Ryan Vizzions: The Tender Work of Preserving Renee Good’s Memorial

 Via Hyperallergic

March 16, 2026

Ryan Vizzions is archiving the objects left at the site of Renee Good’s murder. (all photos by and courtesy Ryan Vizzions)

Ryan Vizzions, a photojournalist from Atlanta, had already arrived in Minnesota when federal immigration agents murdered poet and mother Renee Nicole Macklin Good.

For the last five years, the traveling photographer has been living out of his small van as he travels across the country for a photo survey exploring what it means to be American in all 50 states. He was taking photos at Lake Superior when he learned of Good’s killing, and drove immediately to the street where agents shot Good in her car. He arrived in time for a massive vigil held in Good’s memory.

Nearly two months after Good’s murder, Vizzions is still in Minnesota, but his focus has shifted from observation to intervention. He is now the de facto archivist of Good’s memorial site, where mourners have left hundreds of devotional objects, short notes, and artwork in protest and in grief.

Vizzions among Good memorial objects at his undisclosed storage site

“I want to make sure people in the future understand what happened here,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic in an interview.

So far, Vizzions has photographed about 200 items and relocated fragile objects to what he described as a “secret location” in the southern part of the city.

He’s left behind some items, including plastic signs, for the public to view. Alongside community members, Vizzions is maintaining the site, including by removing what he described as hundreds of pounds of decaying flowers.

Among the items Vizzions has documented is a note signed by an employee of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the agency driving the Trump administration’s escalating immigration enforcement tactics. 

“Ms. Good,” the message reads, “We will never forget you. Rest in peace and power. Your work on earth is done. Your legacy lives on.” 

The card, which is covered in stickers, is signed, “A DHS employee.”

“That was probably the most surprising because that’s somebody who is involved with the same institution that ultimately killed her,” Vizzions told Hyperallergic. 

Mourners attended a vigil for Good hours after federal agents killed her.

Vizzions made the leap from outside observer to active participant in Minneapolis’s response to Good’s murder after someone attempted to burn the memorial site and extreme winter conditions set in, threatening to destroy the makeshift monument.

On February 18, someone poured gasoline on the memorial and lit a flame. Vizzions said that he and a group of community members watching over the site at night were able to stop the fire from spreading.

While Vizzions has previously photographed political apexes, including Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, he said he had never before inserted himself in the communities he covers.

“ As a photojournalist, oftentimes you’re divided from the community because you’re on the outside looking in,” Vizzions said. “And I wanted to serve.” 

Vizzions told Hyperallergic that Good’s parents are aware of his project and that he is in communication with a family friend who is serving as a mediator. Ultimately, Vizzions said, he will respect the family’s wishes for any next steps for the collection. He expects that some of the items could end up in the collections of private institutions or in the archives of the Smithsonian, but noted that whatever happens next will not be his decision to make. 

In the meantime, he is photographing and digitizing items from Good’s vigil so that anyone can experience them, regardless of where they live.

“It’s  really important for me to make sure that the folks who couldn’t be here, and the family who couldn’t come to the vigil because of everything happening, are able to access the memorial in person or online,” Vizzions said.

The photographer recalled one snow-covered note that made him cry. It read: “ We all carry whistles now. I hope you hear them. I hope you’re home. We all carry each other now. I know you’re with us. I know you’re home.”

The message is a nod to activists’ use of whistles to alert community members of potential immigration raids.

“It was just on a small note that was tucked somewhere,” Vizzons said. “But that’s just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of items that people have left. It’s that message and the other message that really make it feel like we have an obligation to protect these offerings that people brought to her.”

Full article here

See Ryan Vizzions' photographs from Minneapolis at The Photography Show Presented by AIPAD April 22-26, Monroe Gallery Booth B10.

 

Fear Is Different Here

 Via The Stranger

March 13, 2026

I photographed the mob at the Capitol on January 6. What I saw in Minneapolis was scarier.

By Nate Gowdy

Observers blow whistles in Minneapolis to signal that feds are present. Nate Gowdy

Seattle-based photographer Nate Gowdy went to Minneapolis to document the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Metro Surge. From January 17 to January 26, and February 13 to February 18, he photographed the civilian efforts to protect their communities from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. This is what he saw.

...When I arrived in Minneapolis, I expected to find overarmed agents, tear gas clouds, traumatized civilians, and I did. I also found people walking their dogs, running errands, meeting for dinner.

