Videos taken by two Mainers in South Portland last month show federal immigration officers repeatedly referencing a watchlist for “domestic terrorists,” despite the Department of Homeland Security saying it doesn’t maintain that kind of a database.
Elinor Hilton and Colleen Fagan filed a lawsuit against federal immigration officials on Monday, saying the alleged collection and maintenance of data about people who observe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity violates the First Amendment.
Hilton said she filmed multiple agents at the Home Depot parking lot in South Portland on Jan. 21. One man shouts for Hilton to stay back.
As she walked closer to where the agents appeared to be making an arrest, a man in a black car wearing a Homeland Security Investigations jacket pulled up immediately in front of her and got out.
Another man, wearing a black face covering, approached carrying pepper spray at his side.
“Do you have like five friends on Facebook? No one wants to see you,” he said.
Two men wearing HSI vests held their phones to her face. They repeatedly told Hilton and other observers that they had a watchlist.
Later in Hilton’s video, one of them men begins to do ‘The Floss,’ a dance made popular on TikTok, while the long pepper spray can hangs at his side.
Fagan began recording agents on Jan. 23 while driving on Westbrook Street in South Portland, according to a copy of the lawsuit. Fagan’s video was shared widely on social media before she and Hilton sued DHS.
According to the lawsuit, Fagan had pulled over and began recording officers after realizing they were questioning another woman in a car.
“It’s not illegal to record,” Fagan said as some of the men approached her.
“Exactly,” one masked and uniformed man said. “That’s what we’re doing.”
“Why are you taking my information down?”
“Because we have a nice little database,” he said. “And now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”
The videos were included in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Maine.
DHS has not responded to requests to address the officers’ statements to either woman. Attorneys for the defendants have about a month to file a response to their allegations.
