Travis Frey, a captain at an ICE detention center who was once active on a neo-Nazi message board, has been placed on administrative leave, according to the jail’s owner.
Vice News revealed Monday that Frey had an account on Iron March, a now-defunct neo-Nazi message board whose users’ personal information was leaked online late last year.
“The employee in question has been placed on administrative leave while we review the information that has come to light,” Amanda Gilchrist, director of public affairs for the private prison operator CoreCivic, wrote to TPM in an email Tuesday.
CoreCivic owns Nevada Southern Detention Center, where Frey works as a captain. The jail contracts with ICE and the U.S. Marshals.
Frey joined Iron March in 2013 and posted on the site as he worked as head of security at another CoreCivic detention center in Indianapolis, Vice News reported. Frey self-identified as a “fascist” on the site, according to Vice News, and in November 2016 said “deep down no one really gives a shit about racism.”
“I am interested in helping build the Indiana TWP,” Frey wrote on the site in June 2017, according to Vice News. “Let me know what is needed.”
TWP is a reference to the Traditionalist Workers Party, a white nationalist organization run at the time by Matthew Heimbach.
When someone on the message board responded to Frey’s post asking for more details, he wrote back “I’m trying to find all the NS [National Socialist] guys in Indiana to get together for a meet and greet,” according to Vice News.
“I am not a member” Frey said of TWP. “I did reach [out] to them to inquire about membership, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. I messaged the TWP FB page and haven’t heard anything back. I also emailed them.”
ICE didn’t respond to TPM’s request for comment Tuesday but an agency spokesperson told Vice News that ICE “holds those working within our facilities to the highest standards of professional conduct.”
“The incident in question does not involve a federal employee,” the ICE spokesperson added.
