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.”
