Monday, February 16, 2026
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by sending subpoenas to tech companies for information on social media accounts that criticize or track ICE. Companies like Google, Meta, and Reddit have received hundreds of subpoenas, some of which they complied with, while others notified the account holders to challenge the subpoenas in court. The DHS argues it needs this information to protect ICE agents, but critics argue it infringes on free speech and privacy rights.
The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.
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The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.
In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.
The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.
“The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.” Over the last six months, Mr. Loney has represented people whose social media account information was sought by the Department of Homeland Security.
The department said it had “broad administrative subpoena authority” but did not address questions about its requests. In court, its lawyers have argued that they are seeking information to help keep ICE agents in the field safe.
What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight.
Meta, Reddit and Discord declined to comment.
“When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. “We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.”
The Trump administration has aggressively tried tamping down criticism of ICE, partly by identifying Americans who have demonstrated against the agency. ICE agents told protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded and identified with facial recognition technology. Last month, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, also said on Fox News that he was pushing to “create a database” of people who were “arrested for interference, impeding and assault.”
Silicon Valley has long had an uneasy relationship with the federal government and how much user information to provide it. Transparency reports published by tech companies show that the number of requests for user information from different governments around the world has climbed over the years, with the United States and India among those submitting the most.
Some social media companies previously fought government requests for user information. In 2017, Twitter (now X) sued the federal government to stop an administrative subpoena that asked it to unmask an account critical of the first Trump administration. The subpoena was later withdrawn.
Unlike arrest warrants, which require a judge’s approval, administrative subpoenas are issued by the Department of Homeland Security. They were only sparingly used in the past, primarily to uncover the people behind social media accounts engaged in serious crimes such as child trafficking, said tech employees familiar with the legal tool. But last year, the department ramped up its use of the subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media accounts.
In September, for example, it sent Meta administrative subpoenas to identify the people behind Instagram accounts that posted about ICE raids in California, according to the A.C.L.U. The subpoenas were challenged in court, and the Department of Homeland Security withdrew the requests for information before a judge could rule.
Mr. Loney of the A.C.L.U. said avoiding a judge’s ruling was important for the department to keep issuing the subpoenas without a legal order to stop. “The pressure is on the end user, the private individual, to go to court,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security also sought more information on the Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to tracking ICE activity in Montgomery County, Pa., outside Philadelphia. The accounts, called Montco Community Watch, began posting in Spanish and English about ICE sightings in June and, over the next six months, solicited tips from their roughly 10,000 followers to alert people to the locations of agents on specific streets or in front of local landmarks.
On Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent Meta a request for the name, email address, post code and other identifying information of the person or people behind the accounts. Meta informed the two Instagram and Facebook accounts of the request on Oct. 3.
“We have received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about your Facebook account,” the notification said, according to court records. “If we do not receive a copy of documentation that you have filed in court challenging this legal process within ten (10) days, we will respond to the requesting agency with information.”
The account owner alerted the A.C.L.U., which filed a motion on Oct. 16 to quash the government’s request. In a hearing on Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the A.C.L.U. argued that the government was using administrative subpoenas to target people whose speech it did not agree with.
Sarah Balkissoon, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the government, said the Department of Homeland Security’s position was that it was “within their power to investigate threats to its own officers or impediments to their officers,” according to a court transcript viewed by The Times.
Two days later, the subpoena was withdrawn.
The Montco Community Watch accounts continue to post almost every day. The Times emailed a request for comment to the address associated with the accounts but did not receive a reply.
On Monday, the Instagram account posted an alert for ICE activity in the Eagleville area of Montgomery County. “Montco ICE alert,” the post said. “This is confirmed ICE activity.”
On Friday, the account posted a video of students at Norristown Area High School protesting against ICE. “We stand with you and are proud you made your voices heard!” the post said.
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
Mike Isaac is The Times’s Silicon Valley correspondent, based in San Francisco. He covers the world’s most consequential tech companies, and how they shape culture both online and offline.“
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Friday, February 13, 2026
Congress locks in a DHS shutdown as lawmakers leave Washington
Congress locks in a DHS shutdown as lawmakers leave Washington
"Congress has ensured a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown starting Saturday due to a failed Senate vote on a funding bill. While ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will remain operational due to existing funds, agencies like the TSA and FEMA will be affected. Democrats are demanding changes to ICE practices, including a requirement for judicial warrants, which remains a sticking point in negotiations.
Negotiators are “very far apart” on an ICE overhaul, Sen. Chuck Schumer said. A DHS shutdown begins Saturday.
With lawmakers in both chambers leaving Washington on Thursday, Congress has all but guaranteed a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security. The big questions now are how long will it last — and how disruptive will it be.
