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"ICE agents entered a polling place to intimidate a worker about her social media posts," said a civil liberties advocate.
A poll worker in Syracuse, New York said she was left unsettled after a pair of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up at her polling place to tell her to delete Instagram content calling for the indictment of the agent who shot Renee Good in January.
The worker, Paigelynne Gonyea, was in the middle of her shift during Tuesday's elections in New York when she received a phone message from someone who identified himself as Dave Brody, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security.
He said agents "were just by" her apartment and had spoken to her husband about a post in which she "doxxed an ICE agent back in January."
Gonyea said the agents were referring to a post she made on January 8, 2026, the day after an ICE agent shot and killed Good, a 37-year-old mother and US citizen, in Minneapolis. The post contained an image of the masked agent, who had at that point been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
"The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune," the post read. "I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted!"
Gonyea said she could not leave her job working the polls to speak with the agents, so she told them to come to her polling place. "They knew I was a poll site worker and still came in," she said.
Referencing what happened to Good, she said she refused to meet with the agents outside alone.
“I’ve seen the news, especially in Minnesota,” she said. “And I didn’t want anything to happen to me at all.”
Video of the encounter, shot by another employee, shows the two agents entering the polling site at Central Library on Salina Street.
The agents handed Gonyea a form letter that read, "YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW."
The form, which Gonyea posted, said ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) had identified a post on Gonyea's account that it believed "may constitute a violation" of federal law.
The notice informed her that "it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official" and that "knowingly making restricted personal information about a covered person, or their immediate family member, publicly available with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime" was also illegal. It said violating these laws could subject her to state and federal prosecution.
The letter directed her to "promptly remove and/or discontinue the aforementioned behavior." It warned her that receipt of the notice "will be taken into consideration, should you continue to be involved in any criminal activities described above."
Gonyea told Syracuse.com that the agents presented her with copies of her social media posts and her driver's license and that "they tried to scare me into signing" the document "while I was working."
She refused to sign the notice despite continued pressure from the agents.
Gonyea was emphatic that her post—which only repeated publicly reported information—did not violate the law.
“I didn’t dox his personal information, such as address, phone number,” she said, adding that she would not remove the post.
Gonyea has discussed the case with the New York Board of Elections and the attorney general’s civil rights office, and she said she has contacted US Rep. John Mannion (D-NY), Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
She has created a GoFundMe page to pay for potential legal expenses.
“For ICE to come to me over a social media post just feels very 1984 to me,” Gonyea said. “They definitely should have known better to not go into a polling place, even if I said it was OK.”
In a post on her GoFundMe page, Gonyea described the incident as a "pretty unsettling run-in."
"It’s the kind of situation that makes you stop and think about free speech and how far government authority can go. Honestly, it shook me, and I don’t think it’s something that should just be brushed off," she said. "It just doesn’t sit right with me."
Dustin Czarny, the election commissioner for Onondaga County, emphasized that federal law only allows specific people to enter polling places during elections—including poll workers, elections inspectors, voters eligible to vote at the site, and someone a voter brought to assist them in voting
Federal law specifies that it is unlawful for anyone in federal service to send “troops or armed men” to places where elections are held.
“There’s no role for law enforcement officials to be inside a polling place unless they are responding to an emergency of some kind,” Czarny said. “There is no indication of that here.”
Despite this, Trump administration officials have indicated a desire to send ICE agents to polling places on election day during the 2026 midterms.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in February that her department had been "proactive to make sure we have the right people voting" in elections. In March, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche asked at a conservative political conference, "Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?” adding, "Illegals can't vote. It doesn't make any sense."
Trump refused to rule out the possibility when asked about it by reporters in May, saying he'd "do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections."
Critics of ICE have described agents' demands for Gonyea to remove political speech as a worrying new frontier for the agency's encroachments on civil liberties.
"ICE agents entered a polling place to intimidate a worker about her social media posts," said David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. "Wouldn't you quit before you carried out an order to do this?"
"Americans refuse to be intimidated by these government criminals who hate the Constitution," he added. "Normal people want accountability, not impunity for killing Americans unnecessarily."
"But it’s not enough for ICE to disagree; they need to stamp out dissent," he said. "I know they monitor my social media. You should know that they’re monitoring yours too."
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Human Rights Watch said of the deadly blitz.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday published a scathing report detailing how President Donald Trump "caused a human rights crisis" in Minnesota by ordering the deadly federal invasion of the Twin Cities in service of the administration's mass deportation agenda.
HRW called Operation Metro Surge, launched by Trump last December, "an unprecedented deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents and officers to the state of Minnesota," including members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
"The Trump administration claimed that Operation Metro Surge was designed to keep Americans safe and often stated that it was targeting noncitizens with violent criminal histories," the report states. "But the operation itself caused significant harm, and nearly two out of three immigrants arrested by ICE during Operation Metro Surge had no prior US criminal history whatsoever."
