Immigration and Customs Enforcement reactivated a previously paused contract with spyware maker Paragon Solutions last year, which raised questions about whether the agency was using commercial spyware to remotely hack into cell phones and if the deal complied with a 2023 executive order.
But now the Department of Homeland Security says ICE has no current contract or relationship with the Israeli-founded company, which is best known for making a spyware tool called Graphite that can be used to remotely infiltrate devices and access encrypted messages without targets needing to click a link.
"ICE has no relationship with Paragon Solutions, Inc. or with the company that acquired them," DHS said in a statement to NPR.
ICE first entered into a contract with the U.S. subsidiary of Paragon Solutions in 2024 for an unspecified product. But the Biden administration swiftly put the contract on hold to decide whether it complied with a 2023 executive order barring federal agencies from purchasing commercial spyware that poses a significant security risk to the U.S. or risk of misuse by foreign governments.
Governments have targeted opponents with spyware
Foreign governments have repeatedly used commercial spyware to spy on political rivals, journalists, human rights workers and other members of civil society. American politicians and officials have also been targeted, which prompted the Biden administration to take steps to push back on the industry.
Paragon Solutions' Graphite tool was central to a government spying scandal in Italy that first came to light early last year after Meta-owned WhatsApp found some 90 users of its messaging app, including journalists and activists, had been targeted with Graphite in various countries.
Researchers at The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and Italian prosecutors have confirmed Italian journalists and activists were among those targeted with Graphite. Paragon Solutions told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in June 2025 that it ended its contract with Italian intelligence agencies after Italian authorities declined the company's help to determine whether the tool had been used against a journalist.
Paragon Solutions' founders include former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
In late 2024, Israeli media reported that an American private equity firm, AE Industrial Partners, had acquired Paragon Solutions to merge it with REDLattice, a cybersecurity company controlled by the same firm.
Then, last August, under the Trump administration, ICE reactivated the Paragon Solutions contract. In response, Democratic lawmakers sent DHS a series of questions about the contract and ICE's use of spyware.
But a notice on the Paragon Solutions contract on a federal procurement website says the contract was closed out Jan. 20.
"ICE has not entered another contract with Paragon Solutions, Inc," DHS told NPR in a statement. The department declined to clarify whether or not ICE still has access to Paragon-developed tools, such as through a third party.
Neither REDLattice nor AE Industrial Partners responded to requests for comment on Friday.
ICE has acknowledged using spyware
The news of the terminated relationship between ICE and Paragon Solutions comes after ICE's departing acting Director Todd Lyons responded to questions from Democratic lawmakers in an April 1 letter in which he acknowledged he had approved ICE's Homeland Security Investigations team to use a commercial spyware tool in its efforts to disrupt foreign terrorist organizations and fentanyl traffickers.
"In response to the unprecedented lethality of fentanyl and the exploitation of digital platforms by transnational criminal organizations, I approved HSI's procurement and operational use of cutting-edge technological tools that address the specific challenges posed by the Foreign Terrorist Organizations' thriving exploitation of encrypted communication platforms," Lyons wrote.
His letter said he had certified that use of the tool was in compliance with the 2023 executive order on government use of commercial spyware.
When NPR asked DHS if ICE agents still had access to Paragon-developed tools or the tool that Lyons referenced in his letter, the department provided a statement saying: "DHS is not going to confirm or deny law enforcement capabilities or methods. Under President Trump, ICE is using all lawful tools to remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from the U.S."
DHS declined to answer a question asking if ICE is using a different spyware vendor.
Privacy advocates say questions still loom over government surveillance
The growing arsenal of surveillance technology that ICE agents are using to track immigrants as well as protesters has raised alarm among privacy and civil liberties advocates.
Advocates told NPR they still had questions about how to interpret DHS statements about its terminated relationship with Paragon Solutions, especially given that it remains unknown if the agency can access the company's tools.
"It's promising that they don't seem to be re-upping the contract immediately," said Maria Villegas Bravo, an attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "I'm always wary of vaguely worded non-association statements, though."
Julie Mao, deputy director of Just Futures Law, which is suing under the Freedom of Information Act for access to records associated with ICE's Paragon Solutions contract, called DHS's latest statements "a half measure and a red herring," given Lyons' letter last month acknowledging use of a commercial spyware tool.
"If it's not Paragon spyware, then what company and spyware does ICE use? And how does ICE use it?" Mao told NPR in an email. "The agency should provide a full account of its surveillance technologies to the American public."
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