Daily life continued, but it was unmistakably altered. Community events were canceled. It came through in every conversation with residents: weekend plans became risk assessments about the federal agents operating in residential neighborhoods without visible name tags or badge numbers. Tension lived in lowered voices and furtive glances toward any vehicle with tinted windows.

For eight days, I worked from a rented Toyota RAV4 with Texas plates with a group of other photojournalists. We taped a PRESS sign inside the windows as a disclaimer to the volunteers standing on almost every street corner in the subzero cold. We tracked federal movements through Signal channels, mixing confirmed sightings with rumors in a steady stream of pings. We stayed in contact with five other cars of photojournalists, all trying to document every abduction—failed or successful—that we could.

As we moved through the city, residents told us about their community-led rapid-response trainings. Volunteers distributed whistles and explained how to document raids safely. From this peaceful resistance, we learned to drive slowly through residential blocks, roll down our windows, and identify ourselves.

“We’re press. We’re watching ICE, too.”

Five years earlier, on January 6, 2021, I photographed the pro-Trump mob as thousands laid siege to the United States Capitol. Claims that “Might Makes Right” exploded into acrid fear. I have an audio recording of that day, when I was deep in the crowd at the Capitol steps, that can still bring back that fear. Wild and chaotic.

In Minnesota, the fear worked differently. It folded itself into school pick-ups, grocery runs, work commutes. People recalculated familiar routes before starting engines. Ordinary traffic drew scrutiny. Conversations sought a lower volume. Or went completely underground. The anxiety was procedural.

Veteran conflict photographers deployed to Minneapolis recognized the pattern: when heavily armed forces operate in civilian space, residents adjust.  Click for full article

Ryan Vizzions on archiving the Renee Good memorial

 

Via The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Video: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune

March 6, 2026

When it comes to archiving spontaneous public memorials, there are no clear pathways for what to do. Ryan Vizzions, a traveling photographer, started collecting posters from the spontaneous public memorial that sprung up at the site of Renee Good’s killing. What happens next depends on the family’s wishes. Tap the link to read the full report by Alicia Eler.

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Ryan Vizzions archives Renee Good memorial site artifacts

 Via The Minnesota Star Tribune

By Alicia Eler

March 3, 2026

Ryan Vizzions:  

January 7th, 2026 - After the murder of Renee Good by a masked federal agent, a vigil was held in her honor. Upward of 10,000 Minnesotans showed up to pay their respects at the location she was killed

What happens next depends on the family’s wishes.

Ryan Vizzions started collecting posters from the spontaneous public memorial that sprung up at the site of Renee Good’s killing. The traveling photographer appointed himself the site’s caretaker.

He also gathered many other items — a cookie jar filled with handwritten letters rolled into scrolls, letters addressed to Good’s family, a canvas covered with names of people killed by federal agents since 2025.

“All these are prayers,” Vizzions said. “These are things that people brought because they cared. We owe it to them to try and preserve them and save them and make it so the future can learn about what happened here.”

When it comes to archiving spontaneous public memorials, there are no clear pathways for what to do. The work is fluid, and caretakers volunteer because they feel called to do so. It’s all open-ended and grassroots; people write the rules as they go along. Even the city of Minneapolis doesn’t have timelines for what happens to memorials, city spokeswoman Jess Olstad said.

At Good’s site, it’s unknown where the gathered items will ultimately go, but community members are in contact with the Good family about next steps.

Vizzions initially rented a storage unit for the posters and other items, but moved them to a more secure undisclosed residential location in south Minneapolis.

“These sites emerge when the future feels uncertain and the past feels unfinished,” said Alex Pretti memorial site caretaker Jadah Green, 43, at a “Caring for Spontaneous Public Memorials After State Violence” panel discussion Feb. 27. “They are not permanent installations. They are not yet historical memory. They are living thresholds.”

Vulnerable memorials

Vizzions has been guarding, cleaning and organizing the site since the week after Good was killed. The site is vulnerable to changing weather and vandalism ― like when someone poured gasoline on it and lit a nearby pile of wood on fire Feb. 17.

The city doesn’t take care of the sites, but might help with cleanup or security. Caretakers do the daily work of talking to visitors, cleaning the site and keeping it beautiful.

Paul Eaves of Minneapolis helps out at George Floyd Square and the Pretti and Good memorial sites.

