Incident details
- Updated on
- Date of incident
- September 19, 2025
- Case number
- 1:25-cv-12173
- Case status
- Ongoing
- Type of case
- Class Action
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Unknown
Assault
A protester stands in front of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 19, 2025. Photojournalist Leigh Giangreco was shot with multiple pepper balls while covering the demonstrations.
Court suspends journalist injunction limiting federal policing at Chicago protests
A preliminary injunction won by Chicago-area journalists that limited protest policing tactics by federal law enforcement was put on hold on Nov. 19, 2025, while the federal government appeals the order.
The injunction, granted Nov. 6, was appealed three days later by the defendants, along with an order certifying the case as a class action.
Journalists, news outlets, various press associations and others had sued President Donald Trump and a group of U.S. government agencies Oct. 6 over the violent response by federal agents to ongoing anti-deportation protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.
The plaintiffs won a temporary restraining order, and then the injunction, forbidding federal agents from using physical force against journalists without probable cause and banning the use of riot-control weapons and chemical munitions on those not posing an immediate threat to law enforcement.
But on Nov. 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit paused the order, ruling that the injunction was “overbroad” — that it would “enjoin all law enforcement officers within the Executive Branch” — and “too prescriptive.”
The three-judge panel wrote that the injunction’s restrictions on agents’ use of weaponry too closely resembled a “federal regulation,” and the requirement for the government to report to the district judge on its implementation of the order infringed on “separation of powers.”
The judges also questioned “whether plaintiffs have shown that the past harm they allegedly faced is likely to imminently happen to them in the future,” pointing to “public reporting suggesting that the enhanced immigration enforcement initiative may have lessened or ceased.”
A week after the injunction was entered, however, the plaintiffs filed a notice of multiple apparent violations of the order by federal agents.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project, said: “It is difficult to understand how it is overbroad to ‘enjoin all law enforcement officers within the Executive Branch’ when the president, who last I checked runs the executive branch, expressly demands that those under him brutalize, censor and arrest activists and journalists who interfere with their narrative — the exact conduct restricted by the injunction.”
Stern added, “It’s also absurd for the panel to suggest there is any question about the likelihood of past abuses repeating — they’re repeating as we speak. ICE hasn’t left Chicagoland and has expressed no interest in reforming its conduct. Judges need to rise to the moment, confront present realities, and stop pretending yesterday’s norms and assumptions remain valid while we slide further into authoritarianism.”
Chicago journalists win injunction against federal government
A group of Chicago-area journalists won a preliminary injunction on Nov. 6, 2025, extending limits on protest policing tactics by federal law enforcement deployed in Chicago and throughout northern Illinois. The limits were put in place last month by a temporary restraining order.
Journalists, news outlets, various press associations and others sued President Donald Trump and a group of U.S. government agencies on Oct. 6 over the violent response by federal agents to ongoing anti-deportation protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.
The injunction, like the TRO, forbids federal agents from using physical force against journalists without probable cause and bans the use of riot-control weapons and chemical munitions on those not posing an immediate threat to law enforcement, CBS News reported.
Judge Sara Ellis also said she would grant the plaintiffs’ request to make the case a class action.
In granting the injunction, Ellis said she found testimony by Border Patrol and ICE agents “not credible,” and pointed out that Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, who had testified in court and at two depositions, “admitted that he lied.”
“The use of force shocks the conscience,” Ellis said.
Freelance reporter Leigh Giangreco was shot with multiple pepper balls by federal officers while covering protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 19, 2025.
In a report posted on social video platform TikTok, Giangreco said that she was on assignment for nonprofit newsroom Block Club Chicago covering protests that started that morning and stretched throughout the day, with the law enforcement response escalating in the evening.
“Just before 7 o’clock, there were several ICE agents on top of the building, on the corner, who were shooting pepper bullets down at protesters,” Giangreco said. Describing the munitions as “non-lethal bullets,” she added that — from personal experience — they can leave a mark.
“They are pretty painful: I got hit with at least two of them tonight,” she said. “They were shooting those down on protesters, really just raining them down.”
Giangreco reported that the federal officers also deployed tear gas into the crowd. “I will say I was also in the middle of these protests and the pepper spray was on the air, was getting in your eyes,” she said, adding, “it’s still in my throat now.”
An array of Chicago-area journalists and others — including Block Club — sued President Donald Trump and various federal agencies Oct. 6 over the violent response by federal law enforcement to ongoing anti-deportation protests outside the ICE facility.
In an article announcing the lawsuit, Block Club wrote that it decided to pursue the case after four of its journalists were shot with pepper balls and tear-gassed.
“We intend to continue to report on the protests, but our ability to do so, to the standards that we hold ourselves to, continues to be impacted by our fears of violence and arrests of our employees and contractors,” said Stephanie Lulay, Block Club executive editor and co-founder. “We’re taking this step to protect our journalists and to assert our First Amendment right to report.”
The journalists won a temporary restraining order Oct. 9, forbidding federal agents from dispersing, arresting, threatening or using physical force against journalists without probable cause of a crime. It says agents can order journalists to change locations if they give them time to comply.
It also forbids the use of riot-control weapons and chemical munitions on those not posing an immediate threat to law enforcement; firing projectiles at the head, neck, groin, spine or female breast; or striking anyone with a vehicle. And it mandates that federal agents wear visible identification.
Hayden Johnson, counsel at Protect Democracy, part of the legal team for the plaintiffs, said, “Over the last weeks and months, Chicagoans have bravely sought to express and protect these freedoms in the face of severe government abuse. Today’s ruling recognizes that those efforts—peacefully opposing a federal incursion into your city and reporting the events—require the utmost constitutional protection.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
