
LOS ANGELES—For Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, immigrants aren’t their only targets. Journalists doing their jobs, reporting on ICE violence, have a bullseye on their backs, too.
That led the News Guild, the ACLU, and the Los Angeles Press Club into federal court in Los Angeles on June 19 against Trump’s Homeland Security Department, the parent agency of ICE.
The suit says the agents engage “in retaliatory violence” against reporters, violating the Constitution’s First Amendment and its freedom of the press guarantee. Freedom of the press, News Guild President Jon Schleuss explains, includes freedom not just to print the news without prior government censorship, but to report on it, too.
“Journalism is not a crime,” Schleuss declares. “Police cannot attack press workers with impunity, and we’ll use every tool we have to hold power accountable, including taking DHS to court.”
But you can’t report when you’re being clubbed to the ground, hit with pepper spray, wounded by deliberately shot rubber bullets or menaced by exploding grenades. In Atlanta, you can’t report on a No Kings march if you’re Mario Guevara, a reporter for Spanish-language media, arrested and held for deportation because of the color of your skin, Schleuss adds.
And three days before the court filing, reporters who covered the demonstrations and ICE’s abuses, in Los Angeles, told Schleuss and other News Guild members their stories in a Zoom session. Its point was to both hear the tales and figure out how to respond.
“The demonstrators were peaceful” on the first day of protests against ICE, “but one threw a chair, and that led the agents to shoot pepper gas and rubber bullets,” said Ryanne Mena of the Southern California Media Guild. “I was shot in the left thigh.”
Other cops joined the assaults, added journalist Sean Emery: “In downtown L..A., you had the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. [County] sheriff’s department targeting the press. The LAPD has a long history of disrespecting the rights of the press.”
The next day, in Paramount, Calif., was worse, said Mena. “DHS agents began firing at the crowd with no warning. I was 75 feet away and was hit in the head with a ‘less lethal’ rubber bullet above my right ear. Then I was tear-gassed.” Both days, Mena wore a press pass and had other press ID. “Two days later, I went to an urgent care clinic, and I was diagnosed with a concussion.”
ICE creates “a violent spectacle” to cow reporters and demonstrators, who also engage in free speech, protected by the First Amendment, the suit adds. It seeks a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction against ICE and its boss, Trump Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“What happened in L.A. isn’t just a press crackdown, it’s an assault on the rights of all Americans, especially working people,” said Schleuss when the Guild and its allies filed suit. “This state-sanctioned violence against journalists is meant to stop the public from learning the truth. We’re proud to join this fight to demand accountability and end impunity for DHS officers who attack the workers who power our free press.”
Using weaponry against journalists
Besides the tear gas and rubber bullets—which also wounded Australian TV reporter Lauren Tomasi while she did a standup segment for her network—the suit says DHS “misuses weaponry” against journalists and demonstrators. The video of Tomasi went viral on social media.
DHS and ICE agents’ weapons included “impact munitions, pepper spray, exploding grenades, batons” and cops’ own fists beating people “to retaliate against protesters, legal observers, and reporters, and to create a violent spectacle the Trump administration is using as a pretext to turn the military against Californians,” Schleuss said.
Trump has already warned other cities—especially deep-blue cities run by mayors of color, such as Chicago and New York—that he’ll send in heavily armed ICE agents, too. Many “ICE agents” are masked and do not identify themselves. None of them use warrants in arresting or assaulting people.
That led attendees at the News Guild’s Zoom session to consider how to defend themselves against ICE agents’ violence. The situation is so bad, said Asad Hashim, of Agence France Presse, another News Guild-represented shop, that it’s comparable to police actions in “authoritarian regimes” he once covered, notably Pakistan.
And don’t assume your bosses will back you up, warned Jan Sheehan of the News Guild of New York. “We have some employers who don’t want to spend the money” protecting their staffers. “That’s where you”—the News Guild—“come in.”
The violence against reporters in L.A. was not the first instance where law enforcement ran amok against reporters. While chanting “Move, move, get out of the park!” mounted police chased and clubbed demonstrators, plus clearly identified reporters, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park during the 1968 Democratic National Convention there. An impartial report later labelled that “a police riot.”
During the 2020 Minneapolis disturbances after the police killing of defenseless Black man George Floyd, clearly identified journalist Linda Tirado was shot in the left eye and lost it to a 40mm “police projectile.” Other reporters said police targeted them. Tirado wore riot gear, including goggles.
Tirado’s goggles caved into her eye, she told TV interviewers. Had they shattered, she’d be dead. The continuing brain injury from the projectile ended her career and changed her life. When interviewed, she was in a hospice with memory loss, rather than undergoing more surgery.
Measures to counter the police violence, besides the lawsuit and seeking the injunction, include writing union contract language requiring bosses to legally defend reporters, provide personal protective equipment, and include contract provisions saying reporters have the right to refuse to cover situations that pose personal danger, participants reported from Zoom breakout rooms.
“Go out with goggles, press passes, respirators, and gas masks” was one recommendation Zoom conferees urged. A minimal protective outfit costs approximately $120, they noted. And they urged journalists to form “a buddy system” even with colleagues from competing media. And to take their message, including the personal stories, to the public and to other unions, too.
“Have a running public tracker of incidents of violence,” Schleuss said. “Have more community engagement. Journalists will have to learn to stand up” for themselves, their rights, and public freedoms.
“If the owners sell out the journalists, who will protect them?” freelancer Nik Reljin asked. “The public—and the union.”
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