In the February edition of The Maine Monitor Radio Hour, editor Kate Cough spoke to reporters Sean Scott, Kristian Moravec, Rose Lundy and Josh Keefe about their reporting on the late January federal immigration enforcement surge in Maine.
On January 21, Lundy reported how earlier that day agents wearing police tactical vests detained Micheline Ntumba, a Portland resident, after Ntumba dropped off one of her four children at Portland High School, according to her 20-year-old daughter.
Plamedi Sifa, the daughter, said agents she believed to be from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed Ntumba from the high school back to the parking lot of their apartment near Deering Oaks Park in Portland. Ntumba noticed them following her and called Sifa, the daughter said. Sifa was on the phone with her mom and watching from their apartment above the parking lot as the officials took Ntumba’s phone and wallet, and ended the phone call with Sifa. The agents did not ask for identification or give any explanation before they got Ntumba out of her car and put her in their vehicle, Sifa said.
The next day, Lundy and Keefe jointly reported that masked agents in police vests detained Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia employed by an engineering consulting company, in Portland that morning. Carvajal-Munoz earned a master’s degree from the University of Maine, and colleagues said he was in the country on a work visa.
An unmarked dark Subaru with tinted windows cut off Carvajal-Munoz as he was driving his grey Hyundai Tucson on Pearl Street in downtown Portland at 8:46 a.m., according to Jesse Smith, who witnessed the encounter. Agents got out and quickly began using a crowbar to try and pry open his window, Smith said. They then smashed it to pieces. Three agents pulled Carvajal-Munoz out of his car, placed him in their Subaru and drove off, he said.
The following week, Moravec published a story on the case of Evaristo Kalonji, who did not show up for his job at Chipotle. Concerned, members of Kalonji’s congregation reached out to Westbrook pastor Carlos Nzolameso, fearing that Kalonji, an asylum seeker from Angola, was missing. Nzolameso, who leads the predominantly Portuguese-speaking Rehoboth Christian Church, said Kalonji, who has no family in the United States, is like a son. Moravec recounted how the pastor searched several locations in and around South Portland until he found Kalonji’s car parked and unlocked with the keys on the floor.
Moravec and Scott then jointly reported that a law firm filed a notice of claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, requesting $7.5 million in damages on behalf of a man who was threatened for observing ICE activity.
The legal filing, which is a required step before bringing a lawsuit, alleges that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of Bob Peck of South Portland by saying they would pull him out of his car and arrest him if he continued to drive behind and watch enforcement vehicles on the road. Peck is a U.S. citizen, the filing states, who was “exercising his First Amendment right to observe ICE agents.” It argues that agents stopped him without reasonable suspicion, which was an “unconstitutional seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
You can listen to the episode here. Tune in to listen live the first Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. on WERU 89.9 FM.
