As Detainees Strike Across the US, Tech Helps Trump Hunt ICE Watchers

Late last week, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued subpoenas to Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) demanding identifying information about users who have criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement activities—and directing Reddit and X to send the requested information directly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

These subpoenas are the latest in a persistent campaign by the Trump administration to criminalize opposition to and reporting on immigration raids and the federal agents involved, including crowdsourcing and sharing that information online.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people in at least five ICE detention facilities across the country have launched hunger and labor strikes in recent weeks to protest inhumane conditions ranging from spoiled food to medical neglect. Outside Delaney Hall, a detention center in Newark, New Jersey, protestors and journalists have been teargassed and beaten by federal agents and state police as community members gather in solidarity with those still on strike inside.

The strikes and related demonstrations are an urgent reminder that the Trump administration continues to target ICE watch efforts for one clear reason: impunity thrives without witnesses.

A fishing expedition enabled by tech companies

The Trump administration’s subpoena campaign to unmask the operators of accounts critical of—or simply reporting on—ICE activities has been ongoing for months.

In early September, roughly three months into escalating DHS operations in Los Angeles, the agency sent an administrative subpoena to Meta demanding information about multiple users, including the operators of the Instagram account for StopICE.net.

Since then, DHS has reportedly sent “hundreds of administrative subpoenas” not only to Meta, but also to Google, Reddit, and Discord demanding identifying information about users behind accounts monitoring ICE activities.

For the most part, these subpoenas have been administrative—meaning companies have no legal obligation to supply the information requested. Still, in many cases targeting individual users, it has been the users themselves who have blocked the release of their personal information by challenging the subpoenas in court.

Leading tech companies, on the other hand, have openly complied with requests from Trump administration officials to crack down on community ICE watching efforts. In October, at the height of DHS’s chaotic “Midway Blitz” operation in Chicago, Google and Apple removed multiple apps designed to crowdsource community reports about ICE raids from their respective app stores within hours of Trump’s DOJ making the request.

Apple told the developer of one targeted app, ICEBlock, that his app violated App Store policies by providing information that might be used to “harm [law enforcement] officers individually or as a group.”

Three days later, on the south side of Chicago, community observer Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent she was filming from her car.

In April, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking the federal government from coercing Apple to continue blocking another targeted ICE watch app—Eyes Up—on the grounds that it was violating the app creator’s First Amendment rights. Apple has not relisted either app.

DOJ enters the social media subpoena fray

The recent subpoenas sent to Reddit and X are reportedly grand jury subpoenas issued by the US Attorney’s Office for Washington, D.C.—currently led by former FOX News personality Jeanine Pirro.

Attorneys for those targeted by the Reddit and X subpoenas say there is no indication as to what the underlying charges might be.

Under Pirro’s leadership, the office has repeatedly failed to convince grand juries to sign off on criminal charges—including the multiple grand juries who refused to indict a man who threw a footlong Subway sub at federal agents during the Trump administration’s federal surge in Washington D.C. last summer while shouting “SHAME!” and calling the agents “racists” and “fascists.” Though Pirro’s office eventually secured an indictment, the government then failed to convince a jury to find the sandwich thrower guilty.

In February, Pirro’s office also tried and failed to secure a grand jury indictment against multiple Democratic members of Congress—including Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five former military and intelligence officers—who recorded a video to active-duty military and intelligence officers reminding them that they have the legal right and obligation to refuse illegal orders.

Do as they say, not as they do

While doggedly pursuing its theory that observing, recording, and criticizing federal agents’ taxpayer-funded activities is a criminal enterprise, the Trump administration continues to expand the web of sophisticated, invasive surveillance tools at those same agents’ disposal.

Federal agents can now operate facial recognition apps like MobileFortify from their phones; ICE has gained access to an “unprecedented” amount of the public’s personal data from other agencies, including the IRS; ICE and Border Patrol are tapping into the growing network of automated license plate readers like Flock now blanketing many US cities and towns; and DHS has contracted with surveillance tech companies like Penlink in order to buy mobile phone location data without a warrant.

DHS agents have been particularly diligent about taunting community members—and ICE watch volunteers in particular—with evidence that their activities are being tracked and their personal information is accessible by individual ICE and Border Patrol agents. Lawsuits have been filed by citizens in Maine and Minnesota describing federal agents “show[ing] up outside the homes of ICE observers” and placing intimidating phone calls alleging that ICE watch volunteers “might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist” if they continue their work.

While there is no public evidence that any “domestic terrorism watchlist” exists, Trump has described efforts to publicize “identifying information” about ICE agents as “violent and terroristic activities.”

Top administration officials have also repeatedly made claims that victims of ICE and Border Patrol violence were actually engaged in acts of “domestic terrorism”—including two community observers shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as well as Marimar Martinez in Chicago.

The urgency of bearing witness

Outside of Delaney Hall, protests in solidarity with striking detainees entered their second week with a curfew in effect for a half-mile radius around the facility.

Police barricades were moved to prevent demonstrators from gathering close enough to the facility that people trapped inside could hear those gathered outside in support. Dozens of protesters and journalists have been arrested; multiple photojournalists report federal agents deliberately targeting them and their cameras.

Local elected officials have repeatedly been denied entry to the facility; Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), who represents the district where Delaney Hall is located, faces federal charges for her efforts to gain access to conduct routine oversight last year. Those who have recently been allowed to visit include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who told the New Jersey Monitor that what he saw and discussed with detainees “shocked the conscience.”

Delaney Hall is operated by GEO Group, the largest private prison operator in the US. In recent years, the company has also “built a lucrative side business” focused on surveillance tech, from phone apps to smart watches, specifically to cash in on immigration enforcement.

GEO Group is no stranger to allegations of abuse and mistreatment; people held in their detention centers have previously gone on hunger strikes to protest inhumane conditions. The company has faced multiple lawsuits over forcing immigrant detainees to work for just $1 per day, and retaliating against those who refused.

GEO Group has denied the allegations made by striking detainees at GEO-owned detention centers across the country; DHS and ICE have denied that hunger strikes are underway at all.

Despite restricted access for elected officials, attorneys, and families, those trapped inside Delaney Hall still managed to get the word out.

Martin Soto’s story is one that broke through. Soto’s wife Gabriela spoke to demonstrators outside Delaney Hall to relay her husband’s account of conditions inside the facility, where he’d been held for five months. He has since been transferred and reportedly placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for his suspected involvement with the ongoing hunger and labor strike.

In detention centers, in the streets, and on social media, the Trump administration is waging an aggressive campaign against those exposing its worst abuses.

But the message from those still risking retaliation in Delaney Hall and other detention facilities across the country is clear: the costs of looking away are higher than the costs of speaking out.