A photojournalist was arrested while covering a story about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and incarcerated for six weeks.

According to a report from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Trish Brownlee traveled from her home in York, Pennsylvania, to Hardwick Township, New Jersey, to speak with two people who monitor ICE agents. Brownlee, an on-off photojournalist since 2004, was putting the story together and planning to pitch it to editorial clients.

Brownlee was in the ICE watchers’ car as they followed an ICE bus. The agents noticed and called state police, who arrived on the scene and found the vehicle’s registration had expired. The officers searched the vehicle after noticing loose ammunition on the floor and discovered a handgun and a shotgun.

Brownlee’s mom, Sharon Edwards, tells the Freedom Tracker that her daughter informed the officers that she was a journalist and the vehicle she was in didn’t belong to her.

Nevertheless, Brownlee was arrested and charged with illegal possession of armor-piercing ammunition. The photographer is reportedly accredited with the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA); her NPPA card was in her car when she was arrested.

“My daughter said she never saw any weapons, never saw anything, knew anything about it. And, of course, the people in the vehicle, the driver did not fess up that they belonged to them,” Brownlee’s mom tells the Tracker, “So then they arrested them all by association.”

47 Days

The photojournalist was detained at the Warren County Correctional Center in Belvedere, New Jersey, for six weeks. Brownlee, a veteran who trained as a military photographer, suffers from Crohn’s disease but was reportedly denied her medication for the 47 days she was incarcerated.

Brownlee was released on July 27 and has a court date set for September 23. She is required to check in twice a month with pretrial services, and her cellphone has been confiscated by state police.

“The National Press Photographers Association is deeply concerned by the circumstances surrounding the arrest and extended detention of photojournalist and NPPA member Trisha Brownlee,” the NPPA’s General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher tells PetaPixel.

“Journalists play a critical role in documenting matters of public concern, and the arrest and incarceration of a working journalist for more than six weeks while engaged in newsgathering raises serious questions that deserve careful scrutiny.”

Osterreicher says that because the criminal case is still pending, it’s inappropriate to comment on the charges.

“We are encouraged that Ms. Brownlee has now been released from custody, but significant questions remain regarding the basis for her prolonged pretrial detention and the impact this has had on her ability to carry out her work as a journalist,” he adds.

Earlier this week, a San Francisco photographer was detained by ICE in a dramatic incident, sparking a backlash.