Two Americans were killed in January 2026 while documenting ICE operations in Minneapolis, but the video footage they and others captured is now holding federal agents accountable. As immigration enforcement escalates across US cities, civil liberties organizations are publishing detailed guides on how to safely record ICE and Border Patrol agents while protecting yourself from surveillance, device seizure, and violent confrontation. The paradox is stark: filming is both legally protected and potentially deadly.
The deadly cost of accountability is playing out in American streets. In January 2026, Renee Nicole Good was acting as a legal observer while her wife filmed ICE agents in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti held his phone up to document the same operation. Both were killed by the federal agents they were filming. Yet the video evidence captured by multiple witnesses at the scene immediately exposed what Freedom of the Press Foundation executive director Trevor Timm calls "the egregious lies that the Trump administration was spreading almost immediately."
This is the brutal paradox facing anyone trying to document immigration enforcement in 2026. Filming federal agents in public spaces remains protected by the First Amendment, but the Trump administration is actively trying to criminalize the practice. In July 2025, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem called documenting federal agents "violence" and claimed "it is doxing them." DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin went further, telling WIRED that "videoing our officers in an effort to dox them and reveal their identities that is a federal crime and a felony."
It's not. But the rhetoric represents a direct threat to legal observers, activists, and journalists. "Unfortunately, there is no way to film 'safely' right now," Timm says. "I think everybody may be taking a risk because of how aggressive and brazen and outright illegal ICE's conduct has been."
