Well, according to Kristi Noem, Americans have apparently lost their constitutionally protected right to record law enforcement in public.
At a little-noticed DHS press briefing in July, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared that “Violence is anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” That’s right—simply filming ICE agents in public spaces is now, in the eyes of the Trump administration, a violent act.
This isn’t just political posturing. It’s now department policy. Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS, echoed Noem’s stance in a statement to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD): “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents,” she said. “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
This interpretation of “violence” includes, by DHS’s own admission, things like trash left on someone’s lawn or holding up a sign with a rude word. Those examples, McLaughlin claimed, contributed to what the agency has called a 1,000 percent spike in “violence” against ICE agents over the span of just a few weeks this summer.
Let’s be clear: No one is condoning threats or harassment. But calling the simple act of filming public officials “violence”? That’s something else entirely.
ICE Is Watching You—But Don’t Watch Back
Take the case of Georgia-based journalist Mario Guevara. According to his attorneys, Guevara has legal authorization to work in the U.S. That didn’t stop ICE from detaining him after he filmed one of their enforcement operations. He’s been in ICE custody for more than two months.
If this feels backwards, that’s because it is. Government agents, armed and funded by taxpayer dollars, operating in public spaces—should be accountable to the public. But DHS under Trump and Noem is flipping that on its head. Now, the public is the threat, and transparency is the enemy.
First Amendment experts aren’t mincing words.
David Cole, Georgetown law professor and legal director for the ACLU, said DHS appears to “fundamentally misunderstand the First Amendment.”
“The First Amendment is designed above all to give citizens the right to criticize and report on government abuse,” Cole told CMD. “There’s not only no law against recording law enforcement officers doing their job, but it is a First Amendment–protected right to do so in public in ways that don’t interfere with them carrying out their tasks.”
Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney at the ACLU, put it even more bluntly: “The right to photograph, film, and publish publicly visible law enforcement activity is a core First Amendment right.” Kim added, “The burning question is why ICE officers feel the need to hide who they are and what they do from the public—masking their faces, lacking visible ID, driving unmarked vehicles, and now attacking those who document their activities.”
Who Watches the Watchmen?
DHS, now a $159 billion behemoth after passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” has grown into one of the most powerful and opaque arms of the federal government. ICE’s budget alone has tripled since 2024, putting it ahead of the entire military budgets of most countries.
Yet at the same time, its internal oversight mechanisms are vanishing. In March, DHS abruptly shut down its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, closing some 500 investigations into public complaints. In August, a report from Sen. Jon Ossoff’s office documented over 500 incidents of rights violations inside immigration detention centers—just in the first seven months of Trump’s second term.
Meanwhile, ICE and other DHS agencies have faced mounting accusations of using violence against journalists, legal observers, and civilians.
Peter Eliasberg, an ACLU attorney representing reporters assaulted by DHS officers in Los Angeles, said the administration’s redefinition of “violence” is detached from reality: “This definition bears no relationship to what violence actually is. I don’t think there’s any evidence that … there is truth [in] those numbers.”
In fact, a lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Press Club and other media organizations claims DHS agents “smashed the hands of people recording events with their phones” and fired “less lethal” munitions at credentialed journalists.
Silencing the Record
It’s worth remembering that some of the most high-profile instances of law enforcement misconduct in recent memory—George Floyd, Walter Scott, Eric Garner—only came to light because a bystander had the courage to press “record.”
Now, DHS is trying to criminalize that very act. And if Kristi Noem gets her way, merely documenting the actions of ICE agents could land you in court—or worse, in a detention cell like Mario Guevara.
This isn’t just a policy dispute—it’s a direct assault on one of the few tools ordinary Americans have to hold power accountable: the camera.
And if filming public servants doing their jobs is now considered “violence,” what’s next?
Because if this is the new standard, the real violence may not be from the people holding the cameras—but from the government trying to stop them.
