Buc-ee's $1 Million ICE Donation Hoax

The hoax emerged during the most intense stretch of anti-ICE activism in recent U.S. history. On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Macklin Good, a 37-year-old American woman, in Minneapolis during a surge in federal immigration enforcement. ^[5] On January 24, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was shot multiple times and killed by two Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis. ^[6]

Those deaths sparked a "National Shutdown" general strike on January 30–31, 2026, organized under the banner "no work, no school, no shopping." ^[7] More than 300 "ICE Out of Everywhere" demonstrations were planned across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., that weekend, including coordinated actions in Los Angeles. ^[8]

In Minneapolis, where the unrest began, demonstrators returned to the Whipple federal building for a second consecutive frigid Friday, and Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance at A Concert of Solidarity and Resistance to Defend Minnesota at First Avenue, debuting his song "Streets of Minneapolis." ^[5][10] In San Francisco, dozens of businesses closed and thousands of students walked out of class to march from Dolores Park to City Hall. ^[9]

The Buc-ee's hoax rode the wave of legitimate corporate accountability campaigns. NYU professor Scott Galloway launched a "Resist and Unsubscribe" boycott targeting tech and telecom companies with documented ICE ties, urging consumers to cancel subscriptions to firms he called "ground zero" and "blast zone" enablers. ^[11] "I think this is a weapon that is hiding in plain sight," Galloway told NPR. "The most radical act you can perform in a capitalist society is non-participation." ^[12]

A separate "QuitGPT" campaign drew more than 17,000 sign-ups, protesting OpenAI's ties to ICE; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses a resume-screening tool powered by ChatGPT-4 that reportedly misclassified applicants during its rollout. ^[13]

In January 2026, Avelo Airlines — a regional carrier that had been flying deportation charters as a subcontractor to a Department of Homeland Security charter program — announced it would stop those flights by January 27 after months of public criticism. ^[14] Around the same time, Spotify confirmed it had stopped running ICE recruitment ads by the end of 2025, after several artists, including Massive Attack and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, had pulled their music from the platform in the preceding months. ^[15]

Buc-ee's did donate $1 million in 2025 — but to flood relief, not ICE. In August 2025, founder Arch "Beaver" Aplin III presented the donation to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country to support recovery from the catastrophic July 4 floods, which killed more than 130 people. ^[16]

Aplin presented the check alongside NBC's Al Roker; Buc-ee's said it was "the biggest donation ... seen in the history of the segment's 23 years." ^[17] Buc-ee's also hosted a benefit concert with country musician Robert Earl Keen in late August 2025 that raised $3 million for flood victims, and the Community Foundation's Kerr County Flood Relief Fund ultimately raised $60 million. ^[18][19]

The hoax gained plausibility because Arch Aplin does have a documented history of political giving to Texas Republicans. Nonprofit transparency group OpenSecrets has tracked nearly 100 donations made by Aplin and Buc-ee's executives to candidates and committees across a nearly 30-year span, from 1996 to 2024, including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Randy Weber — plus outlier contributions to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 and to Barack Obama in 2004. ^[20]

By targeting a CEO with a real, public record of conservative political giving during a period of heightened ICE enforcement, the hoax creators exploited a plausibility gap — the claim felt believable even with zero evidence behind it.

Buc-ee's General Counsel Jeff Nadalo issued statements to multiple outlets categorically denying the claim: "The circulating rumors about Beaver donating to ICE are entirely false. Neither the company nor anyone associated with Buc-ee's has made any donations to ICE." ^[4]

Despite the traction the claim received, its origin is hard to pin down: an exhaustive search of public records and social media trends turned up no specific catalyst or piece of evidence that triggered the allegations. ^[1]

Buc-ee's remains a privately held company, co-owned 50-50 by Aplin and Don Wasek with no outside investors. ^[21] That private structure means Buc-ee's isn't required to disclose the same financial data as a public corporation, though political and agency-level donations are typically a matter of public record — and no ICE donation appears in any such record. ^[4]

Weaponization of legitimate activism: The hoax hijacked real corporate-accountability campaigns targeting companies with documented ICE contracts, including Palantir's $30 million ImmigrationOS deal and Microsoft's roughly $20 million ICE cloud contract. ^[22][23] By fabricating a claim against a company with no such contract, the hoax diluted the credibility of boycotts aimed at companies that do.

Economic harm potential: With hundreds of thousands of likes and calls for a boycott, the hoax posed a real reputational threat to a privately held company that employs thousands across Texas and the South. ^[3]

Erosion of information integrity: The hoax showed how quickly a fabricated, unsourced claim can reach viral velocity in a politically charged moment, outpacing fact-checking and official denials. ^[2][4]

Exploitation of tragedy: The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti sparked genuine grief and activism against ICE; the Buc-ee's hoax borrowed that momentum for an unrelated, fabricated claim, for reasons that remain unclear — clout, sabotage, or simple trolling. ^[5][6]