ICE’s internal watchdog is now investigating online critics
Voting was already underway when the ICE agents arrived at a polling site in Syracuse, New York, during the state’s primaries in June. The agents were there to see Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker who says they were concerned about an Instagram post she had supposedly made in January “doxing” an ICE agent. The only post she could find was one she had made crediting the Minnesota Star Tribune for identifying Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good during the federal incursion in Minneapolis this winter, and calling for his indictment.
The agents at the poll site asked Gonyea to sign a warning notice that said it was unlawful to “threaten to assault, kidnap and/or murder” federal officials or their immediate family members in an effort to impede that federal official’s work. The form also requested that she remove her post “and/or discontinue” her behavior.
“My signature would have been an admission of guilt,” Gonyea says. “I refused to sign it.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The incident, which was first reported by local news outlet Syracuse.com, was unsettling in many ways, but one part stuck out to Gonyea: the warning notice said it was sent by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
“That office is supposed to be for internal investigations,” says Gonyea, “and now they’re using their own internal departments on American civilians.” [Continue reading…]