At least three people have been killed in connection with the operation. ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, in Minneapolis on January 7. A week later, 36-year-old Nicaraguan detainee Victor Manuel Díaz, who was arrested during the operation, became the third person to die at the notorious East Montana concentration camp in Texas. On January 24, CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez and Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, 37, also in Minneapolis.
"Federal agents shot a third Minneapolis resident and pulled guns on dozens more," the report continues. "Agents also violently smashed car windows without justification, physically threw people to the ground who were not resisting arrest, and deployed chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades on dozens of occasions, sometimes at close range and without warning, resulting in injuries, including to journalists."
Furthermore, federal agents "unlawfully arrested and detained hundreds; engaged in racial profiling, harassment, and surveillance; and terrorized Minnesotans, chilling their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and impacting their rights to education and health, among others," HRW said, adding that "residents faced further abuses when they collectively acted to protest, prevent, and stop these violations of their rights."
The HRW report calls for an immediate end to abusive federal enforcement operations in Minnesota; independent investigations into alleged unlawful killings, racial profiling, arbitrary arrests, excessive force, and other rights violations; and full accountability for officials responsible.
“The federal government sent hordes of masked, armed agents to grab people off the street, whisk them away in shackles, and abuse those who sought to bear witness,” Reagan Williams, HRW's crisis and conflict researcher, said in a statement. “Minnesotans mobilized to protest, to document abuse, and to provide critical aid to one another. National-level action is needed to ensure accountability, end ongoing abuses, remedy the harm, and prevent another crisis of this scale.”
“Operation Metro Surge put the violent and abusive practices of these agencies on full display,” Williams added. “We have clear proof of how they operate when impunity prevails, and we need to urgently chart a new way forward through accountability and structural reforms that put an end to these abuses.”
"ICE shows up, and nothing but chaos.”
This is a developing story… Please check back for updates…
Less than a week after Republicans in Congress passed $70 billion in new funding for President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, an immigration agent reportedly shot at a fleeing vehicle in New Jersey on Monday.
According to the police department of Stafford Township, Immigration and Customs Enforcement "was attempting to apprehend a suspect when the suspect fled from the scene in a vehicle, striking [an ICE agent]" on Monday morning around 9:30 am near a Wawa convenience store.
ICE identified the suspect as a Peruvian national, Friedrich Castillo-Ormeno, whom the agency said was given a final order of removal on January 30. Aside from describing him as an "illegal alien," ICE provided no other information about his background or any criminal history.
On June 15, 2026, ICE law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted vehicle stop in Manahawkin, New Jersey to arrest Freidrich Castillo-Ormeno, an illegal alien from Peru who was released into our country under the Biden administration. He was given a final order of removal…
— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) June 15, 2026
"The agent discharged his firearm at the vehicle, reportedly striking it," the Stafford police said. "The suspect fled the scene in the vehicle and has not been located at this time." Onlookers told NBC 10 Philadelphia that bullets struck the driver's van and may have blown out the back window.
The police added that “the agent reportedly sustained unknown injuries." According to Patch, officers went to the scene and performed first aid on the agent before transporting him for further treatment. Sources told NBC 10 Philadelphia that he is expected to make a full recovery.
"It is unknown if the suspect was injured at this time," the Stafford police said, adding that although Castillo-Ormeno fled the scene, “there is no reason to believe there is any concern for the public’s safety.”
Under the Department of Homeland Security's use-of-force policy, agents are not supposed to shoot at fleeing vehicles unless the officer believes they are at imminent risk of death or serious physical injury.
ICE said Castillo-Ormeno "weaponized his vehicle and struck an officer, resulting in the officer discharging his weapon."
According to Patch, local police are not conducting an investigation into the incident, and all further updates will come from the FBI.
Under Trump, the US Department of Justice has faced criticism for locking state and local investigators out of investigations into the shootings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year and spreading false information to justify their deaths.
Minnesota became the center of a national wave of resistance to ICE that ultimately pushed federal immigration agencies to retreat on some of their most extreme tactics, though the mass deportation push against immigrants largely without criminal histories has not subsided.
New Jersey has met ICE with its own share of pushback. Last month, US Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) was pepper-sprayed by federal agents outside the privately run Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark. Demonstrators had shown up in solidarity with hundreds of detainees who had gone on a hunger and labor strike to protest the squalid conditions in the facility, and protests have continued for weeks.
Although Stafford Township is overwhelmingly Republican, The Daily Beast found that in the immediate aftermath of Monday's reported shooting, some residents in a local Facebook group were wary about the tumult that ICE's presence could bring.
"Immigrants have been in Stafford for decades with no problems,” one resident wrote in a local Facebook group where the incident is being discussed. “They are respectful and hardworking. ICE shows up, and nothing but chaos.”
“Who shoots at a van?" wrote another Stafford resident, who added that "[ICE] training is brutal."