ICE Twitter account deactivated for several hours and replaced by a message saying it ‘doesn’t...

The Twitter account operated by the US government agency responsible for immigration and deportations was down for several hours on Thursday afternoon, replaced by a message saying the account no longer exists, after Twitter said the date of birth for the account user was switched to make them younger than the minimum age of 13.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly posted alerts on Twitter about the work of their team.

On Thursday the account was showing an error message from around midday until 4pm.

They said the error was due to “technical glitches”.

Twitter told The Independent: "Twitter requires people using the service to be 13 years of age or older.