Can You Record ICE Agents? Know Your Rights by State (2026)

Yes, you can generally record ICE agents performing their duties in public. The First Amendment protects this right. The Supreme Court has never ruled on it directly, but most federal appeals courts have recognized it, including the First Circuit in Glik v. Cunniffe.

Recording interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has become one of the most important civil rights questions in 2026. As immigration enforcement operations expand across the United States, more people want to know whether they can legally film these encounters.

The short answer is yes. You generally have the right to record ICE agents in public. But two things matter beyond the basic rule: the details vary by state, and the legal right on paper has recently diverged sharply from how federal agents behave in the field. This guide explains the federal constitutional protections, state-by-state recording laws, the current enforcement climate, and practical steps to protect yourself while documenting immigration enforcement.

The First Amendment Right to Record

The foundation of your right to record ICE agents comes from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal courts across the country have recognized that the right to record government officials performing their duties in public is protected speech.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. Courts have interpreted this to include the right to gather information about government activities, which includes recording law enforcement officers and federal agents.

One important caveat: the Supreme Court has never squarely decided whether the First Amendment protects recording law enforcement. The right rests on decisions from the federal courts of appeals, and those decisions bind only the circuits that issued them. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes in its 2026 guide to recording law enforcement, the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue, though multiple federal appellate courts have recognized and affirmed the right. The Cato Institute counts seven circuits that have addressed it, the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh, all agreeing that the First Amendment protects recording police performing their duties in public.

Federal Circuit Court Rulings

Multiple federal circuit courts have explicitly recognized the right to record law enforcement officers while they perform official duties in public.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011) that Simon Glik was exercising clearly established First Amendment rights when he filmed officers in a public space. The court summarized the principle this way, including its own qualifier:

"... though not unqualified, a citizen's right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public space is a basic, vital, and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment." Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011)

The Third Circuit held in Fields v. City of Philadelphia, 862 F.3d 353 (3d Cir. 2017) that "the First Amendment protects the act of photographing, filming, or otherwise recording police officers conducting their official duties in public." The Fields court also catalogued the circuits that had reached the same conclusion before it, and noted that individuals making recordings "have also faced retaliation by officers, such as arrests on false criminal charges and even violence."

The Fifth Circuit ruled in Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. 2017) that "First Amendment principles, controlling authority, and persuasive precedent demonstrate that a First Amendment right to record the police does exist, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions." Note that the court still granted the officers qualified immunity, because the right was not clearly established in that circuit at the time of the incident.

The Seventh Circuit in ACLU of Illinois v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012) ordered a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the Illinois eavesdropping statute against open audio recording of police performing their duties in public. The court found that the state's interest in conversational privacy "is not implicated when police officers are performing their duties in public places and engaging in public communications audible to persons who witness the events," and that the statute as applied "likely violates the First Amendment's free-speech and free-press guarantees."

Does This Right Apply Specifically to ICE Agents?

Yes, and one federal appellate decision addresses federal immigration officers directly rather than by analogy. The four cases above all involved state or local police, so they do not by themselves settle the question for federal agents.

The Ninth Circuit took up that question in Askins v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 899 F.3d 1035 (9th Cir. 2018). Two border-policy advocates photographed activity at ports of entry on the United States and Mexico border while standing on public property. Customs and Border Protection officers, part of DHS, stopped and searched them and destroyed their photos. The panel held that the First Amendment protects the right to photograph and record matters of public interest, and that whether a place counts as public depends on the nature of the location. It also held that general assertions of national security were not enough, and that the government bears the burden of proving any specific restriction is the least restrictive means available.

The case settled in September 2020. Under the settlement, DHS agreed to stop preventing people from photographing or recording from publicly accessible areas at land ports of entry, to drop its prior-authorization requirement, and to stop seizing or destroying such recordings.

The Enforcement Climate Has Changed

The legal rule described above is one thing. What has happened in the field since 2025 is another, and you should plan around both.

