Class certification granted for journalists suing over immigration protest crackdown in SoCal

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A federal judge in California on Friday granted class certification to plaintiffs who brought a lawsuit seeking to protect journalists covering protests of immigration sweeps.

U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera found the plaintiffs, including the Los Angeles Press Club and the News Guild, had sufficiently shown the Department of Homeland Security has “a policy of treating the recording of their agents as an unlawful threat that may be responded to with force,” and granted class certification to anyone who peacefully films or photographs “immigration enforcement and removal operations, or protests of those operations” in the Central District of California, which covers much of Southern California, including Los Angeles and Orange County.

“As recent events have shown, the ability to record our government at work is critical to accountability and public debate,” said plaintiff’s attorney Matthew Borden in a written statement. “DHS is trying to monopolize the marketplace of ideas by preventing anyone else from reporting on its violent treatment of community members. Journalists and civilians with phones are a critical check against totalitarianism.”

Protests erupted all across the Southland after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, began a series of sweeping immigration raids in June 2025, often rounding up anyone who looked Latino in Home Depot parking lots, bus stops and car washes. In response to the protests, President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, which, along with the Los Angeles Police Department, instituted a stiff crackdown of the civil disobedience. In many cases, journalists were caught up the crackdown.

The LA Press Club, the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America and individual journalists, legal observers and protesters filed a class action, citing one freelance reporter for the LA Public Press who was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and another freelancer was shot in the head with a rubber bullet. Longtime photojournalist Ted Soqui was shot with both a rubber pullet and a pepper ball. Lexis-Olivier Ray, a staff writer for L.A. Taco, an alternative news website, was also shot with pepper balls.

Judge Vera initially denied a motion for a temporary restraining order but months later agreed to issue a preliminary injunction, barring federal agents from using excessive and indiscriminate force against journalists and peaceful protesters, writing: “With tensions escalating, officers from the Federal Protective Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection unleashed crowd control weapons indiscriminately and with surprising savagery.”

The feds appealed, calling the injunction overly broad and “unworkable in so many different ways.” A three-judge panel agreed the injunction was overly broa and ordered Vera to narrow its scope. Vera has heard arguments on how to do so, but has not yet ruled on that matter.

In his ruling granting class certification, Vera wrote the plaintiffs had sufficiently shown “the existence of a policy within DHS that treats the mere public recording of its agents as a threat that may be viewed as criminal in nature and responded to with force at the scene.” He also found the plaintiffs had shown all class members had suffered similar injuries as a result of the same conduct.

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