Journalist struck by officer barring lawmakers from NYC immigration facility

Independent journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Nigro was smacked in the face with his own equipment by a plainclothes officer while documenting inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, New York, on Sept. 18, 2025.

Nigro told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he has been covering the federal immigration court there almost daily since the end of May. State and local officials had gathered at the building that day to demand that they be permitted to inspect the detainment facilities on the premises.

“We got word that there were going to be lawmakers entering the building to try to look at the 10th floor, which is the holding cells and where the judge said that they had to improve the conditions,” Nigro said, referring to a federal judge’s recent citation to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for inhumane conditions in the facility.

He said that while journalists are not permitted on those floors, the newsworthiness of the lawmakers’ visit led him and others to try to gain access. He arrived shortly after the officials.

As the lawmakers positioned themselves in front of a door to the facility, a plainclothes officer — wearing a hat from a Second Amendment clothing company that read “The Pew/Pew Life” and shirt reading “Guns up giddy up” — prevented them from entering.

“The lawmakers were making a very placid and calm and reasoned plea to enter to observe the holding cell or the detention rooms, whatever you want to call them,” Nigro said. The photojournalist added that he positioned himself right at the door, along with a number of other journalists, near the officer.

He told the Tracker that the halls in the building are always crowded, noting that “it can be a mosh pit or worse.” On this day, however, people were largely standing still, and he filmed for around 10 minutes, panning to the plainclothes officer who was talking through the door to tell someone not to open it because “there’s press outside, there’s lawmakers.”

Nigro said that when he panned again, the officer snapped.

“I didn’t make any jerky movements. As soon as I turned, he just smacked the camera,” he told the Tracker. “I have this metal bracket on top that holds my cellphone and it went directly into my mouth and I thought he cracked my tooth. That sound that you get: metal on enamel.”

He said he bent over and felt that his tooth was still intact. The officer falsely claimed that Nigro had hit him with the camera and, in footage captured by another journalist, told him, “Keep that out of my face.”

“I calmly said, ‘No. I have a First Amendment right to shoot you,’” Nigro recounted.

The photojournalist said he didn’t have any further issues with the officer that day, but noted that the people inside the detainment facilities zip-tied the doors closed, put paper over the windows and placed duct tape over the seams so no photos could be taken.

Nearly a dozen lawmakers were ultimately arrested, Reuters reported, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

Both Nigro and a second journalist identified the officer as an ICE agent, but ICE did not respond to a request for comment.