“It’s not about ego,” said Eaves, 77. “It’s about service.”

Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez said he would like to see a permanent memorial for Good, but stressed that it’s up to the family, and it isn’t a decision that the city will or should make.

“I’ve heard from so many Latino neighbors, immigrant neighbors, about the courage that Renee Good had to look out for our community in a time when many of us feel like we have been sent back into the shadows,” said Chavez, who called the memorial a sacred space. “She brought light into this world.”

He wants caretakers and people affected by ICE to have a place “to mourn and celebrate Renee’s life, and a place where we can never forget what the federal government did and continues to do to our community.”

Vizzions’ favorite piece from the memorial is a painting on cardboard of Good in blue with the American flag.

“When we were doing the watch and we’d sit out there next to the fire, this one was facing us,” he said of painting. “For three weeks I stared at this piece.”

Vizzions raised more than $2,000 to pay for the storage space and equipment, including lights, backdrop, camera stands, tables, storage boxes and more.

In 2017, he published the photo book “No Spiritual Surrender: A Dedication to the Standing Rock Movement.”

He was in northern Minnesota on another project when he heard about Good’s killing. He drove down to Minneapolis and began camping out in front of the memorial in his van.

Through the process, he feels he’s become part of the community, and he’s contributing to the greater good.

The family’s decision

Rise & Remember Executive Director Jeanelle Austin said community members waited nearly two months to reach out to George Floyd’s family after his killing in 2020.

“You have to be able to give the families the time that they need to do all of the other things that take priority, and then when the family is ready, for them to decide what they want to do,” Austin said. “As caretakers, we’re keepers of the stories ― our job is not to make final decisions or final calls of what’s to come next.” --Full article with photographs

Landmark Settlement Announced in Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Questioning of Journalists at the Border, including Gallery Photographer Bing Guan

 Via ACLU

Landmark Settlement Announced in Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Questioning of Journalists at the Border

The settlement comes after five journalists were unlawfully targeted for and questioned about their reporting near the U.S-Mexico border

In a win for freedom of the press, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of San Diego, and Covington & Burling LLP announced a settlement today in a federal lawsuit challenging the unlawful targeting and questioning of five photojournalists at the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit, filed in November 2019 in federal court in the Eastern District of New York against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claimed that border officials violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights. The journalists claimed that they were unconstitutionally targeted for secondary inspection, detention, and questioning by U.S. border officials on the basis of their reporting near the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019. In March 2021, the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that border officials violated their First Amendment rights. The case was settled in January 2026.

“The future of our democracy depends on the freedom of the press, now more than ever,” said plaintiff Bing Guan. “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.”

Full release here

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The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated: Leila Navidi’s Photograph as a Defining Image of Resistance to Trump’s ICE Regime

 Via Reading The Pictures

February 23, 2026

Heavily armed, masked federal immigration agents face a cluster of neighborhood residents filming them with their phones during an ICE operation that resulted in a car accident in St. Paul in January 2026. Leila Navidi/Minneapolis Star Tribune

A spontaneous ICE encounter on a St. Paul block becomes a rare picture of practiced solidarity—and a case study in how images can answer federal power.

By Michael Shaw

Leila Navidi’s photograph for the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows St. Paul neighbors on a Cathedral Hill sidewalk on February 11, 2026, standing shoulder to shoulder with their phones raised as militarized ICE agents turn away.

What began as a spontaneous response to a high‑speed crash caused by an ICE chase becomes, in her frame, a rare picture of collective solidarity—everyday residents forming a united front, documenting federal power, and quietly claiming the moral ground.

While the image went viral, little was written about why it had such an impact. In our latest Chatting the Pictures video, we read it detail by detail, to show how its composition, timing, and gestures have made it a breakthrough resistance picture for this state and this moment. Watch now:

More: The events that built this picture

"It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

 Via El Pais

February 23, 2026

American photographer Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, asserts that, in light of the brutal anti-immigration crusade being waged by the US government, the work of photojournalists ‘is more important than ever’

It was an unexpected flash of empathy. The woman’s husband had just been detained by immigration agents in a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, which has become the epicenter of the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New York. Photographer Carol Guzy (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 69) saw the agents take the man away as his wife shouted, “Please, help me!” and their two children cried. Guzy decided to accompany the family to the exit. There, the woman realized she didn’t have her keys; with no way to return home, she broke down in tears again. A court security officer approached her to offer help and, faced with the scene, also began to cry. Through her own tears, Guzy captured the moment with her camera.

