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How to Film ICE

Wired · Matt Burgess, Lily Hay Newman, Maddy Varner, Andy Greenberg · last updated

Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.

In January 2026, two Americans were killed in the act of watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Renee Nicole Good was acting as a legal observer while her wife recorded the federal immigration agents they encountered. Alex Pretti was holding a phone in his hand, filming the agents who would soon take his life. Yet as dangerous as the mere act of observation became for these victims of ICE and Border Patrol’s violence, video is also what documented their murders and is now holding federal agents accountable.

That’s the paradox United States residents face as they decide how to resist—and record—ICE’s incursion into American cities.

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