DHS leadership has publicly taken the position that recording its agents is itself a form of harm. In July 2025, Secretary Kristi Noem characterized "videotaping them where they're at when they're out on operations" as threatening agent safety. In September 2025, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated that "videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents," and said the department would "prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law." The Cato Institute has documented both statements and describes them as contrary to settled circuit law.

Agents have also invoked 18 U.S.C. § 111, the federal statute covering assaulting or impeding a federal officer, against people who were recording or observing. Cato has collected specific incidents, including a man arrested in Key West, Florida, after an agent threatened arrest under that statute and released roughly 11 hours later without charges, and an 18-year-old and her boyfriend arrested in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, after recording agents, again with no charges filed.

The ACLU has separately documented an agent pointing a gun at a pastor who tried to record an arrest on church property in Los Angeles, and DHS agents tackling and detaining a man for more than 24 hours after he recorded outside a Home Depot. The organization filed a FOIA request seeking DHS records on how agents are instructed to respond to people recording them.

Watch out: A charge that gets dropped still means an arrest, hours in custody, and a seized phone. Reporting suggests many of these cases end without charges, but that outcome arrives days later. Treat the practical risk of recording an ICE operation as real and separate from the question of whether you are within your rights.

What ICE Agents Cannot Lawfully Do

When you are lawfully recording in a public space, the following actions are not authorized by law:

• Ordering you to stop recording. There is no general law that prohibits recording federal agents in public.
• Searching the data on your phone without a warrant. Under Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), police generally may not search the digital contents of a cell phone without a warrant, even one lawfully seized from a person under arrest. Riley governs the search of the data, not the seizure of the device itself, which can happen without a warrant in some circumstances such as a search incident to arrest. Riley also does not control at the border. CBP states that it conducts device searches at the physical border, the functional equivalent of the border and the extended border, and that a device it cannot inspect because it is locked "may be subject to exclusion, detention, or other appropriate action or disposition."
• Deleting your footage. Destroying evidence or recordings is a violation of your rights and may constitute destruction of evidence. The ACLU states the government may never delete your photographs or videos.
• Arresting you solely for recording. Recording alone, without interference, is not a crime.
• Demanding your identification solely because you are recording. In most states, you are not required to identify yourself to law enforcement unless you are being detained for suspected criminal activity.

Read that list as a description of the law, not a prediction of agent behavior. As the section above documents, agents have taken several of these actions anyway. The list tells you what a later complaint or lawsuit can be built on; it does not tell you what will happen in the moment.

State-by-State Recording Laws That Affect You

While the First Amendment provides a baseline right to record, state laws add important rules about audio recording. The main distinction is between one-party consent states and all-party consent (sometimes called two-party consent) states.

One-Party Consent States (38 States + D.C.)

In one-party consent states, you can legally record a conversation as long as at least one person in the conversation consents to the recording. If you are the one recording, your own consent satisfies this requirement.

This means in these states, you can freely record your own interactions with ICE agents, including audio, without informing them.

The following states follow one-party consent rules:

In these jurisdictions you can record an ICE encounter with audio without telling the agent, as long as you are a party to the conversation or you are recording in a public place where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Nevada is the one state on this list that splits by medium. In person it is one-party: Nev. Rev. Stat. § 200.650 bars surreptitious recording of a private conversation "unless authorized to do so by one of the persons engaging in the conversation," so a participant may record. Telephone calls are different. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 200.620 has been read by the Nevada Supreme Court in Lane v. Allstate Insurance Co. (1998) to require the consent of every party before a call may be recorded. A street encounter with an ICE agent follows the one-party rule; a phone call does not.

All-Party Consent States (12 States)

In all-party consent states, all parties to a conversation must consent to being recorded. This primarily affects audio recording of private conversations. It generally does not prohibit video-only recording in public spaces.

