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Days before the<\/span> federal government falsely claimed<\/a> cellphone-brandishing nurse Alex Pretti was a terrorist plotting a \u201cmassacre<\/a>,\u201d a jury in Chicago acquitted<\/a> Juan Espinoza Martinez on bogus charges of a murder-for-hire plot against then-Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. A recently unsealed court transcript shows the government used that case to bolster its claims about the dangers of \u201cdoxing\u201d Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.\u00a0That pretext was used to convince a judge to obscure an ICE agent\u2019s face during a public court proceeding when his name, face, employment, and location were publicly listed on his LinkedIn page.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As with its baseless claims about Pretti, the government presented no evidence supporting its proclamations<\/a> that Martinez, a union carpenter, was a higher-up in the Latin Kings gang with the ability or intent to put out hits on Bovino or other immigration agents. The case against him hinged on ambiguous Snapchat messages that Martinez\u2019s attorney called \u201cneighborhood gossip<\/a>.\u201d But the Department of Homeland Security brought its allegations to the public long before it could be tested in court, repeating claims<\/a> of bounties up to $50,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n The transcript<\/a> from a federal court in Chicago, which was recently released pursuant to a motion filed by law firm Mandell PC on behalf of local media outlets, shows how far the hysteria has gone. During an October 20, 2025, hearing in a case challenging immigration enforcement tactics, government lawyers asked for a private conference with Judge Sara Ellis to request the courtroom sketch artist not draw ICE Deputy Field Office Director Shawn Byers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Government attorneys claimed that, in light of the alleged \u201cbounties\u201d on the heads of ICE agents, Byers had taken extensive precautions to disconnect his identity from his image online to protect himself. When the judge asked for details on the bounties, Department of Justice attorney Samuel Holt responded, \u201cI don\u2019t have all the details. My understanding is that I \u2014 I think it was a gang bounty.\u201d<\/p>\n The judge cleared the courtroom and called Byers in to provide the details about the \u201cthreat.\u201d Byers first claimed there was a $50,000 \u201cbounty issued by the cartels on me,\u201d along with $10,000 \u201cfor all my family members.\u201d He also said the \u201ccredible threat\u201d was out against \u201call senior ICE officials here in Chicago,\u201d where Byers said he was the most senior ICE agent on the ground. Asked when he learned about the bounty, Byer said \u201cIt\u2019s been about a week or so I believe.\u201d Martinez\u2019s arrest was announced<\/a> two weeks earlier, on October 6; no other bounties were publicly reported in the interim. When the judge asked whether these threats were \u201cdirected specifically\u201d at him, Byers seemed to walk his claims back, replying, \u201cWell, all senior ICE officials. So it\u2019s not just me.\u201d<\/p>\n Byers also said he\u2019d taken action to \u201climit social media exposure\u201d and \u201creduce the footprint\u201d to avoid his face being connected with his name and that even his appearance in court required \u201cadditional precautions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, my name is out there. I\u2019ve been doxed as \u2014 as recently as over the weekend,\u201d Byers told the judge, according to the court transcript. \u201cSo my name is out there, but my name has not been connected to my face yet, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to prevent from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite objections from opposing counsel that court proceedings (and courtroom sketches) should be public, the judge ordered the sketch artist to blur Byers\u2019s facial features, concealing his identity. Ellis\u2019s compromise, while likely intended as a good-faith effort to balance safety and transparency, nonetheless validated the notion that immigration agents operate under extreme risk, justifying extraordinary protective measures by our legal system. It also effectively brought the masks immigration agents wear on the street into the courtroom.<\/p>\n The judge\u2019s compromise validated the notion that immigration agents operate under extreme risk, justifying extraordinary protective measures by our legal system. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Then, while Byers and other witnesses testified, someone apparently Googled his name and informed the judge that a simple search turned up his LinkedIn profile, complete with his photo, his exact job title, and his location in Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n The judge called the parties back into closed session (it\u2019s unclear why, given that the false reason for the earlier private sidebar had been exposed).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI got to say, you know, I feel slightly foolish in trying to protect Mr. Byers when, you know, a simple Google search pulls up his name and his picture,\u201d she said, according to the transcript. She also encouraged the attorney to advise the ICE deputy director that his name and photograph were readily available online. \u201cIf I could find his picture in two seconds with his name, it just looks a little silly to be asking the courtroom sketch artist to blur his features.\u201d Being recognized is \u201cthe cost of being a public servant,\u201d she continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n The judge also said moving forward, she would \u201cjust be more hesitant to kind of obscure somebody\u2019s identity,\u201d but did not say she\u2019d be entering any actual sanctions for the half-baked rationale used to convince her to censor the public record.\u00a0<\/p>\n After some back and forth with the DOJ attorneys about whether Byers\u2019s LinkedIn profile contained his actual picture, Ellis confirmed the profile for \u201cShawn B.\u201d did when viewed by someone logged into LinkedIn. (A LinkedIn search for \u201cShawn Byers ICE\u201d brings up just one profile for a Shawn B., who is listed as currently working as Deputy Field Office Director for ICE in Chicago. It also notes he is a 22-year veteran of the department and contains reposts about ICE removals in Chicago and a hiring notice for GEO Group, the for-profit prison conglomerate contracted with ICE<\/a>, but no longer contains any profile picture.)<\/p>\n Since Byers\u2019s manufactured emergency obviously wasn\u2019t based on real concerns for his safety, what was the point of the whole sideshow? It was likely intended to feed the narrative that immigration agents face such grave threats that identifying them \u2014 in addition to filming<\/a> their operations, following them to do so, tracking<\/a> and communicating<\/a> about their locations and other clearly constitutionally protected conduct \u2014 needs to be restrained. It\u2019s the same fiction that primes segments of the American public to be receptive to claims that people like Pretti and Renee Good were threatening officers\u2019 lives to justify<\/a> their killings<\/a>.<\/p>\n In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem scolded<\/a> CBS News\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d host Margaret Brennan for naming Jonathan Ross<\/a>, the immigration agent who shot and killed Good in Minneapolis. She accused Brennan of \u201ccontinu[ing] to dox law enforcement,\u201d despite acknowledging that Ross\u2019s name was already very public, citing unspecified attacks against his family. It\u2019s far from the first time<\/a> Noem and others have claimed that naming or videotaping law enforcement officers is improper, illegal, or even intended to foment violence.<\/p>\n These efforts to chill the work of reporters and ICE watchers<\/a> have spread beyond immigration enforcement, as we saw from last month\u2019s subpoena<\/a> by the House Oversight Committee of journalist Seth Harp, which was accompanied by a criminal referral to the Department of Justice by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida. Harp was also accused of \u201cdoxing<\/a>\u201d for naming a Delta Force commander<\/a> involved in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, an allegation backed up by unsubstantiated claims that the commander\u2019s life was at risk.<\/p>\n The Byers ordeal is an unusually clear example of the current playbook being used to shield administration officials and their foot soldiers from accountability under the guise of protecting public officials\u2019 safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The notion that naming public officials at the center of major news stories, who very often conceal their identities while carrying out unprecedented law enforcement operations on the streets of our cities, or that simply drawing their faces for the court record is \u201cdoxing\u201d or otherwise improper, is a complete Trump administration fabrication. Still, the government is repeating it often enough that it\u2019s warping the public\u2019s perception of journalism. The Byers ordeal is an unusually clear example of the current playbook being used to shield administration officials and their foot soldiers from accountability under the guise of protecting public officials\u2019 safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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