SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Cunningham-Cook-Videotaping](\"https:\/\/prospect.org\/downloads\/23484\/download\/Cunningham-Cook-Videotaping%20ICE%20090925.jpg?cb=cf8f3d0b11b299b532f016482140065d\")
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WINTERS ROCK ENTERTAINMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DHS officers confront a man filming with his phone outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, August 8, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article is published in partnership with the <\/em>Center for Media and Democracy<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n President Trump\u2019s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that making and posting videos of ICE agents as they disappear<\/a> tens of thousands of immigrants from America\u2019s streets, workplaces, and courtrooms without due process is an act of \u201cviolence\u201d to be dealt with accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that \u201cvideotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents,\u201d and added: \u201cWe will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one incident, ICE targeted<\/a> a Georgia-based journalist, Mario Guevara, for videotaping enforcement operations. Guevara has legal work authorization in the U.S., according<\/a> to his attorneys, and has been held in ICE detention for more than two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More from Matthew Cunningham-Cook<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n McLaughlin\u2019s statement comes on the heels of a little-noticed press briefing<\/a> in July where DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that \u201cviolence\u201d is \u201canything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That expansive definition is likely driving the department\u2019s claims of escalating \u201cviolence\u201d against ICE agents, which purportedly rose from an alleged 700 percent<\/a> increase on July 11, to 830 percent<\/a> four days later, and to 1,000 percent<\/a> by August 7. When asked by CMD to provide concrete examples of violent assaults on personnel, the DHS spokesperson pointed to an incident of trash dumped on an ICE agent\u2019s lawn and a sign with a profanity directed at an agent by name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peter Eliasberg, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California attorney representing journalists and observers who were attacked and injured<\/a> by DHS officers in Los Angeles, told CMD that this definition bears \u201cno relationship to what violence actually is. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any evidence that \u2026 there is truth [in] those numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, DHS agents have repeatedly resorted to violence, assaulting and injuring journalists and legal observers doing their jobs. The lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Press Club, the NewsGuild\u2013Communications Workers of America, and individual plaintiffs alleges that DHS agents used targeted, unchecked, and officially sanctioned violence against them, including \u201csmashing the hands of people recording events with their phones\u201d and shooting reporters with \u201cless lethal\u201d munitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expand<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n WINTERS ROCK ENTERTAINMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS officers outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles<\/p>\n\n\n\n Statements like Noem\u2019s and McLaughlin\u2019s raise serious concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s lack of respect for First Amendment rights, experts argue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS appears to \u201cfundamentally misunderstand the First Amendment,\u201d said David Cole, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at Georgetown. \u201cThe First Amendment is designed above all to give citizens the right to criticize and report on government abuse. There\u2019s not only no law against recording law enforcement officers doing their job, but it is a First Amendment\u2013protected right to do so in public in ways that don\u2019t interfere with them carrying out their tasks. It reflects a failure [on the part of] the administration to understand the central role that watchdogs play in our democracy, [and any] attempt to restrict [that] goes against the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Supreme Court has rarely ruled on the matter, Cole said, a number of lower courts have concluded that as long as you are not interfering with the ability of law enforcement officers to do their jobs, \u201cthe government cannot stop you from recording, either in memory, or [on a] legal pad, or \u2026 video recorder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is limited capacity for DHS to police itself. In March, the department shut down<\/a> its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, abruptly closing 500 investigations into public complaints of violations in the process. In August<\/a>, a report issued by the office of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) disclosed more than 500 incidents of rights violations in immigration detention facilities in the first seven months of Trump\u2019s second term. In July, Rep. Dave Min (D-CA) led a group<\/a> of congressional Democrats in asking the DHS inspector general to investigate various assaults by ICE agents on civilians and members of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to a request for comment from CMD, ACLU senior staff attorney Scarlet Kim dismissed assertions by DHS that video recording is an act of violence. \u201cThe right to photograph, film, and publish publicly visible law enforcement activity is a core First Amendment right,\u201d she maintained. \u201cIt creates an independent record of what officers are doing, and it is no accident that some of the most high-profile cases of misconduct have involved video recordings. The burning question is why ICE officers feel the need to hide who they are and what they do from the public\u2014masking their faces, lacking visible ID, driving unmarked vehicles, and now attacking those who document their activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While no state legislature has passed laws equating the video recording of police officers with \u201cviolence,\u201d some states have made the practice more difficult by mandating<\/a> buffer zones to keep observers a certain distance away from officers and first responders when they arrive on a scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS, the third-largest cabinet department after the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, is a sprawling 260,000-employee<\/a> operation that includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the Coast Guard, the Federal Protective Service, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Transportation Security Administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, DHS is set to receive another\u00a0$44 billion<\/a>\u00a0on top of the $115 billion it had requested as part of the routine budgeting process. Within that, the budget for ICE has now skyrocketed to\u00a0triple<\/a>\u00a0what it was in fiscal year 2024, making it\u00a0larger<\/a>\u00a0than the military budgets of all but 15 other countries around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew Cunningham-Cook is a writer and researcher with expertise in health care, retirement policy, and capital markets. He has written for The Intercept, The Lever, The New York Times, The Nation, Al Jazeera, and In These Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The expanded definition has justified assaults on journalists who have documented detentions of immigrants. BY MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM-COOK SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 (Prospect.org) WINTERS ROCK ENTERTAINMENT DHS officers confront a man filming with his phone outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, August 8, 2025. This article is published in partnership… Continue reading ![\"Cunningham-Cook-Videotaping](\"https:\/\/prospect.org\/downloads\/23486\/download\/Cunningham-Cook-Videotaping%20ICE%20090925%202.jpg?cb=606e1530109064c421798c91b1908abe\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nMATTHEW CUNNINGHAM-COOK<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n