Incident details
- Updated on
- Date of incident
- September 19, 2025
- Case number
- 1:25-cv-12173
- Case status
- Withdrawn
- Type of case
- Class Action
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Unknown
Assault
Federal agents stand guard on top of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 19, 2025. Photojournalist Audrey Richardson was caught in chemical irritant and shot with pepper balls by officers that day.
Chicago journalists drop suit against federal government over protest policing
Chicago-area journalists asked a federal court on Dec. 2, 2025, to dismiss their suit against various federal agencies over the violent response by federal law enforcement to anti-deportation protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.
The plaintiffs, including news outlets and various press associations along with individual journalists, told the court that since Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino and his agents had left the area in early November, they had not received further reports of unconstitutional behavior related to policing of protests.
The plaintiffs had won a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary 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 injunction, ruling that it was “overbroad” and its requirements infringed on “separation of powers.” The appeals court had not yet ruled on whether to dismiss the injunction completely.
Dismissing the suit “effectively prevents a ruling unfavorable to the plaintiffs that could establish precedent on the Border Patrol’s use of force when conducting immigration enforcement operations,” The New York Times noted.
The defendants have said they will drop their appeal if the underlying suit is dismissed, the plaintiffs said in their filing.
In a news release announcing the dismissal request, the board of directors of the Chicago Headline Club, one of the plaintiffs, said the suit had succeeded in restraining agents from attacking reporters.
“Given that the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have reduced their presence for now, we don’t see a need to keep the court fight going,” the board wrote. “We’ll take the win.”
“We are fully prepared to go to court again if federal agents return in force or if any activities of federal agents escalate into violations of our constitutional rights,” it added.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that according to a source in the Department of Homeland Security, as many as 1,000 agents could return to the Chicago area in March — “four times the roughly 250 agents who hit the streets for this fall’s campaign.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Art told the Sun-Times that the suit had succeeded by documenting the brutality of federal agents’ actions.
“The constitutional rights of civilians across the region were vindicated, and the Trump administration’s justifications for its conduct were exposed as blatant lies,” Art said.
Court suspends journalist injunction limiting federal policing at Chicago
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 photojournalist Audrey Richardson was shot with crowd-control munitions and tear-gassed while covering protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 19, 2025.
The facility, where detainees are being held and processed ahead of deportation, has drawn escalating protests and federal response since early September, following the Department of Homeland Security’s launch of Operation Midway Blitz.
Richardson told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was on assignment for nonprofit newsroom Block Club Chicago that day, and arrived at the facility shortly before 5 p.m.
“It was calm at first,” she said. “Then, they would bring the detainees in and protesters would try to block the car, and that’s what would incite the pushback from ICE. It kept happening, and each time I feel like ICE got more aggressive.”
Increasing numbers of officers would advance out of the facility to push back protesters, Richardson said. During one such rush, as officers were shoving everyone, she said that she was pushed into a large rock near the road, causing her to fall over.
As evening arrived, Richardson said the federal officers deployed stun grenades and tear gas, while others stationed on the roof shot a barrage of pepper balls toward the crowd. That’s when she believes a munition hit her.
“I was shot in my left calf. It hurt really bad and there was a massive bruise for a few weeks,” Richardson told the Tracker.
She added that she doesn’t know whether she was deliberately targeted, noting that she was identifiable as press, or if she was caught in their indiscriminate spray of the crowd-control munitions.
“It seems to have gone from zero to 100 so quickly,” Richardson said. “That one time they decided to come out in full force was just really scary. They were just throwing explosives at protesters. Afterward, they didn’t do it again, because people were injured and throwing up.
“I think people were like, ‘OK, I don’t really want to go through that again,’” she added, noting that that was probably the officers’ goal.
An array of Chicago-area journalists and others — including Block Club — sued President Donald Trump and various U.S. agencies Oct. 6 over federal law enforcement’s violent response 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, including Richardson, 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 and body cameras.
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].
