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In June this year, ICE’s intelligence team discovered posts on X that called for violence against the immigration agency’s employees. “ICE officers ‘doing their job’ should get shot in the head,” read one. “The only good ICE agent is a dead ICE agent,” read another.

In October, an ICE warrant for the user’s X data included not only active posts, but also deleted tweets. Among the deleted X posts was an apparent offer to buy a beer for anyone who killed an ICE agent, and another post that read, “anyone that tries to arrest and deport an ‘illegal’ immigrant should be shot.”

The Muskogee, Oklahoma-based man behind the posts, 22-year-old James Eaton, was charged in November with solicitation to commit a crime of violence and interstate communications with a threat to injure a law enforcement agent. Eaton, a mechanical engineering student at Tulsa Community College, is yet to issue a plea. Earlier this month, in an attempt to revoke a detention order, his family, friends, coworkers, church leaders and teachers advocated to the judge for his peacefulness and work ethic.

Eaton’s is one of a number of cases in which someone has been federally charged with a crime for supporting and encouraging violence against ICE agents amid the Trump administration’s deportation mission. Even deleted posts could get people in trouble: In the case, X turned over 10 posts discussing violence against ICE that had previously been deleted as evidence in the case.

That indicates X is retaining posts for months after deletion. The first ICE preservation request, where Musk’s company was asked to ensure records from the account........

© Forbes