A failed Senate procedural vote Thursday sealed the deal, ensuring that DHS funding will lapse after Friday night’s midnight deadline.
Senators voted almost entirely along party lines, 52-47, on a motion Thursday to advance a bill to fund DHS — short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation.
While GOP leaders continue to project progress in the negotiations, there apparently wasn’t enough movement to keep lawmakers in town — in either chamber.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., both sent members home on Thursday, after the White House sent an offer for changes at DHS late Wednesday — and Democrats said it fell well short of their demands.
“The proposal is not serious, plain and simple,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday. “It’s very far apart from what we need.”
Democrats want an end to roving patrols, a ban on masked agents, a requirement for immigration enforcement officers to turn on body cameras, and a requirement for judicial warrants, rather than internal administrative warrants ICE has used to enter homes.
Democrats took White House border czar Tom Homan’s announcement that the administration was ending the surge of immigration agents in Minnesota as a victory, but they said it wasn’t enough to secure their support for more money for the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Republicans were hopeful that the gesture might be enough for Democrats to accept a short-term stopgap for DHS, which would have extended funding for another two weeks. But Democrats weren’t having it.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. — the lead Senate Republican negotiator on Homeland Security funding — asked for unanimous consent to pass the two-week continuing resolution for DHS. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., objected, saying Republicans had already had enough time to negotiate.
The shutdown, which officially starts Saturday, will have an uneven effect across the Department of Homeland Security. ICE can tap a $75 billion fund, enacted as part of last year’s Republican tax-and-spending law, to largely keep that agency running as usual. Customs and Border Patrol similarly got a $65 billion pot of money that’s accessible during a shutdown.
But the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency don’t have a rainy day fund like ICE and CBP.
That arrangement, in which TSA workers will wait on a paycheck while ICE agents continue as normal, has caused some angst for Democrats.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joined Republicans in voting to advance DHS funding on Thursday, noting that a shutdown wouldn’t slow down ICE and CBP.
Other lawmakers have downplayed the severity of the partial shutdown, which only affects about 4% of the annual discretionary budget for federal agencies. About 90% of DHS’ employees are also considered “excepted” or “essential,” meaning they’ll continue to work, without pay, during a shutdown.
“The government’s not shutting down,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told MS NOW Thursday. “This is 4% of the government, many essentials.”
Still, she said, it wasn’t “fair to the workers or the Coast Guard to be under this pressure.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.. echoed that sentiment, saying DHS is already “awash in so much money.”
“I don’t think you’ll notice much,” Paul said of the shutdown.
Although lawmakers are leaving town, Thune warned senators that he could ask them to return to Washington within 24 hours if there’s a breakthrough in negotiations.
The Democratic demand for judicial warrants — rather than administrative warrants, approved within DHS — is a sticking point for the Trump administration, though Thune said there’s been progress on other demands.
“You all know the issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” Thune said.
House Democrats are just as skeptical as Schumer. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Thursday that he would review the latest White House offer, but that he personally hasn’t seen much progress.
“My preliminary assessment of it is that it falls short of the type of dramatic changes necessary in order to change ICE’s out of control behavior,” Jeffries said.
Kevin Frey, Mychael Schnell and Peggy Helman contributed to this report."
Aftermath video of latest ICE shooting involving a man officials say assaulted an officer contradicts officials’ account
Aftermath video of latest ICE shooting involving a man officials say assaulted an officer contradicts officials’ account
“Newly obtained videos of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the incident. The videos, including a Facebook livestream, suggest that the shooting victim, Julio Sosa-Celis, was inside his home when he was shot, contradicting DHS’s claim that he was outside and resisting arrest. The videos also raise questions about the identity of the person being pursued by ICE agents and the circumstances leading up to the shooting.
Newly obtained videos of the moments right after the Wednesday incident in which an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis appear to contradict at least some of ICE’s claims about events leading up to the shooting.
In a statement Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said the agent targeted, chased and then shot the man in self-defense as the agent was being “ambushed” by three people. But accounts in the videos contradict the identity of the person DHS says federal agents chased, and the details of the shooting itself.
According to DHS, federal agents were conducting a “targeted traffic stop” when, they say, Julio Sosa-Celis, an undocumented Venezuelan national, resisted arrest and started to “violently assault” one of its officers. During the struggle, DHS said in the statement, two additional people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer using a snow shovel and a broom handle.
According to DHS, Sosa-Celis “got loose” and began striking an agent “with a shovel or broom stick.” DHS says the agent then “fired a defensive shot,” which hit Sosa-Celis in the leg.
The three people who allegedly assaulted the officer ran into the apartment building and barricaded themselves before agents arrested all three, DHS said.
