A Wall Street Journal investigation published August 3, 2026 reported that ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, historically best known for investigating ICE's own agents, has led an expansion of round-the-clock, contractor-run monitoring of online speech about the agency. The contract notice for the initiative calls for monitoring nearly 20 social sites, including Reddit, Discord, Snapchat and LinkedIn, and contractors prepare daily reports and dossiers that can include a poster's name, location, date of birth, workplace, Social Security number, vehicle registration and criminal history.
To unmask anonymous critics, DHS has sent hundreds of subpoenas to social-media companies, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Journal. Agents have tracked people down at work and on the road and asked them to sign letters acknowledging that their online speech about ICE “may” be a crime. Reddit objected to DHS administrative subpoenas for 11 accounts that had posted “content critical of federal actions,” and DHS withdrew them; the government has since turned to grand jury subpoenas. Of 10 people the Journal identified who fought unmasking, judges upheld four grand jury subpoenas, no charges had been filed, three cases were abandoned and three were pending.
Attorneys told the Journal subpoenas for U.S. citizens' information spiked around September 2025, the month an OPR contract worth more than $8 million with the software firm Amivero, subcontracted to Guidehouse, launched. The Journal's analysis found ICE spending on surveillance technology and consultants reached $258 million in Trump's first full year back in office, up 57 percent. The ICE Privacy Office, which oversees the program, is down to two full-time staffers, according to former government employees.
DHS says it is protecting agents from “coordinated campaigns of violence” and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats, and an ICE spokesperson said, “Any allegation DHS and ICE are attempting to 'squash' free speech is categorically FALSE.” Civil-rights attorney Lauren Regan told the Journal, “As far as I can tell, all of this is about people saying naughty things about ICE and immigration enforcement,” adding, “Nothing that comes close to true threats” (see ICE Agents Confront a Syracuse Poll Worker at Her Polling Place on Primary Day Over an Instagram Post About an Agent).
Correction (October 2, 2026): The entry dated the Journal's report August 4; Reason and Talking Points Memo place it on Monday, August 3, and the date now reflects that. The title said ICE built “a $258 million operation” to monitor critics; the $258 million is the Journal's figure for all ICE surveillance-technology and consultant spending, so the title no longer uses it. The entry said ICE issued “hundreds of administrative subpoenas”; the Journal attributes “hundreds of subpoenas” to DHS, of both administrative and grand jury types. It cut “enforcement” from Regan's quote and called the letters “Warning Notices,” a term the Journal does not use; both are fixed, and the entry now includes DHS's response.