hyper2We Asked for ICE Bodycam Footage. DHS Claims They Don’t Have It.
rsstheintercept.com/2026/01/09/dhs-kristi-noem-ice…
Kristi Noem, center, speaks during a news conference at One World Trade Center in New York on Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Department of Homeland Security claimed four times within 48 hours that it had “no documents” in response to records requests from the Freedom of the Press Foundation late last year. These brush-offs raise serious questions about whether the agency is saving its documents anymore, much less creating them in the first place.
Each of our Freedom of Information Act requests was for records likely to exist, and any single “no records” response would have been suspicious. But four in rapid succession is enough to cast doubt on Homeland Security’s record-keeping practices and its compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.
These are the records we asked for and DHS claims it simply doesn’t have.
All emails sent or received by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem containing the terms “CNN” and “ICEBlock”
DHS responded on December 11 it couldn’t find any records about this attempt to intimidate the press from reporting on ICE. This dubious claim came even though Noem said publicly this summer that she was in communication with Attorney General Pam Bondi about prosecuting CNN for reporting on ICEBlock, a crowdsourced application that tracks ICE sightings.
It’s a little hard to see how Noem could have worked with Bondi on potential legal action against both entities without mentioning them by name. It’s similarly difficult to imagine that nobody else within DHS, including its Office of General Counsel, emailed Noem to advise or ask questions on the potential prosecution.
One explanation is that Noem’s summer claim was just bluster. Another is that the DHS search wasn’t as thorough as the agency claimed. Yet another possibility is that these discussions happened over third-party applications, like Signal, and were never forwarded to official accounts.
Many agencies’ records management rules do allow for the use of third-party platforms, but Biden-era guidance from the National Archives and Records Administration requires these messages be forwarded to official accounts within 20 days.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as acting head of the National Archives after President Donald Trump removed Archivist of the U.S. Colleen Shogan in February, has participated in Signal chats himself and has not demonstrated any interest in ensuring that agencies are following his own rules. Rubio’s apparent ambivalence for NARA’s preservation protocols may prove to be one of the biggest systemic threats to holding this administration accountable. If records are not preserved, or not created when they are required to be, they are effectively impossible to search for in response to FOIA requests and litigation.
The complete archive of Noem’s Truth Social direct messages for her official account, @SecNoem
Again, DHS told us on December 9 it didn’t have any records to share. DHS said this even though it is well known that Trump communicates with administration officials through private messages on the social media platform, as his DM-heard-around-the-world to Bondi made clear.
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Is it possible that Trump only messages Bondi, and none of his other officials, on Truth Social? Maybe, but this would raise the question of why Bondi would be an outlier. Another possibility is that Truth Social doesn’t allow for exporting DMs. But if that’s the case, then neither Noem nor the president should have accounts there at all, since that wouldn’t allow officials to comply with federal or presidential records management rules.
All body camera footage from ICE captured as part of Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago
Yet again, ICE said on December 9 it didn’t have any records of its Chicago immigration enforcement operation to share with us, even though U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered in October that ICE and other immigration agents wear body cameras and turn them on.
In response to a request for comment from Minho Kim of the New York Times, ICE claimed, “The premise of your story is false and overly simplifies the court’s relevant order,” and argued the order did not mandate agents who didn’t already have cameras obtain them.
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Is it possible that ICE agents in Chicago who did not already have body cameras were entirely exempt from the judge’s order, and that not a single ICE agent in Chicago had a camera before the judge’s order?
The possibility exists, but this, again, raises a few serious questions, including why Customs and Border Protection agents wear body cameras but not every ICE agent does; why ICE is not outfitting agents in an active enforcement operation with cameras, in apparent violation of the agency’s body camera policy; and why ICE isn’t using any of its massive new budget to cover the costs of body cameras for officials.
The request the Secret Service made to the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the water level of an Ohio river to ensure JD Vance had a nice kayaking trip
The Secret Service said on December 10 it had no relevant documents, even though the agency publicly acknowledged in August that it had coordinated with the Army Corps of Engineers about Vice President JD Vance’s trip, and geological reports showed a change in the water level coinciding with the Vance family’s vacation.
Did the Secret Service really never request that the water level be changed, or is the agency concealing information that might show Vance was “potentially exploiting public infrastructure resources for his personal recreation,” as The Guardian put it, at the same time the administration was drastically cutting funds to outdoor agencies,including the National Park Service?
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In a separate FOIA request for records about the construction of the White House ballroom, the Secret Service didn’t even bother to conduct a search. Instead, it said the records I sought might already be publicly available on federal contracting websites, or would be considered presidential records and not subject to release under FOIA until five years after the end of this Trump administration. It then closed the FOIA request without offering any right to appeal. I appealed anyway, noting it was unlikely that every record I sought would fit the definition of a presidential record, but it raises even further concerns that the agency is relying on a number of dubious tactics to evade FOIA.
