This article is co-edited with Documenteda multilingual news site about immigrants in New York, and Dialinga nonprofit investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good.
One video told viewers that new immigrants easily obtain work permits and good jobs in the United States. Another warned viewers not to change their mailing address or transfer their asylum case once in the United States if they moved to another state. Another told them to reapply for asylum if they did not receive a recognition letter within a few months.
All of these videos were posted on TikTok in French or Wolof, the languages spoken by many of the West African immigrants who have arrived in New York City in the past two years.
Documented reviewed hundreds of videos like these. Some were intended to inform, advise or persuade viewers and appeared to have good intentions. Many showed migrants sharing their experiences. First-hand experiences of the asylum process to encourage others in their position, and some were candidly filmed in supermarkets, on park benches or in their cars.
However, other videos were not so well-intentioned.
An industry of highly coordinated smuggling organizations is using social media apps like TikTok to promise hassle-free travel services — securing plane tickets, helping with visa applications, or providing places to stay during trips to the U.S. One migrant from the Republic of Congo told Documented that a smuggler took him to Brazil, where another agent housed him for two months in a safe house with 10 other African migrants and drove them across the dangerous Darien Gap to Panama.
Documented spoke to five Senegalese men who immigrated to New York City last year and who said TikTok played a major role in their decision to make the arduous journey to the U.S. Like thousands of others, other migrants These five men, who came to the United States from China, Latin America, and West Africa, were inspired by the testimonies of other migrants they saw on TikTok about their journeys to the city. And, like many other migrants, they were frustrated that the hardships they faced in the United States contrasted sharply with the optimistic videos that inspired them to make the journey. Even after arriving in the United States, TikTok continues to play a huge role in their new lives.
Over the past five months, Documented analyzed the TikTok viewing history of five Senegalese immigrants between the ages of 22 and 36 who arrived in New York in the past two years. For many members of this predominantly non-English-speaking community, this was their first time leaving their home country, and navigating New York City felt isolating and filled with incomprehensible rules and uncertainty. TikTok became a valuable place to gain information, providing them with seemingly helpful advice, from how to open a bank account to how to pronounce common English phrases.
Documented identified about 300 videos that had been viewed by at least three men who shared their TikTok history. Between jokes and football clips, the men watched videos that provided biased or inaccurate content about vital matters like how to fill out legal forms to apply for asylum, which if acted upon, could derail their asylum processes and integration into American society.
In one of the misleading videosThe poster talks about Mayor Eric Adams’ policies towards the city’s migrant population.
The video, narrated in Wolof, shows a man translating and explaining what he claims is news. It shows a screenshot of an English-language headline from the newspaper. Manhattan Institute websitealong with a photo of Adams.
In the video, the man falsely claims that the mayor is handing out $50 million in cash to distribute among New York City’s migrant community, and urges viewers to “share this video widely” as it could “change the lives” of immigrants.
Here’s what actually happened. In February, Adams introduced a program offering prepaid debit cards for migrant families to use to buy food and baby supplies — not $50 million in unconditional cash payments.
Ass Malick Lo, 30, learned that people were taking the Central American route to the United States in August 2023, both through social media and from people he knew in his home country of Senegal. He watched live streams of people making the route, as well as pre-recorded videos. He had the contact information for an uncle in New York City and used his savings and money borrowed from a friend and from the sale of his car to make the trip.
Lo said that when he arrived in New York, he relied on TikTok: the videos helped him escape his surroundings, made him laugh and feel like he was hanging out with Wolof-speaking friends. The social media app became one of the few sources of information and emotional support he could easily turn to when he had questions.
“Immigrant influencers are filling a void, sometimes providing hopeful information, but not always truthful,” said Elora Mukherjee, a law professor at Columbia Law School where she runs the immigrant rights clinic. Mukherjee said it’s dangerous to have some of the most repeated misinformation online about how “easy” it is to travel, apply for asylum and work legally in the U.S.
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“I was led to believe that when I came I would have papers and find work, but that is not the case,” Lo said.
Instead, after submitting their asylum applications, migrants must wait at least six months before they can obtain a work permit. Asylum seekers and local officials have called for reforming work permit eligibility rules as a top priority to ease the burden on the city to house them and meet their basic needs.
“We should be a unified front at all levels of government calling for expedited federal work permits “To ensure that asylum seekers can work legally,” New York City Councilmember Shahana Hanif said in an op-ed in 2023. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called on the White House to produce work permits in an interview with Documented last year. “What we’re asking for is for the federal government to get out of our way, so that our economy can function and we can integrate new Americans like New York and New York City have always done,” she said.
Forced to rely on consecutive shelter stays and deliveries of food, clothing and other daily necessities, asylum seekers sometimes find unauthorized and unregulated temporary employment, such as delivering food, loading shipping containers and washing dishes in restaurants, to support themselves.
“It is this built-in waiting period that burdens the city, and until people can work legally, instability and often exploitation will continue,” Mukherjee said.
“I am lucky enough to be able to read and write. I have met immigrants who have missed the deadlines for having their fingerprints taken or for attending court appearances because they do not understand the content of the letters they receive about their asylum cases,” says Lo, who has a degree in French.
Through his struggles to find stability in the U.S., Lo has come to understand the damage that misinformation causes not only to himself but to the Senegalese immigrant community to which he belongs.
Now Lo verifies the information she gets on TikTok by translating government websites from English to French and following verified news channels on social media.
“I would use TikTok with skepticism and verify the information I see before acting on it, knowing what I know now,” Lo said.
Additional information from Lam Thuy Vo