For the photographer, it is an image that radiates compassion at a time when people desperately need it. In the midst of an unprecedented crusade against immigration, launched by a president obsessed with carrying out the largest deportation in U.S. history, the work of photojournalists like Guzy has become, in her own words, “more important than ever” in her country’s history. With their cameras, they are building a historical record that is at once deeply alive and profoundly human, documenting the consequences of an immigration policy whose effects will be felt for decades to come. --click for full article

“It’s our challenge in the face of the disinformation being disseminated, both for us as photographers and for these brave, brave residents who are standing out there with their cell phones documenting, like Alex Pretti. It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

Photojournalists documenting Trump’s deportation forces play critical role, but face increasing state violence

Via Prism

February 18, 2026

"Masked federal agents have abducted anyone they suspect of being a migrant—from workplaces, houses, courthouses, schools, and streets. ICE has forced its way into people’s homes with battering rams, dragged a pregnant woman through the snow, taken children as young as five into custody, and killed American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

And at every step, journalists have documented the rapidly escalating state violence—often at great risk to themselves. While covering ICE’s enforcement surge in Los Angeles, TV reporter Lauren Tomasi was live on air when a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer aimed his weapon directly at Tomasi at close range, hitting her with “nonlethal ammunition.” Photographer Nick Stern required emergency surgery after LAPD shot his thigh with a plastic bullet. In Chicago, an ICE agent shot a pepper ball into the parked car of reporter Asal Rezaei, and in New York, ICE agents shoved visual journalist L. Vural Elibol, causing a head injury that required emergency services.

Ryanne Mena, who covered the ICE raids for the Southern California News Group, was shot on June 6 in the left thigh with a pepper ball bullet. The following day, she was struck in the head with a rubber bullet and the reporter next to her was hit in the head with a tear gas canister. Mena, who has asthma, had difficulty breathing and bystanders helped the reporters flush their eyes with water.

“I spent the rest of that day with a grueling headache. I threw up later that night, and two days later I was diagnosed with a concussion,” said Mena, who noted that a half year later, her brain fog is just now starting to dissipate and that she continues to experience heightened anxiety.

In Minneapolis, freelance photographer John Abernathy was surrounded and tackled by immigration agents on Jan. 15. “They set off a flash bang and then tear gas,” he explained. “I was shot twice with pepper bullets in my leg. I was then surrounded by border police and taken to the ground where they sprayed me in the face with pepper spray. My face was on fire. My eyes were on fire. I was gasping and gagging. I ended up having multiple injuries from the pepper bullets, chemical burns in my eye, and abrasions from being taken down.”' --click for full article

"I asked journalists who have been covering the ICE raids in LA, Oakland, Chicago, and Minneapolis to share their advice on staying safe. Here’s what they said"

Inside the U.S. Immigration System with Nicolò Filippo Rosso - February 12, 2026

Via Seven Foundation

Since 2018, visual journalist Nicolo Filippo Rosso has been documenting migration across the Americas, photographing families across South and Central America as they make the difficult journey north to the United States in search of safety. By 2024, Nicolo reconnected with some in the United States. What they had imagined as the end of a dangerous journey had become a new cycle of fear and instability.

 

In the summer of 2025, Nicolo spent nearly every day inside the immigration courts of downtown Manhattan, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have detained numerous non-U.S. citizens attending court hearings. Many arrived under Temporary Protected Status or requested asylum at the border. They complied with the system, yet were still taken from the hallways, arrested, sent to distant detention centres, and placed on the path to deportation, either to their home countries or to third nations.

 

Hosted by Ron Haviv, the conversation will explore the deep divide in U.S. immigration policy, where demands for border control collide with calls for humanity, and discuss what effect these issues have on the democratic fabric of the country.

Register here

I Was Arrested for Doing My Job as a Reporter. Who’s Next?

 Via The New York Times

by Georgia Fort

Ms. Fort is an independent journalist based in Minnesota.

