Judge orders halt to DHS agents’ targeting of journalists in Chicago

A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security from using riot control weapons against journalists covering protests and immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area.

As federal agents have clashed with protesters in the Chicago area in recent weeks, journalists have been shot with tear gas and less-lethal munitions including pepper balls. Many of the incidents occurred outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago.

In her order, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, an Obama appointee, prohibited DHS personnel from “dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, threatening or using physical force against any person whom they know or reasonably should know is a journalist” unless there is “specific probable cause to believe” that person committed a crime. The 14-day order applies to all Department of Homeland Security agents, including those with ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol, across northern Illinois.

The lawsuit was filed Monday by the Chicago Headline Club, a nonprofit that represents journalists, along with unions and individual reporters.

The complaint cited a number of incidents involving journalists, including a news editor for the weekly Chicago Reader being shot with a rubber bullet and teargassed. Four journalists with the website Block Club Chicago were hit with pepper balls or teargassed while covering protests at the Broadview ICE facility, the website said. A Chicago affiliate of CBS said one of its television reporters was driving when her vehicle was hit with a pepper ball, adding that the fumes entered the car and she felt as if her face were burning.

“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,” said Jon Schleuss, president of The NewsGuild-CWA, whose local chapters are plaintiffs in the suit. “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 was issued the same day another federal judge in Chicago was hearing a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s deployment of federalized National Guard troops to the Chicago area. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has called their presence an “invasion.”

DHS pushed back against the judge’s order.

“The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting,” said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. She warned 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.”

Ellis’s ruling mirrors a similar injunction from a federal judge in Los Angeles last month. U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera issued a preliminary injunction after finding an “avalanche of evidence” that DHS agents violated the First Amendment rights of journalists as well as observers and protesters.

Thursday’s order requires federal agents to wear visible identification and prohibits arrests of nonviolent protesters without probable cause. The parties will meet again later this month, when the judge will hear arguments on whether the temporary order should become a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.