U.S. Agencies Expand Efforts to Identify and Share Data on Immigration-Related Targets
Reporting indicates the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has significantly increased its use of administrative subpoenas—which do not require judicial approval—to obtain identifying information for anonymous social media accounts that criticize ICE or post information about ICE agent locations. According to the New York Times (as cited by TechCrunch), DHS sent hundreds of subpoenas to major platforms including Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord, and some companies reportedly complied in at least some cases; Google said it notifies users when possible and challenges subpoenas it views as overbroad.
Separately, a court filing disclosed that the IRS improperly overshared immigrants’ personal data with DHS/ICE under an April 2025 IRS–DHS data-sharing arrangement intended to support certain non-tax criminal investigations under IRC Section 6103 exceptions. After ICE requested 1.28 million addresses, the IRS could verify 47,289 individuals, and for a subset (reported as under 5% of verified matches) the IRS mistakenly provided ICE with additional address information beyond what ICE had supplied, raising concerns that the interagency data-sharing deal increased exposure of sensitive taxpayer information.
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