First Amendment

Is the DHS Tracking ICE Critics? The Public Deserves Answers.

The DHS reportedly maintains a database tracking critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Free speech advocates warn it could chill constitutionally protected speech.

Autumn Billings | 5.21.2026 11:40 AM

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

(Illustration: Midjourney/Zimmytws /Dreamstime)

Free speech advocates want to know more about the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) rumored database that tracks critics of the Trump administration's immigration policies and its potential to chill constitutionally protected speech. But so far, the agency has ignored repeated Freedom of Information Act requests for public records. 

Amidst the rising tensions between federal immigration agents and protestors earlier this year, President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, announced on Fox News in January his push to create a database to prosecute people who "impede or interfere" with immigration operations. Such a database, according to Homan, would include those who film officers—an activity protected under the First Amendment. 

Shortly after, a video went viral of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent documenting a legal observer's car. When asked what he was doing, he told the observer, "Because we have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic........

© Reason.com