Forged Starbucks promo looks to entrap undocumented immigrants living in the US
4Chan users have conceived and delivered a fake a promotion for Starbucks offering a 40% discount to undocumented immigrants, a ploy that could have been used to get arrested individuals illegally inhabiting the country.
The fake Starbucks promotion
The campaign, called ‘Dreamers Day’ found its feet in a 4Chan forum, first spotted by Buzzfeed News. Relatively realistic flyers were created to make the promotion seem more legitimate.
Discussions in the forum helped shape the campaign and Twitter accounts were used to seed news of the fake initiative.
The thread started: “How about we meme 'Undocumented Immigrant Day' at Starbucks into existence? Announce free coffee for all illegals on a certain date. August 11? 11 looks like II (for Illegal Immigrant). I’m open to suggestions there. Name a liberal place for all illegals to go at once and demand free stuff.”
Another user suggested calling the Immigration Crime Engagement (ICE) on users who tried to redeem their codes.
Starbucks took to Twitter to combat the rumours.
This is completely false. Starbucks is not sponsoring any such event. Please do not spread misinformation.
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) August 4, 2017
The global coffee chain looks to have been partly targeted because the company vowed to employ 100,000 immigrants in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's ill-fated travel ban.