Two states on this list are split by medium, in opposite directions. Connecticut's all-party rule is a civil rule that applies to telephone calls, while its criminal eavesdropping offense reaches an in-person conversation only when the person recording is not present for it, so an in-person street encounter there sits on one-party footing. Oregon runs the other way: its all-party rule governs in-person conversations, while a telephone call or other electronic communication may be recorded by a participant.

The following states require all-party consent for audio recording:

Important Nuance for All-Party Consent States

Even in all-party consent states, there is a strong legal argument that ICE agents performing enforcement duties in public do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Several state courts and federal courts have ruled that officers acting in their official capacity in public spaces cannot claim their conversations are private or confidential. The Seventh Circuit made exactly that point in Alvarez, and Illinois rewrote its statute afterward to reach only conversations a party reasonably expected to be private.

Oregon is the state where you should not lean on that argument. The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the notification requirement in ORS 165.540(1)(c) against a First Amendment challenge in Project Veritas v. Schmidt, No. 22-35271 (9th Cir. Jan. 7, 2025), so the rule is live law rather than a dormant statute. Oregon's own carve-out for recording law enforcement is built around open, plain-view recording rather than silent recording, and the definitions that surround the statute are framed around officers of the state and its counties, cities and other political subdivisions, so it is not settled that a federal ICE agent falls inside that carve-out at all. Recording openly satisfies both the general rule and the carve-out, which is why it is the safe course there.

In practice, this means:

• Video recording without audio is legal everywhere in public spaces.
• Video with audio of public encounters with law enforcement is likely protected in most all-party consent states, though the law is not settled in every jurisdiction and Oregon has an express notification requirement that survived First Amendment review.
• If you are in an all-party consent state and want to be cautious, you can record video without audio, or you can announce that you are recording before you begin capturing audio. In Oregon, treat recording openly and announcing it as the rule rather than as a precaution.

Where Can You Record ICE Agents?

The location of the encounter significantly affects your recording rights.

Public Spaces (Strongest Rights)

You have the clearest right to record in public spaces, including:

• Public sidewalks and streets
• Public parks and plazas
• Outside courthouses and government buildings
• Parking lots open to the public
• Public transit stations and stops

In these locations, no one, including ICE agents, has a reasonable expectation of privacy. You can record freely.

Your Own Home

If ICE agents come to your door, you are in a strong position to record the encounter. You are on your own property, and you are a party to the interaction, which satisfies the consent requirement in every one-party consent state. In an all-party consent state, being on your own property does not remove the notification requirement, so state that you are recording as you open the door.

However, if agents enter your home with a valid judicial warrant (not just an administrative warrant), you should continue recording but comply with lawful orders. Recording does not give you the right to physically interfere with the execution of a valid warrant.

Workplaces and Businesses

Recording rights in private businesses depend on the property owner's rules and state law. If ICE agents enter a workplace, employees and business owners generally have the right to record what happens on their own property.

Footage of an ICE visit to a business can matter later, because it documents which areas agents entered and what paperwork they presented. Groups such as the Immigrant Legal Resource Center publish guidance for employers on responding to these visits.

Courts and Government Buildings

Recording inside courthouses and certain federal buildings may be restricted by specific rules or regulations. These restrictions exist independently of your First Amendment rights and may be legally enforceable.

Always check the rules for the specific building. Generally, you can record outside these buildings on public property.

Practical Tips for Recording ICE Encounters

Knowing your rights is only useful if you can exercise them effectively. Here are practical steps for recording ICE encounters safely and legally.

Before an Encounter

• Know your state's recording law. Determine whether you are in a one-party or all-party consent state using the tables above.
• Set up your phone for quick recording. Practice opening your camera app quickly. Many smartphones allow camera access from the lock screen.
• Enable cloud backup. Use automatic cloud upload (iCloud, Google Photos, or a dedicated app like the ACLU's Mobile Justice app) so your footage is saved even if your phone is taken.
• Lock your phone properly. Because a device can be seized even where the data on it cannot lawfully be searched without a warrant, use a strong passcode rather than relying on face or fingerprint unlock.
• Share your location. Let a trusted contact know where you are and what you are doing.
• Store important legal hotline numbers. Organizations like the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and local legal aid societies can provide immediate guidance.

