Los Angeles Press Club v. Noem

During the summer of 2025, the federal government violently retaliated against journalists exercising their First Amendment rights while covering protests in response to immigration raids in California. A federal trial court granted a preliminary injunction enjoining further retaliation against journalists who do not pose an imminent threat.

FIRE filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit urging it to affirm the preliminary injunction. While FIRE agreed the lower court’s order was correct in all respects and therefore warranted affirmance, FIRE wrote separately to emphasize the importance of adhering to Article III standing principles specific to protecting litigants’ First Amendment rights. FIRE argued Plaintiffs have standing to seek prospective injunctive relief for two independently sufficient but mutually reinforcing reasons: (1) the history of the government’s ongoing and sustained retaliation against Plaintiffs’ constitutionally protected expressive activity creates a real and immediate threat of future injury; and (2) that repeated retaliation against Plaintiffs’ protected speech has chilled the exercise of their First Amendment rights.

Adopting one of the arguments set forth in FIRE’s amicus brief, a panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction, holding Plaintiffs are likely to establish standing because their fear of reprisal and physical injury is reasonable given the government had injured them as they engaged in protected First Amendment activity at varied locations on different days.