What specific FOIA disclosures exist about ICE travel to Israel and which Israeli units or companies were involved?
Executive summary
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures and litigation by U.S. and civil-rights groups have produced documents showing that at least some senior ICE officials traveled to Israel for counterterrorism and law‑enforcement seminars arranged by organizations like the Anti‑Defamation League (ADL), and that ICE has longstanding procurement and contract relationships with Israeli digital forensics and spyware firms including Cellebrite and, more recently, Paragon/Graphite—though many records remain withheld or litigated [1][2][3].
1. FOIA disclosures that document ICE travel to Israel: seminar participant lists and agency travel logs
The clearest FOIA-based disclosure at the center of reporting is a booklet and related records surfaced by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) showing that Peter Edge, then an ICE associate director, attended the ADL’s 2015 National Counter Terrorism Institute seminar in Israel—a disclosure obtained via public records requests and a FOIA to local agencies that yielded participant lists and related materials [1][4]. ICE’s own proactive FOIA page has historically published travel summaries and travel schedules for senior officials, indicating the agency maintains logs that can be requested under FOIA [5]. Civil‑society groups also report broader sets of FOIA returns—some aggregated by Deadly Exchange allies—claiming that “well over a thousand” U.S. law‑enforcement delegates, including local police and federal agents, traveled to Israel for training over several years, a figure these groups say came from their FOIA efforts, though the underlying agency records cited by those groups are variably specific [6][4].
2. FOIA litigation about technologies and contractors: Cellebrite and Paragon/Graphite
Separate FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuits by Just Futures Law and the Center for Constitutional Rights seek disclosure of ICE and CBP records about contracts, training materials, and use of surveillance tools produced by Israeli companies, most prominently Cellebrite and Paragon (sometimes referenced in reporting as Graphite) [2][7]. Advocacy groups assert ICE has contracted with Cellebrite since at least 2008 and that two active contracts were reported worth roughly $11 million in agency disclosures and press releases, while Paragon’s September 2024 contract with ICE was publicly reported and then paused by the Biden administration pending compliance reviews—details that became central to FOIA litigation because agencies withheld records [2][3].
3. Which Israeli units or security partners are identified in FOIA returns and secondary reporting
FOIA returns publicized by groups and journalists document meetings and seminar agendas showing U.S. delegates meeting with Israeli security bodies such as municipal police, military prison officials, and internal security services in the context of counterterrorism seminars—reports say delegates met with figures from Shin Bet and military prison leadership, derived from seminar schedules and participant reports rather than a single consolidated ICE disclosure [6][4]. These meetings are described in advocacy reporting based on FOIA‑obtained ADL materials and local agency requests that produced itineraries and briefing notes [1][4].
4. Limits, contested claims, and institutional opacity
Several important caveats shape the record: ICE and DHS routinely delay or withhold FOIA records and have been the subject of litigation over backlogs and exemptions, meaning the publicly available disclosures are partial and contested [8][9]. Some widely repeated claims—such as that “well over a thousand” federal agents specifically traveled to Israel—originate from advocacy group FOIA compilations and secondary reporting; those numbers rely on aggregations across many smaller records rather than a single ICE admission and are interpreted differently by critics and supporters [6][4]. Legal groups suing for contract and use records underscore that key documents about how spyware was deployed remain withheld, prompting court challenges to compel disclosure [2][7].
5. Motives, framing, and why the FOIA trail matters
Civil‑rights groups pursuing FOIA disclosures frame these trips and technology contracts as evidence of knowledge transfer that shaped U.S. policing and immigration enforcement tactics—an argument that motivates legal action to force transparency and constrain controversial tools [1][2]. Proponents of exchange programs and industry partners often present the trips as legitimate counterterrorism and digital forensics cooperation; the differing framings reveal the political stakes in what FOIA releases do or do not show, and why withheld contracts and redactions are central to ongoing litigation [4][3]. Where sources do not provide full agency releases, reporting must note those absences rather than assume conclusions beyond the documents produced [8][9].