Judge Orders DHS Agents to Stop Targeting Journalists in Chicago
USA – On Thursday, a US federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents to stop targeting journalists who’re reporting on protests and immigration enforcement activities in Chicago.
In recent weeks, as federal agents confronted protesters in the Chicago area, journalists were targeted with tear gas and less-lethal weapons, such as pepper balls. A significant number of these incidents took place near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago.
US District Judge Sara Ellis, an Obama appointee, ordered on Thursday that DHS agents, including ICE and US Customs and Border Protection, may not “disperse, arrest, threaten to arrest, threaten or use physical force against any person whom they know or reasonably should know is a journalist” without “specific probable cause to believe” that the person committed a crime, the Washington Post reported. The 14-day order covers all DHS agents in northern Illinois.
On Monday, the Chicago Headline Club, together with unions and individual journalists, filed a lawsuit citing multiple incidents, including a Chicago Reader editor being hit with a rubber bullet and tear-gassed, four Block Club Chicago reporters targeted with pepper balls or tear gas at the Broadview ICE facility, and a CBS reporter whose car was struck by a pepper ball, causing burning fumes inside.
Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild-CWA, whose local chapters are plaintiffs, expressed appreciation, saying: “We are grateful for Judge Ellis issuing a temporary restraining order making it clear that the government cannot use riot control weapons on journalists, media workers, peaceful protesters and members of the clergy.”
He added: “Journalism is not a crime. Speech is not a crime. Every American must loudly condemn the Trump administration’s assault on our First Amendment rights.”
The order came the same day another federal judge in Chicago blocked President Donald Trump from sending federalized National Guard troops to the state of Illinois, which Governor Pritzker called an “invasion.” DHS responded to Ellis’s order, with Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin saying: “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly – not rioting.”
She noted ICE officers face “a nearly 1,000 percent increase in assaults” and cautioned that “covering unlawful activities in the field does come with risks – though our officers take every reasonable precaution to mitigate those dangers to those exercising protected First Amendment rights.”
Thursday’s order mandates that federal agents display visible identification and bars arrests of nonviolent protesters without probable cause. The judge will hear arguments later this month on whether to extend the temporary order into a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.
