ICE Neither Confirms Nor Denies Investigations of Israeli War Crimes

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have made national news for abducting U.S. citizens off the streets, removing women's organs through forced medical procedures and forcibly disappearing people to third countries, a crime under international law according to the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights. However, behind the agency’s $10 billion budget and a bravado of violence lies a less known unit within ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations office called the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC).

According to the center’s web page, ICE claims that the HRVWCC “is at the forefront of the U.S. government's efforts to prevent the United States from becoming a safe haven for individuals who commit war crimes, genocide, torture & other human rights abuses around the globe.” 

In 2021, ICE’s HRVWCC made only one single criminal arrest.

In March, I put their claim to the test, asking ICE directly, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, for records concerning any completed or active war crimes investigations into any Israeli national since October 7 2023.

In response, ICE Deputy FOIA officer Megan Davis wrote that she “determined to neither confirm nor deny the existence of responsive records,” listing a series of FOIA exemptions that could be applicable if records did or did not exist.

However, these exemptions illustrate that ICE has clear mechanisms to redact sensitive information within responses to FOIA requests which would protect the privacy of individuals and the integrity of an investigation.

If ICE chose to use these exemptions and redact information contained in responsive records, I would have been provided with a list of documents withheld from disclosure, indicating that investigations were in fact taking place, the details of which remain secret.

Instead of choosing to withhold records and issue a withholding log, ICE chose a different route, to neither confirm nor deny that any records existed at all. This type of response, colloquially known as a Glomar response, allows agencies to skirt their obligations under federal law to produce responsive records, usually in extraordinary situations.  

After I appealed ICE’s initial Glomar response, ICE’s Government Information Law Division Chief Sara Jazayeri responded, stating that “without the explicit consent of the individual(s) referenced in your request, ICE can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the records you are seeking.”

There's one problem with ICE’s response: I never named any individuals in my FOIA request. 

The implications here are significant. While ICE claims to operate a unit investigating war crimes, Israeli nationals accused of war crimes actively transit across U.S. borders and within U.S. territory.  

Middle East Eye has reported that International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants are ready for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Both men have crossed U.S. borders this year. 

Smotrich visited Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in March, and Ben Gvir visited New York in April.

After a Ben Gvir speech in Brooklyn, Orthodox Jews formed a mob and attacked a woman on the street while shouting “death to Arabs.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant are both subject to active ICC arrest warrants. Both men have freely passed across U.S. borders this year. 

In addition to Israeli nationals, it is estimated that over 23,000 Americans are currently enlisted within the Israeli military. The Guardian reported on one Chicago man who raided Gaza with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a sniper.

Anti-Muslim American biker gang members are also serving as security for the infamous Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) sites across the strip. Numerous whistleblowers have raised highly credible accounts of killing and violations of international law at these sites which operate at the direction of the Israeli military. Médecins Sans Frontières has called GHF distribution areas “sites of orchestrated killing.”

ICE propaganda claims that the agency hunts down the worst of the worst. However, an Israeli cybersecurity official who was caught in an FBI child sex sting in Nevada was allowed to flee the U.S. back to Israel. In stark contrast, ICE hunted down and abducted Tufts student and Fulbright scholar Rümeysa Öztürk because she wrote an op-ed within her school newspaper.

HardPressed is not aware of any Israeli or U.S citizen who has been arrested or detained by ICE under war crimes investigations related to the genocide in Gaza. While some critics and genocide deniers say that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, thus skirting jurisdiction of the ICC, U.S. federal law under 18 U.S.C. §2441 allows for criminal prosecution of any foreign national or U.S. citizen for violating war crimes if they are found on U.S. soil. 

Forget about Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and others. Americans continue killing people across the world with impunity today, including fishermen in North Korea, kids at a birthday party in Haiti, and people on boats in the Caribbean.

ICE claims it's preventing the U.S. from being a haven for war criminals. The agency’s conspicuous inaction and Glomar denials speak for themselves.