Bennie Thompson

Washington – The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee grilled a senior ICE official Tuesday about two agents who entered a Syracuse polling place last week to deliver a warning letter to an online protester.

Rep. Bennie Thompson said he was troubled by the incident, where two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the polling place at the Syracuse Central Library.

The agents warned Paigelynne Gonyea, an Onondaga County election worker at the polling place, to remove a social media post they said threatens a federal agent, syracuse.com reported.

Gonyea said she believes the agents were referring to a January post on Instagram where she named the ICE agent who shot protester Renee Good in Minnesota. The agent’s name has been widely reported in news stories and social media posts across the world.

Thompson, D-Miss., asked an ICE official testifying at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing if he was aware that it’s illegal for armed federal agents to enter polling places.

“Earlier this month there were reports that ICE vehicles were in the parking lot of polling locations in California,” Thompson said. “And just last week ICE agents entered a polling place in Syracuse, New York to accost a poll worker exercising her First Amendment right.”

He asked Michael Krol, assistant director for domestic operations for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, what he knew about the incidents.

Krol said he could speak in a general sense about what happened in Syracuse. He said the visit had nothing to do with voting or trying to intimidate people at polling places.

“It was really that the person who was in that location was a suspect that the agents from OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) were attempting to interview,” Krol said. He offered no other information.

Thompson asked Krol if he was familiar with the U.S. code that bans armed federal agents from entering polling places.

“For your information, it bars the presence of armed federal offices at polling places, except to repel armed enemies of the United States,” Thompson said. “So, can you share with us any training that ICE agents might receive relative” to that code?

Krol said he did not know the answer. Thompson asked him to get back to the committee with specifics.

“The goal of this statute is to prevent voter intimidation,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, it appears that the goal of this administration in its public statements is to intimidate voters or interfere with state and local efforts to administer elections.”

Thompson asked Krol if his department would agree not to deploy ICE agents in or near polling locations when people are voting.

“What I can say is that there are no plans that I am aware of for...special agents to be in voting locations at all,” Krol told the committee, adding that ICE would commit to follow the law.

The Department of Homeland Security said it warned Gonyea about her social media post because it included the address of the ICE agent who shot Good in January.

Gonyea told syracuse.com that she does not recall posting the agent’s address on her Instagram account. She said she cannot find any deleted post that lists his address.

A syracuse.com reporter asked Department of Homeland Security officials last week for proof of the threatening post, which it did not provide.

“This individual committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online,” said an email from an anonymous Homeland Security spokesperson. “Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in danger.”

Thompson raised his questions about ICE’s tactics at a joint hearing held by two House Homeland Security subcommittees.

The Republican majority arranged the meeting so that committee members could hear about security challenges at the northern border with Canada.

Thompson said it would be wrong to hold a hearing about the border while ignoring “the flagrant abuses of DHS operations across the country.”

He added, “That would be like fixing a fence around a House that is collapsing.”