The Trump administration isn’t the first to fail FOIA, and well-known problems have festered for decades. Democratic and Republican White Houses have meddled with FOIA releases to prevent disclosures of embarrassing or potentially illegal activities. Recalcitrant agencies, particularly within the law enforcement and intelligence communities, have ignored presidential directives on declassification and faced no meaningful consequences. And Congress has never funded FOIA offices, a serious problem as agencies receive a record number of requests every year but don’t often have the software or personnel to meet their mandate.
If DHS really has no records of any of these requests, then the problem isn’t just FOIA compliance, it’s governance.
These decadeslong failures meant FOIA was already in a weakened state by the time Trump entered his second term in January 2025, and his administration has taken full advantage. It has shrunk the federal government and left FOIA offices, already underwater, hollowed out. FOIA officials have been fired shortly after making lawful releases that countered the government’s narrative, potentially causing a chilling effect. And, as evidenced by Freedom of the Press Foundation’s FOIA requests, the administration may by trying to avoid complying with FOIA by simply saying they have no records at all.
If DHS really has no records of any of these requests, then the problem isn’t just FOIA compliance, it’s governance. A federal agency, and a federal government, that can’t show its work can’t be held accountable. DHS owes the public more answers.
The post We Asked for ICE Bodycam Footage. DHS Claims They Don’t Have It. appeared first on The Intercept.
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They don’t have body cams…
That’s why the recent video of Jonathon Ross murdering someone was shot with a cellphone in his left hand while his gun was in his right.
He was consciously focused on getting video because he felt he had put himself in a position to justify the shooting.
But they don’t have body cams rolling the whole time because it would catch all the completely unjustifiable shit they do.
Quick edit:
This gives the justifiable step of subpoenaing all personal phone records and content of every ICE agent for evidence of abuse of force…
Our politicians won’t do it yet, but it’s something to keep in mind for after midterms.
ICE agents won’t delete the worst shit, some idiot will keep it saved. So even a year from now it’s worth doing.
Or was he recording because he was told he needs to kill someone and be sure to record it. It’s weird that he was recording anything, like does ICE usually record their interactions? What reason prompted his recording?
They are recording so that they can dox and harass protestors later, e.g. the bullshit they pulled with Charlie Kirk.
AI facial recognition can’t be done in real time with body cams. He was filming her to get her background info / put her in the system as an agitator.
False. This is the DHS guideline mandating ICE use of body-worn cameras.
I said they’re not wearing them…
You said that can’t be true because they’re required to wear them by law.
The flaw in your logic is you’re assuming ICE agents are following the law.
Which frankly, is pretty concerning that anyone is operating under that assumption
ICE agents don’t feel they need to operate under the law, because they think they are the law.
I mean okay but jumping down that person’s throat because you neglected to mention they were required to wear body cams by law but are instead just choosing not to is a bit much lol. I was thinking the exact same thing after reading your initial comment. They are required to wear them during these operations (especially after Chicago). I have no idea whether or not they are but they are supposed to.
In either case I think it’s pretty obvious the public won’t see any footage of body cams any time soon
Just because they mandate body cams doesn’t mean the agents are 1) wearing body cams, or 2) turning them on.
This is a fascist regime, they’ll say anything and do whatever they want. Policy and reality aren’t connected in any meaningful way. All you’ve pointed out is that they’re either lying or ignoring policy, both of which are par for the course.
This right here is why we’re going to have to be okay handling this with “fuzzy laws” when the time comes. No records because they failed to keep them? Fine, then we impute that the acts alleged were done and would have been supported had proper record keeping occurred.
We can’t let them benefit from their own bad acts.
I advocate for using records to identify ICE membership if they are Nuremburged as a class. That is much harder to do ethically if they don’t have records.
This opens the door to fucked up results, if we can’t clearly identify who is and isn’t part of the MAGA apparatus.
They’ve brought it on themselves. Offer lighter sentences to those who self report AND NAME NAMES; max sentences for those that don’t.
This is kind of proving they just don’t keep records of anything.
Or
They are lying about having the records.
Both are awful
Signal-gate wasn’t just about someone adding a reporter to a fucked up group text but their use of signal for its forced message expiration ability. Nothing remains or exists if they’re removed 2-weeks later.
The bodycam footage has already been leaked…so, that was a lie.
He took that video with his cell phone, not a body cam. It says that in the video.
Got to wonder why he was filming with his phone
Because he was going to murder someone and wanted to jerk off to it later.
He switched the cellphone to his left hand in order draw his pistol when Renee Good and her wife were clearly not a threat. It was intent to kill, clear as day.
He drew his pistol and moved around to the front of the vehicle in order to get in the way of the vehicle and force the narrative that his gun use was defensive. It was a premeditated maneuver by a man with years of law enforcement experience.
Wow they denied it and didn’t outright say ‘your mom’ or some shit you’d expect from the best the US has to offer.
They could technically be right ,and hiding behind that technicality.
The body cams are almost surely from Axon. And most law enforcement have Axon handle data management. I doubt DHS is doing it themselves when that’s a lucrative government cash cow they can leverage, I mean contract out.
Subpoena Axon for anything related to those body cams.