Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s internal watchdog is now investigating people outside the agency over online posts about ICE employees, according to reporting by Wired and court records it cited. That is a sharp turn for an office whose public job description has long centered on policing ICE personnel, detention operations and agency integrity.
The Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, is supposed to be the part of ICE that looks inward. ICE’s own website describes the office as handling security, inspections and investigations meant to support “organizational health, integrity, and accountability,” including reviews of ICE programs and allegations of employee or contractor misconduct.
Wired reported that OPR has also been used to pursue alleged “doxing” and threats against ICE staff. In an April court declaration, an ICE official said OPR investigated 131 cases involving doxing and threats aimed at ICE employees between January 2025 and March 2026. Wired also reported that OPR was behind at least one administrative subpoena sent to a tech company as part of efforts to identify online critics.
A poll worker gets a visit from ICE
One case described by Wired involved Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker in Syracuse, New York. During state primary voting in June, ICE agents came to a polling site to speak with her about an Instagram post they said may have “doxed” an ICE agent, according to Wired.
Gonyea told Wired the only relevant post she could find was one that credited the Minnesota Star Tribune for identifying Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good during a federal operation in Minneapolis earlier in the winter. The post also called for Ross to be indicted, Wired reported.
The agents asked Gonyea to sign a warning notice stating that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap or murder federal officials or their immediate family members to interfere with official duties, according to Wired. The notice also asked her to remove the post or stop the conduct. Gonyea told Wired she refused because signing would have amounted, in her view, to admitting wrongdoing.
The mandate got stretchy
ICE’s current OPR page includes language saying the office protects the agency by detecting, preventing, mitigating and investigating “internal and external threats” against ICE, senior leaders and headquarters facilities. It says OPR does that through the ICE Insider Threat Program and counterintelligence functions involving ICE personnel.
That wording matters because older public descriptions cited in the reporting point in a narrower direction. An archived version of ICE’s OPR page from October 2025 did not include that external-threat language. A December 2018 Department of Homeland Security inspector general report on OPR operations and a 2008 ICE OPR directive described oversight and misconduct investigations, but did not describe a role investigating outside critics over social media posts.
The available documents do not show exactly when ICE added the new language or who approved the change. The timing is awkward for ICE: the court declaration says OPR had already opened dozens of doxing and threat cases by March 2026.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons did not highlight that work in written testimony for an April House Appropriations Committee hearing, according to Wired. Lyons described OPR’s detention facility inspections, applicant vetting and oversight of the 287(g) program, but did not mention investigations of online posters. Wired said ICE did not respond to questions about why that work was omitted.
The mechanics are not subtle. An office built to investigate misconduct inside ICE is being described in court records as investigating external speech and using administrative process to identify people behind online posts. Actual threats against federal employees can be investigated by law enforcement. The unresolved question is why ICE’s internal accountability shop is doing that job, and what oversight is left when the watchdog is pointed outward.
This story draws on original reporting from Techdirt.
