ICE Is Reportedly Putting ICE Observers, Protesters in a Palantir Database

Department of Homeland Security agents compiled extensive dossiers on people observing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the field, then stored them in a system called the Investigative Case Management (ICM) designed and managed by Palantir Technologies, according to Wired.

The magazine’s report on Friday stems from a proposed class action lawsuit fthat our observers have brought to state courts in Maine; the case was put under seal in September and a redacted version released Friday, according to Wired. JoAnna Suriani, an attorney for Protect Democracy representing the plaintiffs, told Wired, “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.”

A DHS spokesperson told Wired the claim is “meritless” and “the underlying lawsuit is based on the lie that there is a database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.” (It’s noteworthy that #1 DHS booster President Donald Trump has made it very clear he wants to do exactly that.) ICE is part of DHS, whose other subordinate agencies include Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection. Palantir, of course, is right-wing Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel’s notorious data firm explicitly named after an all-seeing orb in The Lord of the Rings that a godlike being of pure evil, Sauron, uses to spy on enemies and gaslight elves.

ICE agents shot and killed a 25-year-old father named Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine in July during a summer surge in ICE operations that drew nationwide outrage. Immigration authorities have shot at least 21 people during Trump’s second term, resulting in at least 10-11 deaths. The American Civil Liberties Union asserts at least 57 people have died in ICE custody since Trump’s second inauguration; ICE has sometimes locked up US citizens in its detention facilities.

Allegations in the lawsuit include that DHS agents drove by protesters and observers’ homes to intimidate them, and that a DHS agent identified in the lawsuit as “Agent J.C” created ICM profiles on six of them. (The government’s count is actually eight, Wired noted.) J.C. allegedly tagged two people filmed in a parking lot in the ICM database as “Threat to Law Enforcement, Professional Protestor.” (Paid protesters, let alone “professional” protesters, basically do not exist beyond the kind of astroturfing campaigns sometimes run by lobbyists, corporations, or politicians.)

The suit also alleges J.C. sent the photos of the two individuals to a CBP officer for face recognition in an app called Mobile Query, as well as ran one of the plaintiff’s license plates through a LexisNexis database (Accurint) after that individual photographed an arrest in Portland, Maine. The suit states J.C. then called the plaintiff’s spouse, who is also a plaintiff, and threatened them that individuals who “do anything like that in the future… might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist.”

The Palantir-built ICM is used by HSI to track case files and has won nearly $126 million in government contracts to maintain and expand it since 2022 alone, according to Wired, including $30 million to develop “ImmigrationOS.”

The government’s motion to dismiss argued that these were isolated incidents prohibited by DHS policy and also that the actions did not constitute “unconstitutional retaliation,” so the agents should get off scot-free.