Mother Jones illustration; Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu/Getty; Douliery Olivier/Abaca/ZUMA
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This week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that body cameras would be deployed for all federal agents operating in Minneapolis, effective immediately—with plans to expand the policy nationwide “as funding becomes available.”
Although Noem wrote that she is part of the “most transparent administration in American history,” getting footage from the Department of Homeland Security has proven difficult. In October, Mother Jones reporter Samantha Michaels and I set out to get records from the infamous South Shore raid in Chicago, when nearly 300 federal agents swept into an apartment complex in a massive show of force. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking paper records (like warrants) and video files. Witnesses described a chaotic scene of agents breaking down doors as terrified residents, including mothers with partially clothed children, hid or fled in panic. Several of those detained were US citizens.
In stark contrast, DHS released a highly produced social media video of the operation on its official channels, showing agents leading men out of the complex. Set to swelling orchestral music and edited in slow motion, it presented a calm, controlled version of events.
As a videographer myself, I know that a one-minute video from an unscripted, chaotic event means there is likely hours of footage on the cutting room floor. And in that unedited material, there might be images or audio that corroborate eyewitness accounts. This footage should be public record. We shouldn’t have to settle for heavily curated and tightly trimmed clips, which is largely what DHS provided, for instance, when Stanford and Immigrant Legal Defense sued for raid footage from 2020.
Witness accounts are valuable, but video evidence is often what forces accountability. Federal immigration officers have shot 13 people since President Donald Trump took office last year. But the incidents that galvanized the widest public response were the ones captured on video. Allegations that agents used unnecessary force and violated the rights of members of the public demand scrutiny. That’s why the Center for Investigative Reporting has filed a complaint in federal court calling for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection produce videos and other records from the South Shore raid and Los Angeles operations that were filmed by videographers likely contracted by DHS, the parent agency to ICE and CBP. CIR’s in-house legal team Victoria Baranetsky and Brooke Henderson, alongside outside counsel Matthew Cate, make a case that for at least 15 years, DHS has operated a film and TV program that “feature[s the] gripping, action-packed work that ICE does to protect the public and national security,” quoting from its own website.
DHS and the White House are using social media in extraordinarily new and aggressive ways. As this Washington Post investigation showed, the DHS public affairs team was under intense pressure from the White House to post “the worst of the worst” and “flood the airwaves,” with videographers hired to capture enforcement operations.
There’s widespread concern that these videos function as propaganda that normalize state violence and influence public perception. But if there’s a silver lining, it’s that they’re the product of government-created material, paid for with tax dollars, that should be available to the public.
So let’s test Noem’s claim that this is the most transparent administration in American history.
