Inside the Homeland Security Forum Where ICE Agents Talk Shit About Other Agents

Every day, people log into an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops commandos with tactical body armor, flip-up thighs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to make an administrative arrest of a non-criminal, non-violent EWI who weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2 tall, inside a secure federal building where everyone was checked for weapons,” one user wrote in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it is one of ICE’s two main divisions and is responsible for immigrant detention and deportation.)

The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for seasoned HSI special agents as well as applicants for entry-level special agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally tasked with investigating crimes such as drug trafficking, terrorism, and human trafficking.

In the forum, users discuss their discomfort with the United States’ mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents have interacted with protesters and the public, and complain about the state of their working conditions. Members also had lively discussions about the shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and how immigration enforcement has been enforced in the United States.

The forum is one of several related forums where people working in different parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) share their experiences and discuss specific details of their work. WIRED previously reported on a forum in which current and former deportation officers from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) similarly complained about their jobs and discussed how the agency conducted immigration raids. The HSI forum appears to be related, even including some of the same members.

People do not need to prove employment to join these forums, and the platform does not appear to be heavily moderated. WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities of these posters, although they share details that would likely only be known to people intimately familiar with the position. There are more than 2,000 members whose positions date back to at least 2004.

DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Following the murders of Good and Pretti, members of the forum were sharply divided. In a thread from January 12, five days after Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a poster who had been part of the forum since 2016 wrote: “In my humble opinion, the situation with ICE operations has reached an unprecedented level of violence from suspects and the general public. I hope the AG considers the temporary suspension of civil liberties (during and in geographic locations where ICE operations are conducted).”

A user who joined the forum in 2018 and identifies himself as a recently retired agent responded: “This is a great idea and well justified. This is organized and well financed civil unrest, dare I say INSURRECTION?!?”

In a January 16 article titled “The Shooting,” some posters took a more nuanced view. “I understand it’s a good shoot legally and all that, but all he had to do was walk away, he almost shot one of his co-stars for God’s sake!” wrote one poster who first joined the forum in March 2022. “A non-criminal USC woman, shot in the head on TV for what? That just doesn’t sit well with me… A veteran SRT guy who was able to execute someone while holding a phone seems to me like he could have just gotten out of the way.” SRT refers to ICE’s elite Special Response Team, which undergoes special training to operate in high-risk situations. USC refers to American citizens.