Leaked records reveal that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintains a liaison office within the military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM), granting access to advanced surveillance technologies.
Additional disclosures indicate ICE liaisons at Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) who can employ the same surveillance capabilities, along with an ICE contractor linked to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in the Middle East.
On Wednesday, a hacker collective calling itself the Department of Peace released a voluminous trove of Department of Homeland Security personnel files, including entries for ICE and other domestic security agencies. “They have our information, so it’s only fair that we have theirs,” the group wrote in a note attached to the database, which was posted online to Distributed Denial of Secrets, a platform that hosts leaked data.
Responding, DHS told The Washington Post that it was “aware of a potential breach” and that it was “working to address the situation swiftly and effectively.” A searchable mirror of the leak, ICEpick, was taken down after DHS sent a letter demanding that the domain cease hosting personal contact and location data of individuals who did not consent.
The leaked files include the head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit, who appears to oversee the agency’s military liaisons. His subordinates include a “Combatant Command Program Manager” at SOCOM’s headquarters in Tampa, FL; an “HSI Liaison to USAFRICOM” stationed in Stuttgart, Germany; and a “Senior Liaison to U.S. Southern Command” based in Doral, Florida.
All named officials are listed as users of the Penlink, Falcon, and RavenGo systems. The PenLink contractor provides tools to track individual cell phone users or to collect location data on everyone in a given area, according to documents obtained by 404media. The Falcon platform, developed by Palantir, enables the fusion of data from government and commercial sources, as reported by The Guardian. DHS eventually discontinued Falcon in favor of an internal system called Raven.
The unit chief is also shown as a member of a group labeled “LCR_Users,” a designation that may refer to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s presence at Liberty Crossing in McLean, Virginia. Two DHS employees bear “ODNI” in their titles with “Liberty Crossing” listed as their location. Reports indicate the Trump administration explored merging ICE into the federal intelligence community, though no formal merger ever occurred.
The files also contain an HSI contractor identified as a “CENTCOM analyst” at the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. Unlike the other liaisons, this contractor does not have access to ICE’s own surveillance software. The National Targeting Center is a CBP unit that monitors international travel and flags passengers for questioning, while CENTCOM oversees all U.S. military forces in the Middle East.
Although the ICE–military relationship has been mentioned publicly, the arrangement remains largely opaque. The best-documented link is with SOUTHCOM, which oversees U.S. forces in Latin America. DHS press releases have also noted HSI’s involvement in an AFRICOM maritime security exercise in 2021. Public reporting of connections to SOCOM and CENTCOM has not appeared.
ICE did not respond to Reason’s request for comment.
DHS operates an internal intelligence office separate from HSI, and publicly cooperates with the U.S. military and other intelligence agencies. Yet HSI’s broad global footprint and its ability to bridge law enforcement and intelligence roles were described by Katrina W. Berger, HSI’s Executive Assistant Director, in testimony to Congress in 2024 as giving it a unique capacity to disrupt and dismantle the networks behind sophisticated crime rings we now face.
HSI is intended to tackle significant organized crime related to the border rather than routine deportations. Nevertheless, critics say the Trump era retooled the directorate into a broad domestic spying and enforcement apparatus. WIRED recently disclosed that HSI runs a sweeping surveillance operation directed at left-wing protesters.
There are reports that agents have been redirected from investigating human trafficking and drug cartels to focus on immigration enforcement. HSI has been linked to the arrest of former CNN commentator Don Lemon at an anti-ICE protest at a church, and to leading the raid against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) that was described as an attempt to cast doubt on her citizenship.
Last month ICE announced contracts for a $100 million, expedited expansion of its domestic surveillance capabilities, inviting contractors to “identify and assess relationships among individuals, organizations, locations, events, activities, data points, and other entities.” Former military intelligence analyst Michael Wriston described the intensified ICE surveillance as an “imperial boomerang” in an interview with The American Prospect, noting that such methods were used for years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria and are now being applied to the ICE space.
