In late June 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that 37 countries now recognized the "Global ICE Accountability Database," meaning current and former U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) "agents, contractors, or collaborators" could be arrested and prosecuted when trying to travel abroad because their enforcement actions
(Threads user @atheistadamx)
Threads user @atheistadamx, who also wrote a lengthy blog post on the topic, posted:
BREAKING: 37 countries now recognize the Global ICE Accountability Database.
U.S. citizens identified as ICE agents, contractors, or collaborators may face detention upon arrival — just like torturers, war criminals, or child traffickers.
"Participated in family separations" = flagged.
"Signed off on deportation raids" = held.
You wanted borders?
Now they work both ways.
The claim spread across X (archived), Facebook (archived) and Bluesky (archived) as well. Snopes readers wrote in asking if it was true.
However, we found no proof that 37 countries had indeed adopted a database allowing them to flag, arrest and potentially prosecute current or former ICE employees. The claim appeared to originate from blog and Threads posts by an internet user who goes by the names Adam Jones and Atheist Adam. We found no other reputable reports on the claim (archived, archived, archived, archived).
Though the blog post by Atheist Adam did contain references to real events, it relied on a mixture of anonymous sources and real quotes taken out of context to back up its central claim.
We reached out to Atheist Adam on Medium, where the claim first appeared, to ask for his sources. We also contacted ICE and Frontex, the European Union's border agency, to ask if the claim was true. We await replies to our queries.
Same 'ICE' memo carried different dates
Our investigation found several of the claims made by Atheist Adam — who uses the name Adam Jones on Facebook — to be inconsistent or unproven.
Firstly, he evidenced his claim with a memo that ICE allegedly circulated. Jones posted three versions of this memo with two different dates: June 27, 2015 (archived), and April 2024 (archived).
Another user responded to a post featuring the June 27, 2015, memo asking, "2015?!?!" to which Jones replied, "Oh s***. I knew I screwed up something. I.will fix." This suggested Jones either created or edited the memo himself.
Jones posted the April 2024 memo, identical in all but date to the June 27, 2015, edition, two hours later.
According to Jones, the memo was classified, so it's not impossible that an insider could have shared it with Jones alone. However, we did not find other reputable sources sharing that same memo.
As for the database itself, online searches for the exact "Global ICE Accountability Database" name Jones provided did not yield credible results (archived, archived, archived, archived). Jones did reference another database of ICE employees in his report that was authentic — more on this below.
Jones' report used several unnamed "diplomatic sources" allegedly from the European Union. Snopes does not rely on anonymous sources or reports that base their findings on these. We could not independently verify the information from Jones' unnamed sources.
Authentic elements lent credibility to claim
Though we found no proof of Jones' main claim that international recognition of the "Global ICE Accountability Database" would leave current and former ICE officers vulnerable to arrest and prosecution overseas, some elements of Jones' report referenced real statements or releases.
For example, Jones wrote that the "Global ICE Accountability Database" grew from the 2018 WikiLeaks ICEPatrol release.
ICEPatrol was a searchable database of personal LinkedIn data belonging to thousands of federal employees including at least 2,000 from ICE, according to reports.
Sites including GitHub, Medium and X (formerly Twitter) eventually removed
Additionally, Jones' article did cite real news releases, but out of context.
Jones wrote of the reaction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — which ICE is part of — to ICEPatrol as follows:
This unprecedented doxxing project (nicknamed "ICEPatrol") built on earlier efforts by hacktivists and journalists to expose ICE personnel. At the time, U.S. officials reacted with outrage; a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson even denounced the compilers of such lists as "thugs", and DHS warned that these "disgusting smears" were meant to "demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement".
We did not find a source for "thugs."
However, "demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement" likely came from a June 2025 DHS release about anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles. We did not find a DHS statement with this phrasing released in 2018 alongside the ICEPatrol release, as Jones claimed.
Later, in a paragraph about how human rights activists were "applauding" the 37 countries' alleged adoption of the database, Jones used a Center for Constitutional Rights press release from 2021 about family separation at the border. Given the release date, the comments within were not about ICEPatrol in 2018 or the alleged adoption of the "Global ICE Accountability Database" in 2025.
In sum, while neither ICE nor Frontex had confirmed or denied Jones' claim that 37 countries, including the European Union, could now arrest or prosecute ICE agents after adopting a particular database at the time of this writing, we found no compelling evidence that it was true. It appeared Jones had included authentic elements in his report, but these did not fully support his central claim.