‘Only a matter of time’: Bobbi Althoff warns after ICE detains close friend who’s worked in U.S. for 20 years

Podcaster and influencer Bobbi Althoff has spoken out against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the agency arrested a close family friend who she says has lived and worked in the country for decades without a criminal record. In a TikTok video posted on October 1, 2025, Althoff called the arrest a worrying example of the Trump administration’s stepped up immigration enforcement actions.

The 28-year-old host of Not This Again said that someone who had been close to her family for the past 20 years was recently taken into custody. She said the person does nothing other than work hard to provide for his family and has no criminal record. Althoff said that ICE agents showed up in an unmarked Nissan with blacked out windows, did not read the person his rights, and made him sign something before taking him to a detention center.

Althoff, whose mother is of Mexican ancestry, warned that current immigration policies are dangerous for everyone. “I get that it’s easy if you are white and this is not gonna affect you, but it’s not gonna not affect you forever,” she said in the video. “Because once you have someone with that much power and control, it’s only a matter of time before it does affect you or someone you love.” She also said that she sees this as a human rights issue rather than a political one, and accused ICE of racial profiling.

Numbers show change in ICE detention patterns

New data backs up Althoff’s worries about how immigration enforcement is working right now. Numbers from the Deportation Data Project and immigration tracking groups show that about 71.5 percent of people being held in ICE detention as of September 21, 2025, have no criminal convictions. Many of those who do have convictions were charged with only minor offenses, like traffic violations.

The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement a lot since taking office in January 2025. ICE has deported nearly 200,000 people in the first seven months of the current administration, which is much more than recent years. The agency is expected to go past 300,000 deportations in fiscal year 2025, which would be the highest level in over a decade. Similar cases have come up, including a Trump voter who said he regretted his vote after his wife faced deportation over a $25 bad check.

In her follow-up video, Althoff spoke directly to President Trump and asked for an interview. “I think perhaps you surround yourself with people who agree with you, and you need to hear another perspective,” she said. She pushed other influencers and anyone with a big platform to speak out about the issue.

The video got over 1.6 million views, with many people in the comments thanking Althoff for using her platform to talk about the issue. Fellow influencer Snow Tha Product thanked Althoff for speaking up. But some people in the comments disagreed with her trying to make the issue seem non-political, pointing out that mass deportations were a key Republican campaign promise in 2024.