Incident details
- Updated on
- Date of incident
- January 18, 2019
- Targets
- Kitra Cahana (Freelance)
- Case number
- 1:19-cv-06570
- Case status
- Settled
- Type of case
- Civil
- Border point
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
- Target nationality
- US citizenship status of target
- U.S. citizen
- Denied entry?
- No
- Stopped previously?
- Yes
- Asked for device access?
- No
- Asked intrusive questions about work?
- Yes
Border Stop
Journalists settle suit against DHS over border stops
A group of journalists who sued the government over border officers’ questioning of journalists about their work settled the suit on Jan. 26, 2026, in New York, New York, federal court, according to court documents reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Journalists Kitra Cahana, Mark Abramson, Ariana Drehsler, Bing Guan and Go Nakamura sued in November 2019 after a series of border stops in late 2018 and early 2019, during which all five were asked intrusive questions about their coverage of a Central American migrant caravan’s arrival in Mexico. Three had equipment searched by border officers.
The suit accused the government of violating the First Amendment and named the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as defendants. The complaint notes that pictures of all five journalists appear in a DHS compilation of journalists, activists and attorneys connected to the migrant caravan.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the plaintiffs along with law firm Covington & Burling, announced that the settlement required CBP to “issue guidance to certain CBP units regarding the First Amendment and Privacy Act protections that apply when questioning journalists at the border,” and to act “to ensure that the journalists’ past reporting at the U.S.-Mexico border should not serve as a basis for future border questioning.”
The settlement also includes “an amount for costs and attorneys’ fees.” ACLU attorney Esha Bhandari declined to provide additional information about the settlement terms.
“We are thankful to have secured redress for these journalists, to allow them to do their jobs reporting on the news free from unjustified government scrutiny,” Bhandari said.
Guan said: “It’s clear the government’s actions were meant to instill fear in journalists like me, to cow us into standing down from reporting what is happening on the ground. After being targeted for doing just that, I am grateful for what our lawsuit has achieved in defending the rights of journalists to report free from government officials’ scrutiny.”
Cahana said: “My biggest fear is that other journalists may have avoided important stories out of fear of being targeted themselves. Press freedom is not a partisan issue. Everyone should be alarmed when journalists are targeted.”
Freelance photojournalist Kitra Cahana was questioned about her journalistic work by U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities in Detroit, Michigan, on Jan. 18, 2019.
Cahana was one of many journalists covering the Central American migrant caravan’s arrival to Mexico. According to a lawsuit in which Cahana is a plaintiff, the photojournalist was flagged for secondary screening by CBP at a preclearance location in Montreal while traveling from Canada to Mexico City via Detroit on Jan. 17. Cahana was ultimately denied entry to Mexico and put on a return flight to Detroit the following day.
According to the lawsuit, when Cahana landed and passed through customs the machine printed out a ticket with a picture of her face with a large “X” on it, indicating that she had been flagged for secondary screening.
Two plainclothes officers questioned Cahana in a private room, asking about her denial of entry to Mexico and her interactions with the Mexican authorities. The officers also asked her to confirm details of an incident that took place the day after Christmas.
“This suggested to Ms. Cahana that the officers knew more about her and her journalism work in Mexico in December 2018 than Ms. Cahana had revealed during questioning by them,” the lawsuit states.
On March 6, NBC 7 in San Diego broke the story that Department of Homeland Security officials in San Diego had created a database of journalists, activists and attorneys who were involved in some way with the migrant caravan, including Cahana. The anonymous whistleblower who brought the documents to NBC 7 told the news outlet that the DHS had created dossiers on each individual in the database.
“We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the anonymous source said. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”
DHS confirmed to NBC 7 that the seal on the documents indicates that “the documents are a product of the International Liaison Unit (ILU), which coordinates intelligence between Mexico and the United States.”
“In the current state of journalism, it's really freelancers who are bringing so much news to the public,” Cahana told NBC 7. “And the uncertainty of having an alert placed on your passport and not knowing where and when that's going to prevent you from doing your work is really problematic.”
On Nov. 20, Cahana and four other photojournalists — all of whom were questioned about their work covering the migrant caravan and documented in the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker — filed a lawsuit against the heads of DHS, CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This lawsuit challenges U.S. border officers’ questioning of journalists about their work documenting conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border,” the suit begins. “The border officers’ questioning aimed at uncovering Plaintiffs’ sources of information and their observations as journalists was unconstitutional.”
The suit seeks a ruling that such questioning violates the First Amendment and an injunction requiring the agencies to expunge any records or files about the photojournalists. The suit remains ongoing and discovery is underway.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
