Unsealed Filing Alleges DHS Kept Dossiers on ICE Observers in a Palantir Database

A partially unsealed court filing alleges that the US Department of Homeland Security built dossiers on ICE observers in Maine, storing their photos and license plate numbers in an Investigative Case Management (ICM) database built by Palantir. WIRED reported on the filing, released in redacted form on Friday.

It is part of a proposed class action by four observers: Elinor Hilton, Colleen Fagan, Polyxenia Pantos and Carlyn Williams.

What the filing says

Citing government documents and agent depositions, the filing says an agent identified as "Agent J.C." created ICM records on at least six observers (the government says eight). He labeled two people he filmed at a Home Depot parking lot as "Threat to Law Enforcement, Professional Protestor," and sent their photos to a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer for facial recognition.

The filing centers on "Operation Catch of the Day," an immigration enforcement surge in Maine in January. Plaintiffs say agents also drove past observers' homes and flagged one for secondary border inspection until at least January 2027.

On January 20, Pantos photographed an arrest in Portland, Maine. J.C. ran the plate of the car they stood beside and pulled a report on its owner, Carlyn Williams, from Accurint, a LexisNexis law-enforcement database. He then called Williams, identifying himself only as "the Department of Homeland Security," and told her to "encourage" her spouse not to do that again, as such people "might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist."

The Palantir-built system

ICM is the case management system ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) uses to document investigations. ICE awarded Palantir the contract to build it in 2014; it runs on Palantir's Gotham software. A 2022 support contract was worth up to $96 million; in 2025 ICE added nearly $30 million for ImmigrationOS. A 2016 DHS privacy assessment says ICM shares the records with CBP's TECS system, where they act as "lookout records" for border screening.

Responses and demands

A DHS spokesperson calls the case "meritless"; Palantir did not comment. ICE's former acting director Todd Lyons wrote to Rep. Maxwell Frost in April that ICE "does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities."

The observers' attorneys say the conduct chilled their First Amendment rights: Pantos stopped observing, and Williams soon stopped too. They ask the court to archive Williams' records, bar DHS from using that information against them, and stop Maine agents from threatening observers with watchlists or following them home.

"The government is treating people who exercise their First Amendment rights and seek to hold it accountable as criminal suspects, and that's what we're asking the court to stop," says JoAnna Suriani of Protect Democracy, which represents the observers.