41,000 DHS employees' names leaked in major hack, group says

DHS and ICE have been at the centre of an immigration crackdown ordered by Trump at the start of his second term in January 2025.

A nonprofit news leak group said on Wednesday that it had published data on more than 41,000 employees of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including those involved in President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement efforts.

Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) said it obtained the sensitive information from a "hacktivist group" known as the Department of Peace, which created a tool called Icepick that allows detailed searches of employees' names, offices, and assignments.

"This dataset is massive in terms of both size and impact," activist Maia Arson Crimew said in a statement issued by DDoS.

"It provides an unprecedented look into the Department of Homeland Security's organisational structure, highlighting which people do what work across multiple DHS agencies, including ICE," the activist said, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DHS and ICE have been at the centre of an immigration crackdown ordered by Trump at the start of his second term in January 2025.

DDoS co-founder Emma Best described the leak as "extraordinary".

The data "identifies the officials responsible for overseeing covert and undercover operations, the government's hunt for leakers...along with key personnel in DHS's ever-escalating rendition and deportation programmes", Best said.

The crackdown has resulted in thousands of undocumented people being detained and deported, while US citizens have also been caught up in the dragnet.

Last month, DHS said it was initiating a "surge in sanctuary cities", which are known for limiting cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal authorities, as the Trump administration intensified its immigration crackdown.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute said in a fact sheet that Trump's DHS had expanded arrests and deportations over the preceding several months, outpacing the immigration enforcement efforts of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The institute said DHS, including ICE, "completed 980,000 deportations" during the first 18 months of Trump's second presidential term.