'They Were Tracking Us.' ICE Tracks Protesters in Secret Database

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Lyons wrote that ICE was "fully committed to upholding the Constitution and respecting First Amendment rights of all individuals, including the right to peacefully assemble.
57% : " Each incident includes an ICE officer's brief description of the interaction, along with information about the protester's vehicle, license plates, a photo of the car, and whether the officer contacted local law enforcement.
56% : In an April 10 entry, an ICE officer wrote that a "bright blue Toyota car" followed them out of the main gate of a federal building.
55% : The males (sic) stated "You know why I'm following you," an ICE officer wrote in the database.
55% : An ICE officer in the Maine case mentions a "Master List of Agitators," though that list remains under court seal.
54% : Those fears became real when his status with Global Entry, a pre-screened flyer program, was revoked a day after an exchange in March with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
54% : In general, following ICE officers, shouting at them or recording them in public spaces is lawful.
52% : What the 'Agitator Log' contains The document, titled simply "Agitator Log," contains 60 instances of ICE officers in Minneapolis logging their interactions with protesters and legal observers around the Whipple Federal Building in the spring of 2026.
52% : "Black Hyundai began following ICE Officer.
51% : " Kevin Riach, an attorney defending some of the Minneapolis defendants in the criminal case, received a version of the same ICE database released to USA TODAY.
51% : " Some of the "agitators" in the database appeared to understand they could draw more scrutiny if they followed ICE officers across the state border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
51% : Redactions make it difficult to definitively match the vehicles in the ICE database with any of the 15 people charged by Minnesota federal prosecutors.
50% : " Weeks later in Maine, a masked ICE officer was caught on video taking a picture of a woman protester and saying: "We have a nice little database...
50% : What the Minnesota records show about legal observers ICE officers often reported benign interactions, such as "I was followed," to enter a protester's detailed information into the database, according to the records released to USA TODAY.
50% : The ICE officer called local police as he was traveling east toward Wisconsin.
48% : While not identified by name, Khalili was driving a black Hyundai SUV during his interactions with ICE.
48% : Federal prosecutors charged 15 people in Minnesota in June for allegedly attempting to impede or injure federal law enforcement officers during the ICE surge last winter.
48% : "Called 911, they were not helpful..." an ICE officer wrote in a May 13 log that ended up in the database.
45% : USA TODAY sued ICE under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained a St. Paul, Minnesota, field office database that reveals what legal observers feared: Protesters are being tracked and logged into a secret database for what they argue is exercising protected First Amendment speech.
45% : In a separate revelation on Oct. 2, a newly unsealed court filing in Maine revealed ICE is uploading photos of protesters into an "Investigative Case Management" database.
45% : " Three days later, an ICE officer took down the plates of a "Maroon Chevy 4-door SUV Midsize" and wrote, "Subject remained stopped at a stop sign at [redacted] for longer than a reasonable time with no traffic approaching and drove slower than reasonable in clear weather conditions."
43% : ICE and DHS spokespeople did not immediately respond to USA TODAY about the database's existence, but as recently as Oct. 2 told other media outlets that it's a "lie that there is a database of 'domestic terrorists' run by DHS."
41% : But many of the vehicles and situations line up, including in the case against Natasha Rakotz, who prosecutors claim drove her black Honda Civic into an ICE officer's Ford pickup truck on May 15 and has been charged with assault.
38% : " Lyons claimed the only time ICE keeps information on protesters is if their actions "go beyond protected speech," like threatening, assaulting, or interfering with ICE operations.
37% : As new information emerges, ICE's denials increasingly do not square with the truth, said JoAnna Suriani, an attorney representing the Maine protesters with Project Democracy.
33% : Concern over protests in Maine and Minnesota Whether the government was tracking Americans became an issue in January, after Renee Good was shot and killed while monitoring ICE officers in Minneapolis.
29% : " Lyons told them again in an April follow-up letter to Democratic Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost and 11 others that "(ICE) does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities."
27% : " Former ICE Director Todd Lyons testified under oath to Congress about allegations that ICE was tracking protesters in February.

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