Rabat – The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas in recent months to tech companies requesting the names, email addresses, telephone numbers, and other identifying data from social media accounts that track or criticize the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
The DHS’s expansion comes in hand with extreme anti-immigration efforts. According to the American Immigration Council, ICE is currently holding a record 73,000 people, nearly double the number when Trump began his second term a year ago.
The countless videos circulating on social media showing the violent tactics employed by ICE agents led to thousands of protests across the US. Several social media accounts now post updates and warn residents of ICE activity.
These accounts, among others which post anti-ICE content, are now the target of the DHS’s subpoena requests to tech companies for identifying information about the account owner.
The companies subpoenaed included Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Four government officials and tech employees spoke to the New York Times anonymously as they are not authorized to speak publicly.
The government officials said Google, Meta, and Reddit cooperated with some of the requests. Some companies alerted the individuals that the government was requesting data on, giving them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court before complying and sharing the information to the agency.
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“When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokesperson 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.”
Meta, Reddit, and Discord all declined to comment.
Transparency reports from tech companies show an increase in government requests for user information over the past two decades. Google reports an increase from 12,539 requests for user information to 287,027 in 2024.
These administrative subpoenas are issued by DHS and, unlike arrest warrants, do not require a judge’s approval. In the past, they were used largely to track down individuals behind accounts associated with serious crimes like child trafficking.
The DHS claims it has “broad administrative subpoena authority” but did not address questions of the requests for citizen’s personal information from tech companies. Though, the department seems to take no shame in taunting authoritarian measures.
ICE agents told protestors in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology. Tom Homan White House border czar went further, telling Fox News that he wanted to “create a database” of those “arrested for interference, impeding, and assault.”
A poll from early February this year found that 65% of Americans feel that ICE has gone too far in enforcing immigration laws. This jump from 54% last June followed the public killing of two US citizens by ICE officers while protesting the immigration crackdown.