Court Filing: ICE Agents Logged Protest Observers in Palantir-Built Database
A newly unsealed court filing alleges Department of Homeland Security agents in Maine built dossiers on ICE observers using a Palantir-built database, including facial recognition searches and license plate tracking. The observers' lawsuit claims the practice intimidated people exercising First Amendment rights.
A partially unsealed court filing made public over the weekend details how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its component ICE allegedly used a case management system to track people monitoring immigration enforcement activity. The documents are part of a proposed class action filed in federal court in Maine by four observers: Elinor Hilton, Colleen Fagan, Polyxenia Pantos, and Carlyn Williams.
The filing centers on a January immigration enforcement operation in Maine known as "Operation Catch of the Day." It describes how one agent, identified as "Agent J.C.," created records on at least six observers in the Investigative Case Management (ICM) database, a system built for ICE by Palantir. The government states that records were created covering eight individuals.
Facial recognition and tracking
According to the filing, the agent labeled two people filmed at a parking lot as a "threat to law enforcement" and sent their photos to a border protection officer for a facial recognition search. In another instance, after Pantos photographed an ongoing arrest, the agent traced her spouse's license plate and pulled a report on the vehicle's owner, Williams, from a commercial law enforcement database, obtaining her address and phone numbers.
The filing states the agent later called Williams, warning that her spouse should avoid similar conduct because people doing so might be added to a "domestic terrorism watchlist." Government attorneys dispute that this specific phrase was used.
DHS denies wrongdoing
ICE's former acting director wrote in April that the agency does not maintain a database of US citizens protesting ICE activity. DHS has called the lawsuit meritless. Attorneys for the observers say the conduct has had a chilling effect on First Amendment activity, noting that two observers stopped monitoring ICE operations following the incidents described.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to bar DHS from using the collected information against them and to prohibit agents in Maine from threatening observers with watchlists or following them to their homes.