During an Encounter

• Maintain a safe distance. Do not physically interfere with ICE agents. Stand at least 10 to 15 feet away if you are a bystander.
• Announce you are recording if in an all-party consent state. A simple statement like "I am recording this interaction" is sufficient.
• Stay calm and do not argue. Your goal is to document, not to intervene.
• Do not physically obstruct agents. Physical interference can lead to arrest for obstruction, regardless of your recording rights.
• Do not follow agents or their vehicles. Several of the documented arrests involved people who followed, honked at, or approached agents. Staying put and recording from one place is both safer and harder to characterize as impeding.
• Record continuously. Do not start and stop. Continuous footage is more credible and harder to challenge in court.
• Capture badge numbers and vehicle plates. Zoom in on identifying information when possible.
• Record the time and location. Most phone cameras do this automatically with metadata, but verbally stating the date, time, and location creates a backup.

After an Encounter

• Save the footage immediately. Transfer it to cloud storage or a computer. Do not rely solely on your phone.
• Do not edit the footage. Raw, unedited video is the most credible evidence.
• Contact an attorney if you witnessed a rights violation. Organizations like the ACLU, National Immigrant Justice Center, and local immigration legal services can help.
• File a complaint if agents violated your rights. You can file complaints with the DHS Office of Inspector General or the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

What If ICE Agents Tell You to Stop Recording?

If an ICE agent orders you to stop recording, that order is very likely not lawful in a public space. But the safest response depends on the situation, and you should assume the agent may act on the order regardless.

Do not physically resist. If an agent attempts to take your phone, do not engage in a physical struggle. Verbally state that you do not consent to the seizure but do not resist physically.

Assert your rights calmly, then weigh the risk. You can say: "I have a First Amendment right to record in public. I am not interfering with your duties." Understand that agents have arrested people for recording and have invoked 18 U.S.C. § 111 while doing so. Winning the legal argument later does not prevent an arrest now, so decide in advance how much risk you are prepared to accept.

Remember the details. Note the agent's name, badge number, and agency. Write down what was said as soon as possible.

File a complaint afterward. An unlawful order to stop recording can be the basis of a civil rights complaint or lawsuit.

Recording ICE at Sensitive Locations

In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security revised its policies regarding enforcement at what were previously designated as "sensitive locations" or "protected areas," such as schools, hospitals, and places of worship. According to the National Immigration Law Center, the prior policy protecting those areas was rescinded on January 20, 2025.

This policy change makes recording even more important at these locations. If you are at a school, hospital, church, or community center and ICE agents arrive, recording the encounter creates a record of what occurred and can be vital for any subsequent legal challenges.

Your right to record at these locations follows the same rules as any other public or semi-public space. The property owner's permission may be relevant for being on the property, but recording itself remains protected.

Legal Consequences of Interfering vs. Recording

It is critical to understand the difference between lawfully recording and unlawfully interfering.

Know Your Rights Resources

Several organizations provide wallet cards, apps, and legal guidance specifically for recording law enforcement and immigration encounters:

• ACLU: Recording and Documenting Police and Federal Agents covers recording rights as they apply to ICE, CBP, FBI, and other officers.
• National Immigration Law Center (NILC) offers resources on rights during immigration enforcement actions.
• Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) publishes guides for community members and employers on responding to ICE encounters.
• United We Dream operates a hotline and provides know-your-rights materials in multiple languages.

That question covers whether you can record on-duty officers. The reverse question, whether you can get a copy of footage officers themselves record on a body camera, is covered in police bodycam laws by state.