A Texas man now faces multiple charges after allegedly impersonating a federal officer to detain and search two people. The man’s arrest now has police searching for other victims, and the incident has highlighted potential dangers of the heavy-handed immigration enforcement techniques being used under the Trump administration.

A 44-year-old man from Galveston, Texas, has been identified by police as someone who appears in viral video clips conducting what seems to be a fake traffic stop. In videos taken of the November 2025 incident, a man in a military-style uniform detains a Black motorist, searching the man’s truck as he stands outside the vehicle. In the video, several bystanders confront the uniformed man. The man shines his flashlight into the eyes of those filming him. After being demanded to give his name and badge number, the man at first angrily refuses, before shoving a badge at those filming him. The man later gets into the passenger’s seat of an unmarked blue car, which then drives off.

Robert Harvey and Bruce Rebmann, two of the bystanders, described to ABC 13 why they confronted the man. At first, Harvey observed, the man “was doing everything a normal police officer does,” Harvey told the outlet. “He had people’s IDs in his hand, he was shining a flashlight at these people in the face.”

However, Harvey noticed that the man’s uniform “looked like it just came in from TEMU,” ABC 13 reported. “It wasn’t like what real cops wear.”

After the man left, Harvey and Rebmann found police officers and reported the strange encounter.

“I felt like this guy needed to be snitched on,” Harvey said. “That was very dangerous what he was doing. We don’t like bad cops, but somebody pretending to be a bad cop is worse than a bad cop.”

Authorities battle ICE impersonators

A police investigation of the incident led them to arrest Joshua Warner, identifying him as the man in the video. Police executed a warrant for Warner on Dec. 22, taking him into custody from his Galveston home and charging him with two counts of impersonating a public servant for allegedly posing as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent during the recorded incident. Galveston Police report that a search of Warner’s home turned up “multiple items of evidence, including a fraudulent law enforcement identification card and a badge.” Authorities also took Warner’s car, which they claimed looked similar to an unmarked police car. They suspect that Warner may have carried out a similar impersonation on other occasions and have encouraged any additional victims to contact the police.

Warner’s apparent impersonation of an ICE agent comes as the agency has been heavily criticized for its violent tactics and lack of transparency under the Trump administration. Critics of ICE have often warned that their strong-armed tactics and secretive nature — frequently operating with masks, plain clothes and unmarked vehicles — created a danger of criminals posing as agents to commit kidnappings or other crimes. In the year since Trump returned to office and began his immigration crackdown, several people across the country have been arrested for posing as ICE agents to commit crimes, including kidnapping and sexual assault.

Warner’s case is the latest of an individual appearing to pose as an ICE agent to violate the rights of others. This case continues a worrying trend and illustrates the dangers that aggressive ICE tactics create for the public, adding to concerns about the agency and its actions.