PHILADELPHIA — As Pennsylvania’s immigrant community worries over deportations under the new Donald Trump administration, a vehicle and its driver presenting as a member of “ICE Volunteer Corps” is stirring anxieties in Chester County.

There is, of course, no such thing as a volunteer division of Immigration Customs and Enforcement, the federal agency the president has tasked to ramp up raids and deport millions of undocumented people in the opening weeks of his second term.

But that didn’t stop the driver from brandishing the fraudulent ICE stickers on the side and back of a white Jeep this month, one spotted by residents in both West Chester and Kennett Square in recent days — the former home to thousands of undocumented people who work in the region’s agricultural industry.

West Chester University, in a statement sent to the campus community Monday, confirmed that the school had received complaints about the vehicle on its campus. The university confirmed its existence via photos and security footage.

“Upon thorough review by the WCU Department of Public Safety, the reported vehicle is not believed to be an official government vehicle,” the statement said.

Put more plainly: “We believe that the vehicle’s unofficial signage was meant to create confusion and concern,” the statement continued.

Lindsey Sweet, an immigration attorney in Chester County, said she’s heard multiple reports of people spotting the vehicle around Kennett Square, the nation’s mushroom-producing capital and home to a growing population of asylum-seeking migrants from countries such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

According to Sweet, as well as photos viewed by The Inquirer, the vehicle is affixed with what appear to be police lights on top.

Sweet said that in addition to the West Chester University sighting, the vehicle had been spotted parked outside of a Wawa in the Kennett Square area.

“There’s a lot of fear,” Sweet said. “[The Jeep] has really rattled the community, even though it’s a private citizen who has the sticker on their car. It’s caused a lot of fear — unnecessarily.”

A spokesperson for ICE in Philadelphia said the agency does not have volunteers, but did not return a subsequent request for a statement about the vehicle.

An administrative member of the Kennett Square Police Department said that the department did not have knowledge of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, members of the Latino community have been quick to take action to dispel fear and rumors.

In the Facebook group “¿Qué Pasa, Kennett Square?,” a member of that community posted photos of the vehicle on Jan. 24 with the warning in Spanish that it was “Not ICE.”

“We’ve sent the information to the police since it’s illegal what he’s doing,” the user wrote, according to Facebook’s Spanish to English translation. “If you see similar cars and you are not sure if they are really ICE, take a picture so you can investigate if they are actually ICE officers.”

The post generated a flurry of comments and activity, as users claimed they, too, had spotted the vehicle at Acme, McDonald’s, and other Chester County locations.

It is a federal crime to impersonate an ICE officer, and penalties can include fines and imprisonment.

West Chester University said its officers were on heightened alert over the vehicle, though security footage did not yield a clear photo of the vehicle’s license plate number.

‘They’re not prepared’

For Sweet, one half of the law firm Sweet & Paciorek, the vehicle incident is just one element of the confusion that’s swept her clientele since Trump’s inauguration this month.

Deportations of criminals happened regularly under the Biden administration, though Trump has vowed to ramp up enforcement and overhaul immigration policy to vastly limit the number of migrants in the country.

ICE raided a North Philadelphia car wash this week, arresting seven immigrants. Nationally, military cargo planes are being used to fly migrants to Colombia and border patrol agents are turning away those who may have previously entered the country and applied for asylum.

Sweet said that migrants she works with have varying immigration statuses, though many are asylum-seekers with work authorization who are waiting for immigration court hearings despite a backlog that’s led to wait times of up to several years.

A major fear among undocumented agricultural workers in Chester County, according to Sweet, is that the Trump administration will expand its expedited removal policy, meaning those who have yet to have their court hearing could be subject to deportation as they wait to see a judge and make their case for asylum.

“There’s a large group of people who are here who are relying on the fact that they’re going to have this court hearing and haven’t done anything about their case yet,” said Sweet, who spent a marathon week advising both nonprofits and individuals about what rights immigrants have during an ICE encounter.

“If that court date goes away and they’re now being removed from the United States,” Sweet said, “they’re not prepared for that.”

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