agents, faces covered, were seen surrounding a man on the street while one officer appeared to consult a laminated booklet filled with various color swatches.
By the time the post hit 15,000 upvotes, the narrative, while shocking, was clear: federal agents were supposedly roaming New York City, detaining people based on their appearance.
Except that isn’t what was happening.
The video, shot near the intersection of Canal and Centre Streets, shows what at first glance looks like a disturbing display of profiling. A man shouts that he’s from Brooklyn while officers restrain him. The booklet in one agent’s hand looks, to the untrained eye, like a “color palette.” For many online, it immediately recalled Family Guy’s infamous “right color/wrong color” gag.
But users who took a closer look at the footage and compared it with local reports quickly pieced together a far more mundane explanation. The “skin tone chart” was not a racial profiling tool; it was a street vendor’s catalogue of counterfeit designer handbags and luxury items.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a branch of ICE, confirmed earlier this month that it had conducted a series of raids targeting counterfeit goods operations across lower Manhattan. These vendors often use photo catalogs to advertise replica Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Gucci bags, allowing buyers to place orders without displaying the fakes in public.
In this case, it appears one of those catalogs ended up in the possession of an ICE agent as evidence– though at a glance, it certainly looks like something else.
Reddit user Macrike was among the first to notice the truth:
“Looking at the video frame-by-frame, it looks like some kind of catalogue of tote bags and other types of bags. No idea what that’s about.”
Soon after, others confirmed the same.
“Recently had a trip to NYC and Canal Street specifically,” wrote Honoredwilks. “The catalogues are for counterfeit designer handbags. You pick the bag and color you want and follow the person onto a side street.”
A CBS New York report from earlier this year corroborates that description, showing identical catalogs used by unlicensed vendors in the same area.
It’s easy to see how the story spread. The footage’s ambiguity offered the perfect ingredients for virality. The top comment on the Reddit thread summed up the collective panic in one biting phrase:
“Racial inquisitor stormtroopers. Look different? Guilty until proven innocent.”
Within hours, speculation evolved into certainty, and certainty hardened into outrage. Only later, buried among thousands of comments, did the more mundane (but accurate) explanation emerge.
Even with the misunderstanding cleared up, questions linger about priorities and proportionality. As Reddit user Prosthemadera put it:
“Ignoring the fact that an armed squad in bulletproof vests to arrest one guy selling fake purses is completely overkill and unnecessary.”
That tension defines much of ICE’s public image. The agency’s broad mandate, aggressive tactics, and opaque communication style make it uniquely susceptible to moments like this. The Chinatown clip may not show racial profiling, but it still underscores how ICE’s presence in urban areas invites fear and speculation, often for good reason.
In the end, the so-called “skin tone matrix” turned out to be a handbag catalog. The viral thumbnail of the agent holding it will almost certainly outlive the correction, just as the meme will spread further than the truth. The takeaway for me is that in 2025 America, sometimes the real story isn’t about what’s happening, but what people believe is happening.
