Photojournalist arrested mid-interview, incarcerated since June

Trisha Brownlee, an independent photographer, was arrested by state police on June 11, 2026, while interviewing two men who were observing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Hardwick Township, New Jersey. She had yet to be released as of publication time.

Brownlee’s mother, Sharon Edwards, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that her daughter, who has worked as a photojournalist on and off since 2004, was reporting a story about people who follow ICE activity to inform their communities, and had planned to pitch the completed piece to an outlet.

Brownlee traveled from York, Pennsylvania — where she has been living with her mother since late 2025 — to Hardwick Township several hours away. There, she entered the vehicle of two ICE watchers, interviewing them as they followed an ICE bus for approximately 50 minutes.

Eventually, ICE agents called state police, who discovered that the vehicle’s registration had expired and noticed some loose ammunition on the floor. Upon searching the vehicle, police found a handgun in the glove compartment and, later, a shotgun.

According to Edwards and a spokesperson for Brownlee’s public defender, Brownlee immediately told the officers that she was a journalist interviewing the two ICE observers and that the vehicle did not belong to her. Brownlee also holds a National Press Photographers Association credential, which was in her parked car at time of arrest.

“My daughter said she never saw any weapons, never saw anything, knew anything about it. And, of course, the people in the vehicle, the driver did not fess up that they belonged to them,” Edwards told the Tracker, “So then they arrested them all by association.”

Edwards added that her daughter’s wrist and leg were injured during the arrest.

Brownlee was charged with illegal possession of armor-piercing rounds, court filings show, and she was placed in the Warren County Correctional Center in Belvedere, New Jersey, where she has been since.

Edwards said Brownlee, a disabled veteran with Crohn’s disease, has gone without her medication since the arrest. Her family pushed for a medical release, but the request was denied.

The New Jersey State Police and state prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.