DHS says ICE has ‘no relationship’ with spyware maker Paragon : NPR

The file image dated May 7, 2025, in Newark, New Jersey, shows a badge hanging above the uniform of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement reactivated a previously suspended contract with spyware maker Paragon Solutions last year, raising questions about whether the agency was using commercial spyware to remotely hack cell phones and whether the deal complied with a 2023 executive order.

But now the Department of Homeland Security says ICE currently has no contracts or relationships with the Israeli-founded company, which is best known for creating spyware called Graphite that can be used to infiltrate devices remotely and access encrypted messages without targets needing to click on a link.

“ICE has no relationship with Paragon Solutions, Inc. or the company that acquired them,” DHS said in a statement to NPR.

ICE first entered into a contract with the US subsidiary of Paragon Solutions in 2024 for an unspecified product. But the Biden administration quickly suspended the contract to decide whether it complied with a 2023 executive order prohibiting federal agencies from purchasing commercial spyware that poses a significant security risk to the United States or a risk of misuse by foreign governments.

Governments have targeted their opponents with spyware

Foreign governments have repeatedly used commercial spyware to spy on political rivals, journalists, human rights defenders and other members of civil society. US politicians and officials have also been targeted, prompting the Biden administration to take steps to counter the industry.

Paragon Solutions’ Graphite tool played a central role in a government spying scandal in Italy that came to light early last year after Meta-owned WhatsApp discovered that some 90 users of its messaging app, including journalists and activists, had been targeted with Graphite in various countries.

Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and Italian prosecutors confirmed that Italian journalists and activists were among those targeted by Graphite. Paragon Solutions told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in June 2025, it terminated its contract with Italian intelligence agencies after Italian authorities refused the company’s help in determining whether the tool had been used against a journalist.

Paragon Solutions’ founders include former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

At the end of 2024, Israeli media reported that an American private equity firm, AE Industrial Partners, had acquired Paragon Solutions to merge it with REDLattice, a cybersecurity company controlled by the same company.

Then, last August, under the Trump administration, ICE reactivated the Paragon Solutions contract. In response, Democratic lawmakers sent DHS a series of questions about the contract and ICE’s use of spyware.

But a notice on the Paragon Solutions contract on a federal procurement website indicates the contract closed on Jan. 20.

“ICE has not entered into a new contract with Paragon Solutions, Inc,” DHS told NPR in a statement. The ministry declined to clarify whether ICE still has access to tools developed by Paragon, for example through a third party.

Neither REDLattice nor AE Industrial Partners responded to requests for comment Friday.

ICE admitted to using spyware

News of the end of ICE’s relationship with Paragon Solutions comes after Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons responded to questions from Democratic lawmakers in an April 1 letter in which he acknowledged authorizing ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations team to use commercial spyware in its efforts to disrupt foreign terrorist organizations and fentanyl traffickers.

“In response to the unprecedented lethality of fentanyl and the exploitation of digital platforms by transnational criminal organizations, I have approved HSI’s acquisition and operational use of cutting-edge technological tools that address the specific challenges posed by the thriving exploitation of encrypted communications platforms by foreign terrorist organizations,” Lyons wrote.

His letter stated that he had certified that use of the tool complied with the 2023 Executive Order on Government Use of Commercial Spyware.

When NPR asked DHS whether ICE agents still had access to the tools developed by Paragon or the tool Lyons referenced in his letter, the department provided a statement saying, “DHS will not confirm or deny law enforcement capabilities or methods.” Under President Trump, ICE is using every legal tool to remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from the United States. »

DHS declined to answer a question asking whether ICE uses another spyware vendor.

Privacy advocates say questions remain about government surveillance

Growth arsenal of surveillance technologies that ICE agents use to track immigrants as well as protesters have alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates.

Advocates told NPR they still have questions about how to interpret DHS’s statements about ending its relationship with Paragon Solutions, especially since it remains unclear whether the agency can access the company’s tools.

“It’s promising that they don’t seem to be renewing the contract immediately,” said Maria Villegas Bravo, an attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit. “However, I am always wary of vaguely worded statements of non-association.”

Julie Mao, deputy director of Just Futures Law, which is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to documents associated with ICE’s Paragon Solutions contract, called the latest DHS statements a “half-measure and red herring” given Lyon’s letter last month acknowledging the use of commercial spyware.

“If it’s not Paragon spyware, what company and what spyware is ICE using? And how is ICE using it?” Mao told NPR in an email. “The agency should provide the American public with a full accounting of its surveillance technologies.”