What We Know About ICE's Palantir Protester Database

A partially unsealed federal court filing alleges that Department of Homeland Security agents entered photos, license plate numbers, and other identifying information on ICE observers into the Investigative Case Management (ICM) database, a system built by Palantir, according to Wired.

What is the Investigative Case Management database?

ICM is the case-management system that Homeland Security Investigations, a component of ICE, uses to document its investigations, Wired reports, citing government descriptions in the filing. The system was built by Palantir. Palantir did not immediately respond to Wired's request for comment.

What do the unsealed filings allege agents did?

The filing, filed under seal in September and made public in redacted form on Friday, centers on "Operation Catch of the Day," an immigration enforcement surge in Maine in January. It is part of a proposed class action in federal court in Maine brought by four observers — Elinor Hilton, Colleen Fagan, Polyxenia Pantos, and Carlyn Williams.

According to the filing, one agent, identified only as "Agent J.C.," created ICM records on at least six observers; the government's own count puts the figure at eight. J.C. allegedly labeled two people filmed at a Home Depot parking lot with the tag "Threat to Law Enforcement, Professional Protestor." The filing also describes agents conducting drive-bys of observers' homes and, in one case, flagging an observer for secondary inspection at the border until at least January 2027.

How did agents use facial recognition and license plate records?

The filing says J.C. sent photos of observers to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer to run facial recognition searches through an app called Mobile Query. In a separate incident on January 20, after Pantos photographed an arrest in Portland from several car lengths away, J.C. allegedly ran the license plate of the car Pantos stood beside and pulled a report from Accurint, a LexisNexis law-enforcement database, that listed the car owner's — Williams's — address, phone numbers, and cohabitants. J.C. then circulated her photo to colleagues asking, "Was this the protestor," and, after another agent said it did not match, wrote that he was "adding them in ICM now," per the filing.

What does DHS say about the lawsuit?

A DHS spokesperson called the case "meritless," telling Wired that "the underlying lawsuit is based on the lie that there is a database of 'domestic terrorists' run by DHS."

What are the plaintiffs asking the court to do?

JoAnna Suriani, an attorney at Protect Democracy representing the observers, said: "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." The case remains pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine as a proposed class action.

The filing is drawn largely from documents the government produced in discovery and depositions of DHS agents, according to Wired's reporting.