DHS says – The Department of Homeland Security says ICE has “no relationship” with spyware maker Paragon Solutions, after the agency reactivated a contract last year. DHS also says ICE has not entered another Paragon contract since the procurement record closed out Jan.
A contract dispute over spyware that once seemed dormant has become something more immediate—and more unnerving—for privacy advocates watching how the government monitors people suspected of crime.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement reactivated a previously paused contract with Paragon Solutions last year. a move that reignited questions about whether ICE was using commercial spyware to remotely hack into phones and whether the arrangement complied with a 2023 executive order restricting federal purchases of commercial spyware that carries a significant security risk or could be misused by foreign governments.
Now the Department of Homeland Security is drawing a hard line. In a statement provided to MISRYOUM Politics News, DHS said ICE has “no relationship with Paragon Solutions, Inc. or with the company that acquired them.” The Israeli-founded company is best known for a spyware tool called Graphite. which can be used to remotely infiltrate devices and access encrypted messages without targets needing to click a link.
DHS’s statement also sits against a procurement trail that says the Paragon contract is no longer active. ICE initially entered into a contract with Paragon Solutions’ U.S. subsidiary in 2024 for an unspecified product. The Biden administration quickly put that contract on hold to determine whether it complied with the 2023 executive order barring federal agencies from purchasing commercial spyware that poses a significant security risk to the U.S. or could be misused by foreign governments.
Graphite has been at the center of a broader controversy beyond U.S. policy debates. The spyware tool was central to a government spying scandal in Italy that 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 confirmed Italian journalists and activists were among those targeted.
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 is also tied to well-known political and corporate networks. Its founders include former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Late in 2024. Israeli media reported that an American private equity firm. AE Industrial Partners. had acquired Paragon Solutions with the intent to merge it with REDLattice. a cybersecurity company controlled by the same firm.
That corporate shift became part of the story again after ICE’s reactivation. Under the Trump administration, last August, ICE reactivated the Paragon Solutions contract. Democratic lawmakers then sent DHS a series of questions about the contract and ICE’s use of spyware.
But the most recent procurement detail doesn’t match the sense of an ongoing relationship. A notice on the Paragon Solutions contract on a federal procurement website says the contract was closed out Jan. 20. DHS told MISRYOUM Politics News in a statement that “ICE has not entered another contract with Paragon Solutions. Inc.” The department declined to clarify whether ICE still has access to Paragon-developed tools. including access through a third party.
Neither REDLattice nor AE Industrial Partners responded to requests for comment on Friday.
The tension for advocates is that the denial of a current Paragon relationship comes after ICE acknowledged using commercial spyware in another context. In an April 1 letter responding to questions from Democratic lawmakers. departing acting ICE Director Todd Lyons wrote that he approved the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations team to use a commercial spyware tool to disrupt foreign terrorist organizations and fentanyl traffickers.
Lyons wrote: “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.” His letter also said he had certified that the use of the tool complied with the 2023 executive order on government use of commercial spyware.
When MISRYOUM Politics News asked DHS whether ICE agents still had access to Paragon-developed tools or the tool referenced in Lyons’ letter. DHS declined to give specifics. 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 also declined to answer whether ICE is using a different spyware vendor.
Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the unanswered questions don’t go away just because DHS is insisting the Paragon relationship is ended. Maria Villegas Bravo. an attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. said it is “promising that they don’t seem to be re-upping the contract immediately. ” but warned that she remains wary of “vaguely worded non-association statements. ” especially when it is still unclear what access. if any. remains.
Julie Mao, deputy director of Just Futures Law, which is suing under the Freedom of Information Act for records tied to ICE’s Paragon Solutions contract, called DHS’s statements “a half measure and a red herring,” pointing back to Lyons’ April letter.
“If it’s not Paragon spyware, then what company and spyware does ICE use? And how does ICE use it?” Mao wrote in an email to MISRYOUM Politics News. “The agency should provide a full account of its surveillance technologies to the American public.”
At this point, DHS is telling the public there is no current Paragon relationship. Yet ICE has already acknowledged operational use of a commercial spyware tool—certified as compliant with the 2023 executive order—and DHS declined to say whether Paragon tools remain accessible or whether another vendor is now in the picture. For advocates. that combination turns the story from a contract question into a larger one about what the government can do. who it can do it to. and what the public is meant to understand.
DHS ICE Paragon Solutions Graphite spyware Todd Lyons Homeland Security Investigations fentanyl traffickers foreign terrorist organizations 2023 executive order Electronic Privacy Information Center Just Futures Law Freedom of Information Act
So they’re saying they don’t have a relationship… sure, ok.
This reads like the government trying to word-salad their way out of it. If ICE reactivated a contract, that’s still a relationship, regardless of what DHS wants to call it.
Wait I thought Graphite was like… GPS or something? Maybe I’m mixing it up. But either way, “no relationship” feels like they’re just playing semantics while people’s phones get monitored.
I don’t get it, if they didn’t enter another Paragon contract after Jan, why is this still “immediate and unnerving”? Also Israel-founded company?? That’s all you need to know tbh. Executive order or not, I’m sure someone somewhere is still poking around. Privacy advocates were right to be scared.