The Trump administration believes you do not have the right to record an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in public. This position is factually wrong and attempts to suppress free speech by conflating it with violence.
At a press conference in Tampa, Florida, in July 2025, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said, “Violence is any behavior that threatens them and their safety, so doxxing them, videotaping where they are when they’re out on duty, encouraging others to come and throw things, rocks, bottles.”
In September 2025, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, called “videotaping ICE law enforcement officers and posting their photos and videos online” a form of doxing. “We will prosecute those who unlawfully harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law,” she added.
These are not idle threats. The Trump administration forced Apple to remove an app that tracks ICE activity from its mobile store and threatened its creator with a criminal investigation.
The most aggressive application of this policy was during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, where ICE officers ruthlessly targeted protesters, journalists, and clergy engaged in protected First Amendment activity.
In October, a group of journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit alleging “an act of extreme brutality and a concerted and sustained effort to silence the media and civilians.”
The plaintiffs said in court documents that federal officials’ own testimony illustrates their case. For example, when ICE Field Director Russell Holt was asked if he agreed that “arresting people who opposed the Midway Blitz was unconstitutional,” he responded “no.”
“Similarly, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Greg] Bovino testified that he had directed his officers to arrest protesters who made exaggerated remarks in the heat of political demonstrations, even though those remarks — which did not pose a real threat — were protected speech,” the motion states. (Hoot’s and Bovino’s depositions were filed under seal, and the comments were later redacted in a corrected filing by the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, but not before others had screenshots of them.)
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security in early November 2025 based on overwhelming evidence that the federal government in Chicago ignored her previous orders limiting the use of force, saying the government’s actions “shocked the conscience.”
Ellis found much of the officers’ testimony to be discredited. For example, Bovino testified that he never used force against protesters he was filmed using, and in another incident, Ellis said, he lied about being hit with a rock and then fired tear gas at demonstrators. There is also no evidence to support the government’s assertion that federal officers issued warnings before firing less-lethal projectiles at these protesters.
“Describing the Rapid Response Network and Neighborhood Moms as professional agitators shows how out of touch these agents are and how extreme their views are,” Ellis said.
The Trump administration responded by calling Ellis a “radical judge,” but when it comes to documenting and protesting police, that’s completely wrong. Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, noted that “While the Supreme Court itself has yet to confront the issue, the seven federal circuit courts that have done so…have agreed that the First Amendment protects the right to record police officers performing their duties in public.”
Likewise, the Federal Circuit has upheld the right to use vulgar language against police officers without fear of retaliation and to warn others of nearby police checkpoints or speed traps.
As Olson writes, the government’s “attempts to change reality by establishing new legal facts on the ground” ultimately gave the green light to informal repression. “If agents believe they have full immunity [for] Whatever they do, or citizens have no right to record them, they are more likely to take aggressive informal action, such as snatching phones or detaining journalists on charges of obstruction of justice (perhaps later quietly dropped). “
It’s not hard to find examples of this rotten agency culture in practice. In late October 2025, ICE officers broke in and detained a U.S. citizen for seven hours after she followed and photographed their unmarked vehicle. DHS charged her with reckless driving, trying to block police with her car and resisting arrest — all charges she and her attorneys deny. Prosecutors did not charge the woman with a crime.
Keeping records of government personnel is one of the few tools citizens have to hold state power accountable. Any attempt to redefine observation as “violence” is not only unconstitutional but authoritarian gaslighting. When the government fears cameras more than it fears crime, it is not protecting the rule of law. It is protecting itself.
The Trump administration says recording ICE videos is illegal. This is what the law requires. appeared first on Reason.com.
