Carvajal-Muñoz v. Ravencamp

On January 22, 2026, Mr. Carvajal-Muñoz was abducted by federal immigration agents while driving to work in Portland, Maine. Agents in an unmarked SUV, some of whom were masked, abruptly cut in front of Carvajal-Muñoz, surrounded his vehicle, and demanded he show his paperwork. He showed his REAL ID through the window and reached for his phone to call for help and record the interaction.

Even though Mr. Carvajal-Muñoz complied and posed no safety threat, agents smashed his window with a crowbar, dragged him out of the car at taser-point, handcuffed him, and placed him in the unmarked SUV. Agents left his car running in the middle of the street with the door open, his keys and bag in the open vehicle, and his phone on the street. Over the next 16 hours, Mr. Carvajal-Muñoz was placed in shackles and moved between various unmarked vehicles and locations in Maine and Massachusetts, alongside other detainees, all of whom were people of color. At one point, agents engaged in what appeared to be a cruel joke, pretending to return him to Portland, only to take him to an ICE facility in Burlington, MA.

In response, the ACLU of Maine, together with the ACLU of DC, the national ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, and private attorneys, filed a lawsuit against the agents, alleging that they violated Mr. Carvajal-Muñoz’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by racially profiling him, stopping him without reasonable suspicion, unlawfully arresting him, using excessive force, and prolonging his detention. The lawsuit includes claims under the Maine Civil Rights Act (MCRA), which protects all people’s constitutional rights from government officials’ abuses of power and provides a state-law remedy for violations of federal law by federal officers. This kind of lawsuit, in which someone sues a federal officer under a state law, is sometimes called a “converse 1983” suit, in reference to the federal law, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which allows people to sue state and local (but not federal) officers for violating federal rights.

As we explain in our lawsuit, the Constitution applies to everyone, and being a federal agent is not a license to operate outside the law. This case could be among the first in recent years to confirm that federal agents can be held accountable under a state civil rights act.