February 5, 2026

"Journalism is a public service, and I am proud to be a public servant. Professional reporting, observing and documenting is not a crime. But the freedom to do so is at risk. In November alone, three journalists were hit with pepper balls or other less lethal munitions and subjected to chemical agents while covering an ICE arrest in St. Paul. One, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter, was taken away by ambulance. Cameras were rolling. Press credentials were visible but offered no protection. I interviewed the St. Paul chief of police about these attacks in December. He refused to acknowledge that the incidents had occurred, even though several journalists had filmed and photographed them, including me. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request a few days after the interview to obtain body-camera footage of the attack on these journalists. It was denied.

These incidents are not isolated. After the fatal shooting of Renee Good, the independent photographer KingDemetrius Pendleton was tear-gassed by federal agents and was apparently shot with a chemical munitions canister. The Star Tribune video journalist Mark Vancleave was pushed back into his car by federal agents after trying to report on an ICE arrest, which he was covering for The Associated Press. The KARE 11 anchor Jana Shortal was hit with a chemical irritant while reporting after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.

Having the right to film and document matters. Footage can disprove false accusations or confirm hard truths. It can exonerate or incriminate. Days after the church protest, Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, was fatally shot by ICE agents. In the minutes that followed, videos from multiple angles of the shooting were published online, and this allowed the public, the press and the authorities to review the evidence." --full article here.

Related: Free Speech in Deep Freeze

Today: Lessons from Minneapolis - Legal, safety and ethical considerations for photographers

 Via  Photographic Center Northwest

February 5, 2026

Lessons from Minneapolis

Legal, safety and ethical considerations for photographers

Join us Thursday, February 5, for a timely online panel discussion with photojournalists Nate Gowdy, David Ryder, Leah Millis, and Alicia Wagner Calzada, Deputy General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association. Moderated by Josh Trujillo, photographer and educator, the conversation will examine safety in protest coverage, photographers’ rights, and the legal and ethical considerations shaping photojournalism in today’s political climate.

Panelists & Moderator include:

Alicia Wagner Calzada — Deputy General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, where she focuses on press freedom, First Amendment protections, and legal advocacy for journalists working in the field.

Nate Gowdy — Seattle-based photographer whose work examines American politics and identity through a documentary and fine-art lens. He is the author of INSURRECTION, a timestamped photojournalistic chronicle of January 6.

David Ryder — Seattle-based freelance photojournalist who has covered war, wildfires, natural disasters, and protest movements across the United States, and who has completed hostile-environment training.

Leah Millis — Washington, D.C.–based photojournalist and press-safety advocate whose reporting spans politics, international protest movements, war, immigration, and the rise of domestic extremism in the United States.

Josh Trujillo — Educator, photojournalist, brand storyteller, and ethical journalism advocate.

Register for Zoom here

Image of 5-year-old boy reminds us of the power of photography

 Via National Press Photographers Association

February 1, 2026

A single image can make us stop scrolling. Make us think and feel, confront us. But what are the types of images that have the power to do this? And can they provoke societal change, bend the arc of history? A widely published photo of a five-year-old boy on his way home from school in Minnesota — wearing a winter hat with bunny ears — hints at answers to these questions.

Whatever your view regarding the immigration debate, the can’t-look-away photo of Liam puts a face on America’s attempt at mass deportation. --click for full article

Ryan Vizzions Photograph From Minneapolis Featured in NY Times

 Via The New York Times

January 30, 2026

The Case Against the Department of Homeland Security

"But the rot goes deeper at the Department of Homeland Security, the behemoth that controls ICE, Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) and myriad other federal agencies, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Secret Service. Since its founding in 2002, a combination of organizational flaws and mission creep has allowed D.H.S. to evolve into the out-of-control domestic security apparatus we have today, one that views the very people it is supposed to protect as threats, not humans."

Ryan Vizzions

The Faces—and Middle Fingers—of the ICE Resistance in Minneapolis: Photographs by Ron Haviv

 Via The New Republic

January 23, 2026

Ron Haviv: A Minneapolis resident gives Bovino and his entourage of ICE agents the middle finger after they stopped for gas and pepper-sprayed the crowd that surrounded them.

War photographer Ron Haviv spent several days documenting the protests across the city.

"This needs to be documented, but at the same time the administration wants these images to be seen. They want people to see that they are doing what they said they would do. Second, they want it to create motivation for self-deportation. It is a very complicated formula.

This expansion of ICE, in terms of budget, personnel, and territory, is shocking for many people to witness, especially their masked presence and their weapons. Immigration policy isn’t black and white. In some areas, there’s agreement with what they are doing; in others, total opposition. But adding an element of cruelty, when things could be handled better, doesn’t make sense.

