The detention of photojournalist Trish Brownlee, formerly of Capital Encore Academy in Fayetteville, raises questions about press freedom, transparency and accountability questions for ICE.

 Via The Fayetteville Observer

August 6, 2026

The detention of photojournalist Trish Brownlee, formerly of Capital Encore Academy in Fayetteville, raises questions about press freedom, transparency and accountability questions for ICE.

Trish Brownlee is a U.S. citizen.  

She is an Army veteran. 

She is an artist and served as an arts teacher at Capitol Encore Academy, the charter school in downtown Fayetteville. 

"She was the very first visual arts teacher," said Capitol Encore administrator Brian Adam Kline, who was an arts teacher when Brownlee was here, circa 2014. "And she pretty much founded how we do arts at Capitol." 

Brownlee is also a photojournalist who has shot pictures for The Fayetteville Observer.

It was in her role as an independent photojournalist, reporting on an immigration enforcement action in New Jersey, that Brownlee ran afoul of officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The men with ICE — the lead agency in the Trump Administration's broad and indiscriminate mass deportation and detention efforts — did not care that she was doing her job. They found a reason to arrest her and detain her. She remained in detention 47 days before she was released from the Warren County Correctional Center in Belvedere, New Jersey, on July 27, according to U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which documents press freedom violations in the U.S. --continue to full article