But videos from Sosa-Celis’ family appear to tell a different story. One of them shows a video call made by Sosa-Celis’ partner and reviewed by CNN, frantically describing to family members what she says happened, according to Alicia Celis, the mother of Sosa-Celis, who spoke to CNN.
The call appears to contradict ICE’s claims in DHS’ Thursday statement. There, ICE said it was Sosa-Celis who was driving a vehicle that crashed, and Sosa-Celis who fled on foot before agents struggled with him on the ground.
In the call, Sosa-Celis’ partner seems to say the driver of the car was not Sosa-Celis, but Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna — another man ICE detained during the same raid.
“Julio arrived first. They were chasing Alfredo — he had to jump from his car,” Sosa-Celis’ partner says during the call. “He ran and they threw themselves on top of him. After, Julio threw open the door, and they shot.”
The incident marks the second time in a week an immigration agent shot someone while on the job, sparking heated clashes in Minnesota and prompting President Donald Trump to threaten to use the Insurrection Act. Exactly one week earlier, an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, in her vehicle.
Sosa-Celis was taken to an ambulance and hospitalized; the city of Minneapolis confirmed he had non-life-threatening injuries. CNN has contacted city officials to determine whether he is still hospitalized.
In a statement to CNN on Saturday, DHS stood by its initial statement that the subject of the raid on Wednesday was Sosa-Celis and that he was driving the vehicle.
Facebook livestream footage challenges DHS account
The family’s version of events, heard in a livestreamed Facebook video when family members frantically called 911 to ask for help, also differs from DHS’ statement.
In the video, the family tells a 911 dispatcher that agents shot Sosa-Celis as he tried to enter his home.
“They were following my husband for about 30 minutes. They were trying to crash into him. He arrived at home and because we closed the door on them, they shot him!” a woman can be heard telling the dispatcher. It’s not clear who is speaking or whether Sosa-Celis is the person referred to as being followed.
Throughout the initial video, several family members can be heard pleading with the dispatcher for help.
“Where did they shoot your cousin?” a 911 dispatcher asks the family over the phone. “In the leg! The leg! Please help us! We have kids!” a man responds.
“We have a small child in the house!” one woman says in the background. “And if they shoot?” another woman asks.
“Do you know who shot them?” the dispatcher asks the group. “The ones from ICE! The ones from ICE!” a man replies.
The stream ends with the family continuing to speak with the dispatcher on the phone.
A different video obtained by CNN shows what was happening outside the home while the family waited inside.
In the video, agents are seen approaching the home and setting off a flash-bang. Smoke can be seen, and ramming sounds are heard as someone says, “They’re in! There’s more than a dozen of them.”
Mothers of detained men dispute DHS statement
Alicia Celis also told CNN she has spoken to her son only once, briefly, from the hospital after the shooting. Celis said she had not asked her son about ICE’s claim he attacked agents with a broom or shovel.
“(Julio) only called me to tell me that he is fine, for me not to worry, and for me to stay calm and not cry,” Celis said.
In the Thursday statement from DHS, ICE said the agent who shot Sosa-Celis did so after chasing him on foot after Sosa-Celis crashed into a parked car. DHS also described the agent as “fearing for his life” when he fired the shot. But in an interview with CNN, Mabel Aljorna, the mother of Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, disputed both of those claims on the basis of her conversation with her son immediately after the shooting.
Aljorna said her son told her he was the one being pursued on foot by ICE, and that Sosa-Celis was already inside the home when the agent shot him — not outside, where ICE says the agent fired the shot.
“He told me, ‘Mom, ICE was chasing me. Once we were inside, they shot at Julio.’”
After ICE shot and then detained Sosa-Celis, Sosa-Celis joined a Facebook livestream while in the hospital. In that video, he says there was a physical confrontation between him and agents before the shooting as he tried to help Aljorna get inside the home.
However, he also claims he was inside the house and the ICE agent was outside — and the two were separated by a closed door — when the agent shot him, while Sosa-Celis was locking the door and Aljorna was already inside.
“What happened was that ICE had been chasing my cousin from far way. He came over here, and he tried coming to the house,” Sosa-Celis said. “He got there and he was able to escape. We struggled with them. We were successful in helping my cousin get inside. And as I tried shutting the door, ICE shot me in the leg.”
“The shot that was fired happened when my cousin managed to escape, and he entered inside,” Sosa-Celis said on the livestream. “I closed the door. And as I was locking it, I heard the shot, and that’s when I realized I had been shot in the leg.”
CNN visited the home Friday. The front doorway was boarded up and there was no evidence to be found about the condition of the front door at the time of the shooting.
CNN has been unable to directly reach Sosa-Celis and Aljorna for comment.“
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