Homeland Security Fired 185,000 Warrantless Subpoenas Under Trump

Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of ICE that usually chases transnational crime, says it has sent at least 185,000 administrative subpoenas since the start of the Trump administration. The estimate comes from a recent court filing, per WIRED. For scale: a previous WIRED analysis found ICE agents sent roughly 170,000 of one type of administrative subpoena — the 1509 customs summons — across more than six and a half years, from the start of 2016 to mid-August 2022.

The number dropped as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed against the Department of Homeland Security. EFF had asked how many administrative subpoenas ICE or DHS sent to technology companies, internet platforms and service providers since January 20, 2025. Aaron Mackey, the nonprofit's deputy legal director, says EFF now wants more detail on that 185,000 estimate — and it's still unclear whether the count covers only those kinds of companies or a far wider pool.

Administrative subpoenas are the quiet superpower here. Unlike a grand jury subpoena or a court order, the government never has to tell a judge why it wants the documents or what data it's pulling from a company. Since Trump took office, DHS has wielded that power to try to unmask anonymous online critics and to chase broad customer records tied to protesters — including a list of people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area who bought a specific green beanie from REI.

Congress handed the 1509 customs summons to the then-stand-alone US Customs Service nearly a century ago, so officers could inspect import records and check customs duties. Lawmakers moved that power to the newly formed DHS in 2003. In 2017, the DHS inspector general scolded Customs and Border Protection's Office of Professional Responsibility for trying to use a customs summons to unmask an anonymous Twitter poster, noting its own manual limited the tool to customs and immigration matters. The Trump administration recently argued in court that the power now covers its quote-unquote broad investigative portfolio, extending beyond legacy customs and immigration enforcement.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon didn't mince words: he says the numbers reported to EFF amount to a dragnet domestic surveillance program by Trump's Homeland Security Department. ICE didn't answer questions about the jump over prior years. Mackey's theory is that there's almost no downside to firing them off — worst case, a company refuses, and ICE either drags it to court to force compliance, as it recently did with Google, or withdraws the summons and pivots to a grand jury subpoena, as the Intercept reported it did with Reddit.

Wyden is pushing his proposed Subpoena Abuse Prevention Act, which he says would drastically curb federal subpoenas and create consequences for officials who abuse surveillance authorities. He also says he plans to use the Senate Finance Committee gavel next year to dig into what he calls HSI's unprecedented misuse of customs law to target Trump's enemies. Even without the full picture, Mackey says the sheer volume raises significant concerns about an agency potentially out of control and unbound by internal oversight that respects people's First Amendment and privacy rights.