I’ve photographed under dictators, societies on the cusp of breakup, and outright invasion. One of the closest comparisons I see, in terms of class, economics, and values, is the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. People talked about being in a conflict over religion, but it was really about power and money, convincing people that those who were different were the enemy. That led to years of war. We are not there yet, but when rhetoric is backed by armed force, that’s how escalation begins. We’re starting to get used to the visualization of militarization on the streets. It feels like this is only going to increase. There’s no de-escalation. Minnesota is becoming a standard for activist reaction to ICE deployment." -Ron Haviv (click for full article)

Monroe Gallery Photojournalists Documenting Minneapolis ICE Protests and Demonstrations

 January 18, 2026

Monroe Gallery photojournalists are covering the thousands of ICE and Border Patrol officers flooding into Minneapolis and the intensifying situation after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good.

Mark Peterson

Via The New York Times

Ron Haviv

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David Butow

 

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Ryan Vizzions

Via Instagram



“The public should assume responsibility for creating an accurate record of what’s happening. It’s a big job that requires participation from all of civil society, including the local press, religious and community groups, librarians and teachers. Everyone. In every city. This is not an act of protest. It is record-keeping. There will come a time when people will want to know what it was like to be here, now. What was it like to work in a food truck or at a Home Depot when federal agents showed up? What was it like to be randomly stopped or followed on the sidewalk while walking home from a store? What’s it like for Native Americans to be accused by ICE of being undocumented?” --Poynter

As federal immigration enforcement expands and accountability falters, journalists and citizens share a duty to document this moment.

 Via Poynter

January 16, 2026

Perilous times call for the participation of all --click for full article

“The public should assume responsibility for creating an accurate record of what’s happening. It’s a big job that requires participation from all of civil society, including the local press, religious and community groups, librarians and teachers. Everyone. In every city. This is not an act of protest. It is record-keeping. There will come a time when people will want to know what it was like to be here, now. What was it like to work in a food truck or at a Home Depot when federal agents showed up? What was it like to be randomly stopped or followed on the sidewalk while walking home from a store? What’s it like for Native Americans to be accused by ICE of being undocumented?”

More: This moment will be defined by what we choose to record

Ashley Gilbertson Photographs "War at Home: A record of ICE’s assault on immigrants and the people’s resistance"

 Via Hammer and Hope

December 17, 2025

Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David Kim runs down an alleyway after a caravan of federal agents pulled up on people in southwest Chicago, Nov. 6, 2025. Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson/VII for Hammer & Hope

The immigrant catchers, faces covered, chase the workers down the street in broad daylight. The enemy is the landscaper, the day laborer, the high school student born in Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela. In the masks and guns of the federal agents, we see the riot gear of the Ferguson cops, the billy clubs of the Alabama state troopers, the Klansman’s hood. And in the brave crowds who gather to confront them, we see the power of solidarity. --click for full article

“That was my neighbor!” the woman screamed through tears at federal agents. “He’s just my neighbor!”

I tried to talk to the woman pictured above. She gave me permission to use her photograph, but she didn’t want to provide her name. Like so many people around ICE, she’s scared. Usually the stories I work on are filled with quotes, but the feds won’t talk to the press, and neither will anyone else. --Ashley Gilbertson

When your local reporter needs the same protection as a war correspondent

 Via Poynter

Five months of covering ICE raids taught our small LA newsroom hard lessons — and we're still figuring out how to sustain it

By: Michelle Zenarosa
November 6, 2025

When federal immigration operations began sweeping across Los Angeles in June, our newsroom worked around the clock. I didn’t have to tell them to. No one wanted to stop.

One reporter’s family members were being followed. Another staffer’s family went into hiding — despite having legal status. Sources we’d cultivated for years suddenly wouldn’t answer calls. At LA Public Press, a 14-person nonprofit newsroom led by and largely staffed by people of color who grew up in the neighborhoods we cover, everyone on staff was personally touched by the raids in some way. We weren’t covering some abstract story happening to other people. We were covering home.

By July, I had to force people to take weekends off. Soon after, every other Friday became mandatory time away. The story hasn’t stopped, but boundaries are harder to draw when you’re covering what’s happening to your own family.

