Photojournalist loses camera lens while covering Illinois ICE protest

Photojournalist Jon Stegenga said he lost a telephoto camera lens while reporting on a protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 27, 2025.

Stegenga, co-founder of the independent outlet Humanizing Through Story, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was covering one of a series of demonstrations outside the facility, where detainees are held and processed ahead of deportation.

He parked his van close to the ICE facility, near a fence that Stegenga said had been erected as part of a security perimeter. He stored some of his gear by the van, including the now-missing lens. As federal agents opened the barricades and repeatedly pushed crowds back, Stegenga was forced to leave the area. He was later escorted back to his van.

By that time, the lens was gone, he told the Tracker. “It’s unclear how or when. I have no intel or possibility of motive. I just know that my telephoto lens disappeared.”

The loss of the lens, too costly for him to replace now, has impacted Stegenga’s ability to report, observe and document from a safe distance.

“The range of what I can see and document as a journalist and to bear witness to is definitely limited,” he said.

Stegenga said during the protest, he was also hit by a barrage of chemical irritants that got under his mask, burning his eyes and face so badly he needed help to rinse them off.

In addition, the day before, while clearly marked as a journalist, he was struck by federal agents firing a series of pepper balls — once amid the chaos of the protest and again while standing well away from protesters.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a Tracker request for comment. In a press release on Sept. 26, DHS described the demonstrators as “rioters,” some of whom were reportedly chanting “shoot ICE.”

“These violent threats and smears about ICE must stop,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. She also called on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to “condemn these riots and tone down their rhetoric about ICE.”

Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson sent a letter to DHS, Block Club Chicago reported, accusing ICE officials of “making war” on her community. Thompson asked that the agency stop “deploying chemical arms such as tear gas, pepper spray, etc. against American citizens, our residents, and our first responders.”

According to a Sept. 27 news release, the village of Broadview said that in retaliation for Thompson’s letter, “ICE agents this morning informed the Broadview Police Department that there will be ‘a sh*t show’ in Broadview today.”

Indeed, federal officers responded to protests with chemical irritants and crowd-control munitions that day — affecting multiple journalists — and later arrested a reporter.