DHS Has Used This Controversial Investigative Tool 185,000 Times Since Trump Took Office

Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative wing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that normally takes on transnational crime, estimates it has sent out at least 185,000 administrative subpoenas since the start of the Trump administration, according to a recent court filing. The figure shows how HSI has increasingly relied on this warrantless authority to conduct investigations.To put HSI’s estimate into perspective, a previous WIRED analysis found that in the more than six and a half years from the start of 2016 to mid-August 2022, ICE agents only sent out around 170,000 of a type of administrative subpoena called a 1509 customs summons.The number of administrative subpoenas was revealed as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Aaron Mackey, deputy legal director at the nonprofit, says the EFF hopes to get more details about the 185,000 estimate. The EFF originally asked for information about how many administrative subpoenas were sent to technology companies, internet platforms, and service providers by ICE or DHS since January 20, 2025. It’s not clear if that count is just for administrative subpoenas sent to those types of companies or if it includes a much broader set.Administrative subpoenas are a powerful but unchecked investigative tool. Unlike with a grand jury subpoena or a court order, the government doesn’t have to explain to the courts why it needs the documents or what data it’s requesting from a company.Since the start of the Trump administration, the federal government has used DHS’s administrative subpoena power to try to unmask anonymous online critics and pursue broad customer records about protesters. This includes, for example, a list of people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who bought a specific green beanie from REI.Congress originally granted the use of 1509 customs summons to the then stand-alone US Customs Service nearly a century ago, with the idea that it would let customs officers inspect business records related to importing merchandise and figure out whether they owed customs duties. In 2003, Congress transferred that agency’s powers, including the ability to issue customs summons, to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.In the past, DHS has maintained that customs summons could be used only for specific purposes. The DHS inspector general admonished Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility in 2017 for trying to use a customs summons to unmask an anonymous Twitter poster, pointing out that its own procedures manual said that customs summons could only be used to obtain information related to customs or immigrations laws.That, however, has changed. The Trump administration recently argued in court that because the Customs Service’s powers were transferred to DHS following the passing of the Homeland Security Act, it can use that power to tackle its “broad investigative portfolio,” which it says includes enforcing laws “beyond legacy customs and immigration enforcement.”“When we give law enforcement agencies powerful investigative tools, even with the best intentions and purposes to try to go after legitimate investigations and crime, you have to be really careful,” says Mackey. The newly reported filing is part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the nonprofit against ICE and DHS."The numbers reported to EFF amount to a dragnet domestic surveillance program by Trump's Homeland Security Department,” says US senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.ICE did not respond to questions about why there’s been such a huge increase compared to prior years, but Mackey speculates that it may be because there is virtually no downside to filing them.“The worst thing that will happen to ICE is that the service that receives it says it's not going to respond,” says Mackey. If that happens, ICE can just take the company to court to force it to comply, as it recently did with Google, or withdraw it and try to get the information it’s after by issuing a grand jury subpoena, as the Intercept reported it recently did with Reddit.“Congress desperately needs to pass my bipartisan legislation to drastically curb federal subpoenas, including consequences for officials who abuse surveillance authorities,” says Wyden, referencing his proposed Subpoena Abuse Prevention Act. “Next year, I plan to use the Senate Finance Committee gavel to get to the bottom of HSI's unprecedented misuse of customs law to target Trump's enemies.”Even without exact details about the 185,000 subpoenas HSI sent out, Mackey says their prolific uses still raises “significant concerns about an agency potentially being out of control and not being subject to any sort of internal oversight that respects people's First Amendment rights and their rights to privacy.”