FBI memo warned ICE agents could be lured by fake tradwife profiles

Document provided few details and no source citations

The FBI in Chicago circulated the “situational information report” to other law enforcement officials across the United States in February. The memo stated that “as of late January 2026, a small group of women allegedly were creating fictitious online dating profiles with the purpose of attracting and then doxxing law enforcement participating in immigration enforcement,” according to the document reviewed by The Guardian.

The briefing described the profiles as “incorporating imagery of a ‘traditional wife’ aesthetic and listing specific interests in an attempt to appeal to … individuals in law enforcement.” The stated goal was “to lure affiliated law enforcement personnel into an online or in-person interaction under the guise of a date, after which the individuals would be publicly exposed and doxed online,” with the tactic “intended to generate public embarrassment and deter immigration enforcement activity.”

The “tradwife” reference pointed to the recent trend of influencers promoting traditional gender roles and women romanticizing domesticity. The memo did not specify whether agents had actually been exposed.

Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, characterized the alert in a statement as “absurd.” “It’s absurd the FBI issued a thinly-sourced security alert about ICE agents’ online dating troubles,” Shapiro said. “It’s equally ludicrous the FBI is spending taxpayer dollars to protect ICE agents from possible ‘embarrassment’ at the hands of a supposed ‘small group of women’ who might name and ridicule them online.”

Mike German, a former FBI agent and longtime civil liberties advocate, reviewed the document for The Guardian and said it was odd the briefing did not have footnotes or citations. The briefing said the intelligence came from a “collaborative source,” according to German.

“The rightwing echo chamber creates threats and the government’s intelligence apparatus just repeats those threats without any context, more detail or any instruction of how agents or officers should respond,” German said, adding: “They must have run out of other threats.” He said the document “reinforces the paranoid ‘us versus them’ mentality within law enforcement.”

The memo was circulated weeks after the New York Post, a conservative outlet, ran a story saying that “lefty TikTokkers” were “orchestrating groups of women” to “chase dick picks and selfies of ICE agents in a twisted scheme to dox them.” That story referenced Libs of TikTok, a rightwing account that had posted a screenshot of someone claiming to be part of a Facebook group dedicated to going on dates with agents to expose them. The earlier coverage did not mention women using “tradwife” imagery, leaving it unclear whether the FBI had received direct accounts from targeted agents or was summarizing social media trends.

The FBI declined to answer detailed questions about the memo, saying the bureau does not generally comment on intelligence briefings. A spokesperson said in an email: “The FBI regularly shares information with our law enforcement partners to assist in protecting the communities they serve as well as protecting those who serve and protect communities. The FBI is committed to ensuring that law enforcement officers are safe from threats or violence while performing their duties.” The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

The document is part of a broader pattern of internal law enforcement concerns about ICE doxing. An October 2025 report from the U.S. Army said there was “credible intelligence” that “cartels” had offered to pay gang members and others in the United States to dox, assault or kidnap immigration officers, citing charges against a man accused of a murder-for-hire plot targeting a top border patrol leader; the man was found not guilty months later. In a November 2025 report, the FBI warned that AI, facial-recognition and automated data-scraping tools had “increased the scale and accuracy of doxxing attacks” targeting ICE officers, citing crowdsourced efforts by activists to report ICE sightings.

In a January 2026 “terrorism brief,” the New York Police Department warned of “violent rhetoric” and “extremist messaging” on social media after the killing of Renee Good, including “calls to ‘hunt down’, ‘dox’, and kill ICE personnel.” A May 2026 alert from Customs and Border Protection warned that smart glasses could be used to surveil, record and potentially dox CBP personnel.

Other agencies that have raised concerns about ICE agents being doxed in internal records include the FBI in Los Angeles, the Amtrak police department, an Idaho law enforcement consortium, a Florida fusion center of local and federal agencies, and the Federal Protective Service, The Guardian reported.

German argued law enforcement’s claims about doxing were misguided, noting that ICE officers are domestic servants, not “secret agents” whose identities must be shielded: “These are agents working on the public dime. The public has a right to know who they are and what their qualifications and training are.” Two activists were convicted of “stalking” in California after prosecutors said they followed an agent home and publicly disclosed the location.