San Francisco man arrested after death threats against ICE director

A year-old email threat to the top of U.S. immigration enforcement ended in a San Francisco arrest, after Homeland Security Investigations took Daniel Barber into custody and tied the case to a wider campaign of threats against ICE personnel. The Department of Homeland Security said the message, sent June 6, 2025, targeted Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons and described ICE officers as “Gestapo” and “Nazi maggot” agents who should be terrified and “executed” with “two bullets to the back of their heads.”

DHS said ICE opened an investigation after receiving the email and later identified Barber as the sender. Federal agents arrested him in San Francisco on April 10, 2026. DHS said Barber is a U.S. citizen with a lengthy criminal history that includes a 1990 conviction for murder and robbery with intent to cause bodily harm, along with multiple arrests for burglary, battery and vehicle theft.

The arrest lands in a moment when DHS and ICE are publicly trying to draw attention to threats against immigration officers. DHS said ICE law enforcement officers have faced an 8,000% increase in death threats, more than a 1,300% increase in assaults and a more than 3,300% increase in vehicle attacks. Lauren Bis, an acting assistant secretary at DHS, said dehumanizing ICE officers has consequences and called for the violence to stop.

ICE says Lyons, the senior official performing the duties of the director, leads a workforce of more than 27,400 personnel nationwide. The agency’s San Francisco Field Office reaches far beyond the city, covering Northern California, Hawaii, Guam and Saipan, placing local federal agents at the center of a national security and public-safety response that extends across the Pacific and the West Coast.

For San Francisco, the case underscores how threats sent through email can trigger a federal response months later, especially when they target a senior officer and are tied to broader warnings from DHS about escalating hostility toward law enforcement. The investigation remains part of a wider effort by federal authorities to confront threats against ICE personnel.