Freedom Index
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted unlawful investigations into dozens of individuals who have documented ICE activities in their communities, social media users who criticized the government, and international students who attended a protest.
A favored tool in these speech chilling investigations are administrative subpoenas sent to technology companies, requesting basic subscriber data about their users. For example, from 2018 to 2020, ICE sent nearly 500 administrative subpoenas to Meta, Google, and Twitter (now X), according to documents obtained by Just Futures Law. In just the second half of 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent 21 administrative subpoenas to Reddit, according to its Transparency Report.
While some subpoenas are routine, ICE has been forced to withdraw others after users challenged them in court or companies pushed back. These challenged subpoenas exceeded the agency’s statutory authority and violated users’ First Amendment rights.
Below is a non-comprehensive list of DHS subpoenas that we gathered going back to 2025, looking at public reporting and court cases. This is likely an undercount. The full scope is hard to pin down because these subpoenas typically only come to light when a user is given notice and challenges them in court, or when a company documents them in a transparency report (so far, only Reddit appears to break out specific numbers on DHS subpoenas). In addition, DHS has been slow to respond to our Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits seeking records that would show how many administrative subpoenas ICE has sent to social media companies since 2025.
If you know of other subpoenas that are not on this list, please reach out to info@eff.org. While the government has abused the subpoena process in other areas, particularly to hospitals, this list focuses on DHS and ICE subpoenas to technology companies for user data.
|
DATE ISSUED (and link to subpoena) |
TARGETED COMPANY | INDIVIDUAL USER TARGETED | OUTCOME |
| 3/17/25 | Momodou Taal, international student who attended pro-Palestinian protest | Withdrawn | |
| 3/23/25 | Momodou Taal, international student who attended pro-Palestinian protest | Withdrawn | |
| 4/1/25 | Amandla Thomas-Johnson, international student who attended pro-Palestinian protest | Google disclosed data to ICE on 5/8/25 | |
| 9/4/25 | Meta | 6 accounts in Southern California that documented immigration activity, including LB_Protest, Long Beach Rapid Response Network, and Stopice.net | Withdrawn after court challenge on 11/24/25 |
| 9/11/25* | Meta (Instagram) | Pennsylvania account called “MontCo Community Watch” that documented immigration activity | Withdrawn after court challenge on 1/16/26 |
| 9/11/25* | Meta (Facebook) | Pennsylvania account called “MontCo Community Watch” that documented immigration activity | Withdrawn after court challenge on 1/16/26 |
| 10/30/25 | Retired Philadelphia user who emailed criticism to U.S. prosecutor | Withdrawn after court challenge on 2/5/26 | |
| 2/4/26* | Social media user who regularly posts criticism of the President | Subpoena challenged in Court | |
| 2/19/26* | “Tired_Thumb,” user who posted about ICE officer | Withdraw after court challenge on 3/27/26; replaced with grand jury subpoena | |
| 2/27/26* | X | “podslurp,” who posted publicly available address information about ICE officer | Withdrawn May 2026; replaced with grand jury subpoena |
| 3/7/26 | PayPal/Venmo | “Voices of Racial Justice,” a racial justice organization in Minnesota | PayPal/Venmo disclosed data 3/20/26 |
| 4/3/26* | Google (YouTube) | @TheDonLemonShow, GeorgiaFort, @DemocracyNow, and seven other accounts that reported on protest at Minnesota church | Google Objected 4/7/26 |
| 4/12/26* | T-Mobile | Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort and others | T-Mobile disclosed data on 4/12/26 |
| First half of 2025 | Reddit account | Subpoena withdrawn after questions from Reddit | |
| Second half of 2025 | 11 Reddit accounts that posted content “critical of ICE actions” | 3 subpoenas withdrawn after Reddit objected |
* = denotes summonses issued under 19 U.S.C. 1509, an authority that has been abused in the past, according to DHS’s inspector general.
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