Man Fakes Yawn to Blend in Before ICE Officers Raid Hotel Lobby

BIRMINGHAM, AL - According to sources at a local Hilton Garden Inn, a man claiming to be "just visiting a friend" was caught in the act of nervously faking a yawn in the lobby after hearing rumors of an imminent ICE raid on the hotel.

"Oh man, I'm like, so sleepy," said the man, who had only just arrived at the hotel five minutes prior. He insisted he was planning to check out well before the authorities arrived. "I was just over here at the Garden Inn catching up with an old buddy. Then I’m gonna leave now, very sleepily, for no particular reason."

Eyewitnesses reported that the man appeared increasingly tense as he left abruptly, faking a yawn while receiving text updates from someone inside the hotel, whom he had definitely never met before and had no plausible reason to visit.

"I just stopped—uh, I meant to say 'stopped by!'—to see a pal at the hotel for five minutes, and I suddenly remembered I needed to get some shut-eye immediately and drive to a location completely unrelated to this Garden Inn," he added, sweat glistening on his forehead.

At publishing time, it seemed the man's elaborate ruse had paid off; he exited the lobby of the hotel—which was surely not the Hilton Garden Inn—undetected by the swarm of ICE officers descending upon the building. Experts agree that this could be a new strategy for avoiding law enforcement: the art of the yawn.