On a Tuesday afternoon during a June 2026 primary election in Syracuse, two federal agents with New Jersey license plates walked into the Central Library on Salina Street. They weren’t there to vote. They were there for Paigelynne Gonyea — a social media influencer working as a poll worker — carrying a folder stuffed with printed screenshots of her Instagram posts and a copy of her driver’s license. Their demand: delete your account.
What the Post Actually Said
Gonyea named a publicly identified ICE agent and called for his indictment — a legal demand, not a threat of violence.
The January Instagram post at the center of this named Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a protester and mother, during an operation in Minneapolis. Ross’s identity had already been widely reported in the press. Gonyea’s post included the line, “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted.” That’s a call for criminal charges through the legal system — not a threat of violence.
The unsigned form letter ICE handed her cited federal statutes prohibiting threats to “assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official” — language that, in plain English, covers violent threats intended to intimidate or retaliate against a federal officer. Gonyea shared no home address, no phone number, no private information. She shared a name already in the news.
“For ICE to come to me over a social media post just feels very 1984 to me,” Gonyea told Syracuse.com. She invited the agents inside rather than meet them alone outside, citing safety concerns after recent law enforcement incidents “especially in Minnesota.” She has refused to delete the post and has contacted:
- the New York Attorney General’s office
- Rep. John Mannion
- Mayor Sharon Owens
- the NYCLU
A Polling Place Isn’t a Federal Drop-In Center
Election officials from both parties confirmed the visit happened — and raised immediate concerns about whether it should have.
“There’s no role for law enforcement officials to be inside a polling place unless they are responding to an emergency of some kind. There is no indication of that here,” said Dustin Czarny, Democratic commissioner on the Onondaga County Board of Elections, who rushed to the library after receiving alerts. He connected Gonyea with the state Board of Elections and the AG’s civil rights office.
Republican Commissioner Kevin Ryan initially suspected a hoax. He confirmed the visit through Homeland Security contacts, noting agents said Gonyea had invited them in. No voters were present at the time, according to Gonyea. Agent David Brody declined to comment when approached by a reporter.
No charges have been filed and the post remains up; ICE has offered no public explanation beyond the letter itself. The folder of printed Instagram screenshots and a driver’s license — that detail sits there like a scene from a surveillance thriller no one should have to navigate in real life.
