Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents issued a warning to a Syracuse woman Tuesday to remove a social media account they said threatens federal agents.
Paigelynne Gonyea said she believes they are referring to a January post where she named the ICE agent who shot protester Renee Good.
Gonyea was working as a poll worker Tuesday afternoon at the Central Library on Salina Street when agents called to meet with her. She said she invited them in.
She said she did not want to meet them outside alone.
“I’ve seen the news, especially in Minnesota,” she said. “And I didn’t want anything to happen to me at all.”
The agents handed Gonyea a form letter that says they were investigating threats made against ICE personnel. The form says the agents had identified an Instagram account they believe breaks federal law. They asked her to remove and discontinue the behavior, according to the unsigned document she shared on Instagram.
“This notice officially informs you that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official or that federal official’s immediate family member with the intent to impede, intimidate, and/or interfere with the federal official’s duties or retaliate against a federal official due to the performance of their duties,” the document said.
The document said she could be subject to both federal and state prosecution.
The agents had New Jersey phone numbers and license plates. She said the agents held a folder with copies of her social media posts and her drivers’ license.
“They tried to scare me into signing it while I was working,” she said.
Gonyea posts frequently about immigration on her social media accounts. In January, she posted the name of Jonathan Ross, citing news reports. Ross is the ICE agent who shot protester Renee Good in Minnesota. His name has been widely reported in news stories and other social media posts across the world.
“I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted,” the post says.
Gonyea said she does not consider it doxxing to quote a news story and call for an indictment.
“I didn’t dox his personal information, such as address, phone number,” she said.
Gonyea said she does not intend to delete her post. In addition to the attorney general’s office, she said she has contacted Rep. John Mannion, Mayor Sharon Owens and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“For ICE to come to me over a social media post just feels very 1984 to me,” she said. “They definitely should have known better to not go into a polling place, even if I said it was OK.”
Gonyea shared the video and the document and posted her story on Instagram shortly after the encounter.
During Tuesday’s primary election, Commissioner Dustin Czarny got calls and texts that ICE was inside a voting site. He said he rushed to the library in downtown Syracuse. He spoke with the worker and connected her with the staff for the state Board of Elections and the attorney general’s civil rights office.
Kevin Ryan, the Republican commissioner, said he talked with his staff about whether this was a hoax. He said he called his contacts at Homeland Security, who confirmed they had made the visit.
Ryan said they told him they called the woman first and she invited them in.
Czarny said election law authorizes only specific people to be inside a polling place: Poll workers, elections inspectors, voters eligible to vote at the site and someone a voter brought to assist them in voting.
“There’s no role for law enforcement officials to be inside a polling place unless they are responding to an emergency of some kind,” he said. “There is no indication of that here.”
There were no voters in the polling place when ICE agents arrived, Gonyea said.
David Brody, one of the two agents, said he could not answer questions from a reporter.
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