People in the Portland area filming and protesting the ongoing federal immigration operation allege agents are collecting their personal data and even confronting them at home.
Erin Cavallaro, a Westbrook school committee member, said she has been documenting Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts in the city since agents arrived earlier this week. Cavallaro said she was following a vehicle she associated with ICE at a safe distance this week when the agent deliberately drove directly to her home and started honking aggressively.
Since then, Cavallaro said she’s been tailed by federal agents in a car and sandwiched between two ICE vehicles. Cavallaro believes the agents collected her personal information by tracing her license plate. Other people in Westbrook have reported similar experiences, she said.
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“This to me doesn’t scream thoughtful law enforcement, it screams thuggery,” Cavallaro said. “And unfortunately that’s what I and so many others have witnessed in our communities since they arrived.”
Carol Garvan, legal director at the ACLU of Maine, said that observing, documenting and recording public government activities are protected First Amendment activities in Maine under longstanding federal court precedent.
That means the government is prohibited from retaliating against people as long as they do not interfere with law enforcement, Garvan said.
“There’s a really broad right to record what is happening in public by government actors. And so, if there’s law enforcement or official efforts to chill that activity, that could be unlawful,” Garvan said.
The ACLU of Maine is looking into whether examples of alleged intimidation by federal officials is part of a pattern during the ongoing ICE operations in Maine.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, released a social media statement on Friday raising serious concerns about federal behavior toward activists. Pingree said there have been reports of people being confronted at their homes, being called by ICE agents and allegedly telling someone recording agents that they were collecting personal information to compile a list of “domestic terrorists.”
“This just seems like an escalation in the level of opposition ICE has to legal observing, legal protest,” Pingree said in an interview.
In a statement, Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for Sen. Susan Collins R-Maine, said that people have a right to demonstrate against their government and should be able to do so without fear or reprisal.
“It is also important that people who are protesting do not interfere with law enforcement activities,” Kernen said.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, did not respond to requests for comment.
Cavallaro said she intends to continue monitoring ICE activities in Westbrook despite her interactions with agents.
“It’s clearly an abuse of power, it’s clearly an effort to intimidate,” Cavallaro said.
“And joke’s on them, if anything it has only made me want to do this more and bear witness to what they’re doing and be sure that there’s transparency and accountability.”
The ICE press office did not respond to a request for comment.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.