1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to take immediate action to protect the constitutional rights of individuals observing and documenting Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. The Trump administration's attempts to criminalize lawful observation represent a dangerous assault on First Amendment freedoms that must be challenged. In Minneapolis, a woman named Jess was following ICE officers at a distance in her car without interfering when three ICE vehicles surrounded her. Agents drew guns, broke her driver's side window with a baton, pulled her out, handcuffed her, and detained her for approximately eight hours. She now faces potential federal charges simply for observing law enforcement. This is not an isolated incident. At least three dozen people gave sworn statements in an ACLU lawsuit saying federal officers told them they were impeding investigations while they were legally observing from safe distances. The administration is misusing a federal statute against forcibly impeding federal officers to prosecute observers engaged in perfectly lawful conduct, according to Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Legal experts confirm that observing and recording officers, following them at safe distances, and even shouting or honking are constitutionally protected activities. As University of South Carolina law professor Seth Stoughton notes, people film and watch local police regularly, and federal officers are no different. Criticism of government actions is at the very core of what the First Amendment protects. Federal courts are rejecting these prosecutions. In Los Angeles, a federal judge rejected the government's argument that protesters tracking federal officers had interfered. In Chicago, most people arrested were released without charges, and many filed cases have been dismissed. In Minnesota, federal prosecutors have already walked back or dismissed charges in more than a dozen cases. I urge you to publicly condemn these unconstitutional tactics and support legislation that explicitly protects the right to observe and document federal law enforcement activities. The government's hostility toward documentation appears rooted in their desire to keep their actions as secret as possible, which is fundamentally incompatible with democratic accountability.