There are a few things you expect when calling a federal agency—voicemail purgatory, a labyrinth of option menus, maybe a callback in seventeen business days if you’re lucky. You probably don’t expect to be rerouted to the great American drive-thru, but that’s the flavor of bureaucratic farce that reportedly played out in Cincinnati this week. According to several news outlets, local immigration attorney Trisha Chatterjee says that, after repeated attempts to reach Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for help with her detained clients, she was finally given a contact number by an agent. Instead of assistance, Chatterjee claims, the number connected her to a Taco Bell in Columbus.

What’s a stay of removal filing without the mild sauce, right?

When Filing for Your Clients Comes With a Side of Cinnamon Twists

Chatterjee’s account, detailed in The Cincinnati Enquirer, unfolds much like the set-up for a workplace sitcom: after days spent in phone and email limbo trying to find an ICE field office closer than Detroit to submit critical client paperwork, she finally got through to a real person. That officer, she recounted, offered to provide a helpful contact—who turned out, she alleges, to be a fast-food cashier. “For the very first time, finally somebody answered me and I was genuinely so excited to have somebody who was going to help us and give us some information,” Chatterjee told The Enquirer. “So, to get a Taco Bell phone number instead was definitely disheartening.”

The scenario didn’t end at that. Chatterjee described calling the number back, just to be met with a bewildered “Hello, Taco Bell?” and a polite but baffled employee. The situation struck her as so absurd that she eventually shared her experience on TikTok, where, as The Enquirer documents, the video quickly gathered more than 38,000 views and widespread sympathy.

ICE, she said, offered an apology of sorts when she called back—explaining that the officer was “trying to lighten the mood and make you laugh.” When asked for a supervisor, Chatterjee was promised a report would be filed, though, as she relayed, there’s been no evidence of any such report.

DHS Fires Back: Official Denials and Social Media Sizzle

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE have strongly contested Chatterjee’s account. Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs at DHS, posted on X calling the story “a lie and smear,” insisting ICE never gave Chatterjee the Taco Bell number and arguing that such claims are attempts to malign law enforcement during a period of increased scrutiny. The tone and content of the rebuttal are documented by The Indian Express, which also notes that DHS claims to have provided Chatterjee with “several avenues to directly contact ICE and help resolve any issues,” but alleges she has not responded to these efforts. The agency’s social posts suggest that the story is, in their words, “lying for likes.”

It’s worth noting, as The Indian Express captures, that this official back-and-forth has sparked debates and division online: some social media users argue an attorney wouldn’t fabricate a story of this kind, while others wonder why there isn’t recorded evidence.

Real Frustration Beneath the Absurd

For all the viral humor, the real story sits quietly underneath: the fundamental challenges and fears facing immigration lawyers and their clients. Chatterjee, as described in both The Cincinnati Enquirer and Hindustan Times, has at least eight clients detained at Butler County Jail. She was seeking to file “stay of removal” applications, which, if granted, prevent deportation while legal or humanitarian claims are pending.

The process isn’t simple—applications have to be hand-delivered to a regional field office in Detroit, and Chatterjee was searching for a closer solution. Her difficulties communicating with ICE, she says, aren’t unique. She pointed out, “Getting in contact with anyone (with ICE) is really hard.” Efforts to secure release for her clients have become even more difficult due to what she describes as ICE’s new, stricter approach to bond for those detained after entering the country unlawfully.

Bonds themselves, Chatterjee explained, generally range from $20,000 to $50,000 and must be paid up front, a fact corroborated in multiple local reports. For many families, those numbers might be even more daunting than the paperwork trail.

Chatterjee also described, as The Enquirer documents, how some of her clients are so disheartened by delays and confusion that they opt to self-deport or abandon their legal claims entirely—a sobering reality far removed from the comic overtones of a wayward phone call.

Virality Begets a Solution, at Least for One

Strangely enough, posting her story on TikTok ultimately led to a real breakthrough. The Enquirer notes that the video, with its unexpectedly wide reach, brought sympathetic commenters—one of whom connected Chatterjee with an assistant field office director at ICE’s Blue Ash office. There, at last, she found someone ready to help resolve her submission dilemma. Reflecting on the episode, she told The Enquirer: “The power of social media is so cool. I’m on TikTok and I’m complaining, and I’m trying to make it light-hearted and funny, but I was very frustrated and everybody in the office heard how frustrated I was. So, to get somebody who truly just wants to help was so— it was the coolest day of work I’ve had in a long time.”

Even so, Chatterjee emphasized she was “very lucky that somebody saw my TikTok and was able to help me,” adding pointedly that most wouldn’t have the same fortune in sidestepping the closed circuits of federal bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy, Burritos, and the Absurd

So did ICE really reroute a legal request to the nearest Taco Bell, or is this a knot of crossed wires and social media misfire as the agency contends? The story remains contested: Chatterjee stands by her account and has gone public with her frustration, while DHS continues to call it out as false. As with many incidents that gain momentum online, public certainty seems to depend on which side of the drive-thru window you’re standing.

Still, whether the phone number mix-up was malice, mischief, or some flavor of administrative error, there’s a sting to the punchline if you’re the one waiting on hold. And in America’s ongoing saga of institutional oddness, maybe the biggest surprise is that this story doesn’t feel all that surprising at all. For every viral burrito call, how many silent, un-funny dead ends are out there?

The result—one viral laugh (or groan), a dash of official outrage, and a real question about what qualifies as normal in the machinery of American bureaucracy. And perhaps, as always, the strange true stories remind us just how much humanity—and absurdity—can hide in the fine print.