Independent photojournalist arrested at Illinois immigration protest

An independent photojournalist was arrested and her equipment searched and damaged while documenting a protest against immigration raids in Broadview, Illinois, on Nov. 14, 2025.

More than 20 people were arrested at the demonstration, which included about 300 protesters and a group of interfaith leaders, and occurred outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Chicago.

The photojournalist, who asked to remain anonymous because the charges against her could still be refiled, was the only member of the press detained.

In a written statement to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, the journalist recounted that at one point during the protest, the Illinois State Police pushed clergy members backward, despite limited room to move.

She had positioned herself near other members of the press by a police barrier, as officers continued pushing protesters into a confined area closer to the press line.

“The crowd’s momentum looked like a white-water rapid,” the journalist wrote.

Police also repeatedly ordered journalists to stop filming and obstructed their cameras with their bodies and outstretched arms, the photographer recalled. At one point, an officer placed a gloved hand over her lens to block it.

When police shoved a bystander into the press gate, chaos erupted. The journalist said she was knocked over, struggling to see, with someone’s knees pressing into her neck.

“I realize I’m not beneath an arresting tackle, but a fellow journalist, unable to peel himself off as he is in turn trapped under collapsing camera gear,” she wrote.

As police continued ordering the press to stop filming, she watched a reverend get arrested and started documenting his speech dedicated to the immigrant detainees. She then heard an officer say, “No filming!”, before she was then struck in the side by a boot, baton or fist, which knocked a battery from her camera and shut it off.

“I missed the historic moment in its entirety,” the journalist recounted.

While documenting the arrests and police use of force, she at one point involuntarily shouted, “Stop!” An officer then lifted her from the media area and moved her into detention with other arrestees.

As she was zip-tied, she said, an officer searched her camera bag and removed her press badge. At the precinct hours later, she asked whether her camera bag had made it.

“Oh, you’re a ‘photojournalist’?” the officer asked, making air quotes, the journalist recounted. “Like a real journalist?”

She said she affirmed that she was.

After her release, she found her press badge gone, and her camera bag ripped open and missing its protective separators. Water had leaked into the bag’s waterproof pocket, ruining three other batteries.

Her camera’s lens, shutter and battery door were dented, cracked and packed with dirt. She told the Tracker the camera now turns on but shuts off unpredictably and struggles to focus, the battery door no longer latches, and the viewfinder is obscured. She estimates $1,800 in repairs to her equipment.

“I can sometimes use my camera, but it’s never a guarantee,” she wrote. “I expect it to breathe its last gig any day now.”

The state police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

She was charged with resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and walking improperly on a highway. The charges were dropped Feb. 4, though prosecutors have until April to refile them.

“It is concerning how ICE-related law enforcement go out of their way to lateralize and obscure storytelling rights by considering anyone in their way a ‘protester,’” she wrote.