Last week, a website called ICE List gained significant attention after its creators claimed to have leaked personal information on nearly 4,500 employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). However, an analysis by WIRED revealed that the database primarily relies on information that alleged DHS employees have publicly shared online. This comes at a time when DHS has labeled publicly identifying ICE officers as “doxing” and has threatened to take legal action against those it perceives as offenders.
ICE List functions like a crowdsourced wiki, run by volunteers who decide who gets added and what gets marked as “verified.” Similar to Wikipedia, which it isn’t affiliated with, ICE List features category pages linking to every individual page within that category. Not everyone listed is an ICE employee or associated with a federal agency; for instance, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio appears in the “Agents” category, despite DHS telling the Associated Press that he is not an ICE agent. On his page, his “Agency” is marked as “N/A,” and his “Role” is defined as “Propagandist; Agitator.” Tarrio has claimed that he wished he worked for ICE but labeled his ICE List page as disinformation.
Dominick Skinner, the owner of ICE List, argues that what they’re doing isn’t doxing. They don’t publish home addresses of agents and state on their About page that “false submissions, harassment, or attempts to misuse the platform will be removed.” Skinner said, “If this were doxing, then we dox ourselves by simply being present in online environments, which is just rather ridiculous.”
WIRED looked into the individuals listed in the “Agents” category on ICE List as of January 22. Out of 1,580 pages, nearly 90% cited LinkedIn as a source of information, though some of these links are now broken, and not all support the claims made on the wiki. For instance, someone listed as “active” might have a LinkedIn account that shows them as a former legal advisor for ICE. ICE List acknowledges on its About page that “errors may occur.” Some profiles lack photos and don’t appear very active, while others correspond to known federal immigration agents highlighted in previous ICE press releases and court records.
Like many LinkedIn users, those identifying as ICE deportation officers and other types of DHS staff often share personal updates, such as New Year’s resolutions or reactions to motivational posts about leadership, and letting others know they’re #opentowork.
The DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
Certain pages on the ICE List wiki reference OpenPayrolls, a database of public employees’ salaries that includes some ICE personnel, and SignalHire, a data broker focused on lead generation, as sources. A spokesperson for OpenPayrolls stated in an email that they have no connection to ICE List and that their ICE-related payroll records were released by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management via a Freedom of Information Act request. The spokesperson also mentioned, “To date, we have not received outreach from any government agency expressing concerns regarding the display of public records on our transparency website.” SignalHire did not reply to a request for comment but does link directly to LinkedIn profiles of individuals claiming to be ICE officers on its site.
