Documentarian pushed by deputy at Minnesota immigration protest

Independent documentarian Adriano Kalin was pushed by a Hennepin County sheriff’s deputy while documenting a protest outside a federal building in the Minneapolis suburb of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, on March 1, 2026.

The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, which houses an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center, has been a focal point of protests. Demonstrations intensified in January after federal immigration agents shot and killed two Minneapolis residents, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and wounded a man in separate incidents. Both the city of Minneapolis and the state have sued the Trump administration, arguing the unprecedented deployment of federal agents violates constitutional rights.

Kalin told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was documenting demonstrators who were gathering the morning of March 1 at the federal building. He was wearing a press badge, and a vest and a helmet identifying himself as a member of the press.

In the north parking lot, where he started reporting, law enforcement allowed Kalin and other journalists to do their job. However, the atmosphere changed as the protest grew larger in the south parking lot and officers began declaring the gathering unlawful, Kalin said. The law enforcement present included members of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, the Minnesota State Patrol and the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

“The line between protester and press started kind of diffusing, if you will, and they didn’t care if you were press,” he said.

Kalin said Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies were indiscriminately aggressive, even against members of the press as they tried to document arrests and other police activity.

“The sheriff’s department were like, ‘No, you need to move,’ and shoving press,” Kalin said. “And we were saying, ‘We have a job to do, we’re strictly documenting.’”

According to Kalin, a large deputy who had been shouting at media members eventually shoved him toward protesters and told him he couldn’t be there. Although officers were shouting at members of the press, Kalin said he didn’t feel specifically targeted when he was pushed.

The photographer said the situation made it harder to safely capture images of events as they unfolded.

“It definitely made it more difficult for me to do my job,” he said. “I had to walk very fast and take the photo and pray that I got it because I was kind of getting rushed, and I was worried for myself, if I was going to get arrested.”

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.