An activist holds up a sign during a march to the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, DC, January 11, 2026.Probal Rashid/LightRocket/Getty
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Does photographing ICE agents make you a domestic terrorist in Donald Trump’s America?
That’s the question being asked by a growing chorus of activists and legal observers who fear they’ve been placed on a government watchlist for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Months after the Department of Homeland Security ended its aggressive immigration sweeps in full-bore occupations of Minneapolis and other major cities, new information continues to emerge in legal filings detailing ICE agents’ alleged pattern of intimidation against protesters. One federal lawsuit, filed by Protect Democracy on behalf of Maine residents, centers on statements made by federal agents—including some caught on camera—warning people they would be added to a domestic terrorist database simply for observing immigration operations.
DHS has maintained that such a database doesn’t exist. But lawyers in cases from Maine to Chicago to Minneapolis, representing clients who are suing the agency for alleged civil liberties abuses, say that threats made by federal agents have had a chilling effect on their clients’ freedom of expression—and nobody knows what DHS has done with biometric and license plate information collected from observers. Last week, the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued DHS, too, seeking to compel the agency to turn over records about the alleged database under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those records could provide clarity to the growing number of people who have reported unsettling experiences after encounters with ICE, including Maine couple Carlyn Williams and Xenia Pantos, who were added as plaintiffs to the Maine lawsuit last month.
On January 20, Pantos was driving their spouse’s car to work in Portland when they passed several ICE agents on the side of the road. It was the middle of Trump’s “Operation Catch of the Day” immigration surge in Maine, and Pantos pulled over to observe the agents’ operations. According to the complaint, Pantos took photos of the agents and saw an ICE agent photograph another observer’s license plate. After about five minutes, when it became clear that nobody was being detained, Pantos continued on to work.
Later that afternoon, Williams got a phone call from an undisclosed number. According to the complaint, the person on the line identified himself as being with DHS, then asked if anyone other than Williams ever drove her car. When Williams confirmed that her spouse sometimes uses the car, the caller asked if she was aware that Pantos had “stopped at an incident” that morning and allegedly warned her that Pantos “might get added to a domestic terrorism watchlist” as a consequence.
The phone call rattled Williams and Pantos, who feared that the incident could impact their status as foster parents, and Pantos “chose not to do any observing of ICE” thereafter, they told me.
Nearly two months later, Williams and Pantos had another experience with DHS that, lawyers say, indicates Williams’s license plate information was indeed entered into some sort of watchlist or database.
On March 16, Pantos and Williams were driving back from their anniversary celebration in Canada, in Pantos’ car. After they handed over their passports at a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint, an agent instructed them to pull aside. He said it was routine, but took their phones, passports, and car keys: “That, I think, is when we realized something was wrong,” Pantos said.
After a few minutes, the agent asked Williams for her car registration, even though the couple had been driving Pantos’ car, and asked several questions about Williams’ car before finally letting them go. Neither of them “had indicated prior to the agent’s questions that they owned another vehicle,” states the complaint. “There is no conceivable reason to ask about [Carlyn Williams’s] car other than the incident involving Plaintiff Pantos on January 20, 2026.”
Williams’ account is the first known case of a DHS official allegedly making a threat about a domestic terrorism watchlist over the phone. But dozens of declarations in a Minnesota class action lawsuit against DHS describe a pattern in which federal agents showed up outside the homes of ICE observers, which lawyers say shows the agents “are obtaining these home addresses by running their license plates through a law enforcement database.” Other ICE observers in the Minnesota case have described having their Global Entry status—an expedited travel program under CBP—revoked without explanation after encounters with federal agents.
“I fear continued and escalating retaliation. I recently cancelled an international trip that I had already paid for because I was afraid that I would be stopped at the airport or that I would be detained upon re-entry to the United States,” Minneapolis resident Amanda Thompson wrote in a declaration filed last month. “I changed the lock screen on my phone to display emergency contact information and instructions for what to do if I am detained. I now live my life prepared for the worst.”
Another lawsuit, filed against DHS in Illinois earlier in May, challenges the federal government’s collection and storage of DNA samples from four people who were arrested at anti-ICE protests in Illinois. Two plaintiffs were never charged; the others quickly had their minor charges dropped. Nevertheless, the government is holding onto that genetic data indefinitely—leading one plaintiff, as described in the complaint, to worry that her DNA will be used “to place her on a ‘domestic terrorist watchlist’ and track her movements” and “keep punishing her long after the fact.”
“There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in a statement to Mother Jones. “We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.” The spokesperson added that DHS would not comment on specific law enforcement capabilities but said that all the agency’s methods followed the US constitution. The White House and CBP did not respond to requests for comment.
While DHS denies it’s building a database of people who exercise their constitutional rights—and who were never, or are no longer, charged with violating any law—this administration has made it clear that it considers “Left-Wing Extremists” a counterterrorism priority. Earlier this month, Trump unveiled a counterterrorism strategy that includes the “neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist”—a largely undefined category that could feasibly encompass anti-ICE activists.
“I had no idea the impact of what I had done on that day,” said Pantos. “I feel terrible that I put our foster child and my spouse in danger, people that I love so much.”
