ICE used doxxing website to find people to deport, investigator testifies

A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official acknowledged in federal court in Boston this week that the government used information from controversial websites to identify and potentially deport pro-Palestinian academics, including Tufts University doctoral candidate Rümeysa Öztürk.

The disclosures came in a free speech case brought by the American Association of University Professors and other academic groups. The plaintiffs allege that the government has conducted an illegal campaign to arrest and deport scholars who protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

The Trump administration has denied any such policy, but has publicly said it wants to deport foreigners who are criminals or support terrorist organizations, including Hamas. And this spring, a government "tiger team" began compiling reports on noncitizen students and faculty engaged in pro-Palestinian protests, according to court records.

"We were looking at protesters."

Peter Hatch

Peter Hatch, who works in ICE's Homeland Security Investigations department, testified in court Wednesday and Thursday that his team of analysts initially poured through more than 5,000 names. Most came from Canary Mission, a group of doxxers who say they identify people and organizations that "promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews." Some other names came from pro-Israel group Betar US.

"We were looking at protesters," Hatch said.

He said the team created reports on roughly 200 people, including ones for Öztürk and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who were later arrested. Both have since been released while awaiting the outcome of their deportation hearings.

The dossier on Öztürk included biographical information, the Canary Mission profile and a copy of the op-ed that she co-wrote for her student newspaper calling for divestment of Israel, according to Hatch and a copy of the profile shared in court.

The government previously told The New York Times it doesn't rely on lists of names from Canary Mission.

The plaintiff's attorneys declined to comment. A lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

In court, Hatch testified his team tried to accurately summarize and attribute the information it found online.

When asked by the plaintiffs’ attorney about Canary Mission’s purpose, Hatch said, "I don't know their intentions or their goals."

He said the website was unusual in the sheer number of leads it provided to chase down. Where possible, he said, analysts tried to independently verify the information but there were ultimately too many people to create profiles on. He also explained they often couldn't find additional information to verify that people had participated in protests.

"If there was no activity, we moved on," he said.

Many of the people listed on the Canary Mission sites are U.S. citizens, outside the focus of the tiger team, a plaintiff lawyer pointed out in court. Hatch said his team did not make any recommendations about who should ultimately lose their visa.

He also said the team has created profiles of people for years to help the government identify individuals who may have violated the law.

"We've always done subject profiles this way," he said.

The trial is expected to continue through next week.