It took us weeks to realize we were facing the same dangers as foreign correspondents in conflict zones — the threat of violence, retaliation and the exhaustion of sustained trauma coverage. But we didn’t have their security teams, legal protections or institutional support. --click for full article

How two photojournalists are dealing with the trauma of documenting immigrant detentions at Federal Plaza

 Via AM New York

October 28, 2025

ICE in courts: How two photojournalists are dealing with the trauma of documenting immigrant detentions at Federal Plaza

Almost every day for five months, photojournalists David Dee Delgado and Carol Guzy have entered 26 Federal Plaza with cameras in hand, ready to capture what many are calling one of the most startling stories of this century: ICE detainments inside the immigration court.

Guzy, 69, and Delgado, 49, have walked the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza, working alongside amNewYork and other outlets to document masked federal agents arresting immigrants who attended legally mandated court hearings. With Delgado on assignment for Reuters, a photo agency, and Guzy performing a long-term photo project, both shutterbugs knew that the proliferation and escalation of President Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown was going to be a vital story to tell. - click for full article

"Guzy, a multi-time Pulitzer Prize winner, has covered war zones, the toll of gun violence, and much more, yet says covering ICE arrests has affected her unlike anything else in her long career."

"I know down the line, I’m pretty sure this is gonna come out in some type of f**ked up way. I’m probably gonna need therapy, but, yeah, but at this moment, you know, I just go through the motions,” Delgado said."

Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

 Via Press Freedom Tracker

August 13, 2025

Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.

Protests in LA began in early June in response to federal raids of workplaces and areas in and around the city where immigrant day laborers gather, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. Raids at Home Depots in early August took place seemingly in defiance of a July 11 court order temporarily prohibiting federal agents from using discriminatory profiling.

On Aug. 8, two days after an immigration raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in LA’s Westlake neighborhood, protesters gathered at the store and marched to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown. The demonstrators and the journalists covering them encountered a violent response from Los Angeles Police Department officers, violating a court order protecting the press from arrest, assault or other interference.

Gowdy, who was visiting from Seattle, Washington, said he had been photographing the Aug. 8 protest with his partner, fellow journalist Carrie Schreck. The two began documenting the demonstration as protesters started to march. The protest remained peaceful, Gowdy said, until the LAPD arrived.

“They basically lined up and without any provocation, in order to move people, started just swinging their batons indiscriminately,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Gowdy watched as one journalist, Nick Stern, waving his press badge to officers, was struck in the face with a police baton. Gowdy himself was thrown to the ground by several officers, scraping his elbow and damaging the metal connectors on the strap holding his spare camera lenses.

“They were so aggressive and wild-eyed and violent,” he said of the LAPD.

After police declared the protest an unlawful assembly, officers pushed demonstrators farther from the detention center. Gowdy and Schreck had stopped photographing and were leaving the area when they were suddenly kettled, or herded by police, along with a handful of journalists and demonstrators, just three blocks from Schreck’s apartment.

Some had press credentials, but Gowdy said officers ignored them.

“They said they didn’t care, and that everyone should have to line up against the wall,” Gowdy recalled.

The journalists’ hands were placed in zip-tie restraints. While some were released, Gowdy and Schreck remained detained for not having physical press badges. Despite carrying camera gear and being vouched for by their colleagues, the officers questioned their legitimacy and denied their requests to speak with a public information officer.

Gowdy offered to show digital credentials and suggested a quick online search to verify his work with major news outlets, but was told he’d be cited for failure to disperse. He and Schreck were taken to a nearby police station and eventually released after more than two hours in custody.

Gowdy said such traumatic encounters can discourage journalists from covering protests.

“In this case, the law was on our side,” he said. “But they didn’t seem to know the law, or they willfully disregarded it in order to intimidate and harass us.”

Gowdy said he doesn’t wear a press badge when he covers protests in Seattle, after it made him a police target. Covering the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he saw how press credentials can also attract threats from demonstrators. Still, he said this incident convinced him to carry one just in case.

The LAPD did not respond to a Tracker request for comment about the detained journalists. In a statement posted to the social platform X, the department’s Central Division wrote that an unlawful assembly was declared “due to the aggressive nature of a few demonstrators.”

“The protest went into the late night hours with people refusing to disperse,” it continued. “Central Division will continue to support 1st Amendment rights of all people. However, if violence or criminal activity occurs, laws will be enforced.”


The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to tips@pressfreedomtracker.us.