Federal authorities say immigration and customs enforcement agents need to hide their identities to protect their families. Critics say this exacerbates difficult situations.
Protests against ice attacks seen in other cities
Protests against immigration enforcement measures that begin in Los Angeles are now being seen in cities across the country, such as New York and Austin.
The immigration agent hides his face behind his mask. This is a move that has sparked new criticism as the White House prepares to step up detention and deportation and send more officers.
A group of Democrat Attorney Generals now asks Congress to pass a law that forces ice agents to operate on a daily basis without masks, and claims that the policy of having agents run anonymously has led to multiple police impersonation. Congressional Democrats also pushed the administration to make ice agents more easily identifiable.
Federal authorities say that when U.S. immigration and customs enforcement agents enforce President Donald Trump’s order to carry out the largest massive deportation in history, families will need to hide their identities to protect them from retaliation.
Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem said gang members and anti-facility groups were advertising the agents’ faces and home addresses. She said agents should mask them to stay safe, especially in the event of multiple attacks on federal immigration sites and individual agents.
“We will prosecute ICE agents against DOX ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law. These offenders take the side of malicious cartels and traffickers,” Noem said in a statement on July 11th. “We won’t allow it in America.”
“It makes ordinary Americans angry”
Critics say masked agents are primarily used as blackmail tactics with little basis for the safety of actual officers. They fear that it will weaken the ties between public and law enforcement instead. The ACLU also argues that lack of accountability exacerbates racial profiling by unidentified officers.
“This secret police tactic erodes trust in law enforcement and allows criminals to be dangerously spoofed as officers. That’s already happening,” said Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays.
Retired California State Police Superintendent Diane Goldstein said masked agents are exacerbating tensions as there is virtually no public accountability when law enforcement is running anonymously. Goldstein is a Los Angeles area police lieutenant and is currently the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a nonprofit that works with the community to help reform police.
“Do you know anyone who doesn’t wear a mask? Judges. District Attorneys. Public Advocates. State and local law enforcement, with the exception of very narrow sculptures,” Goldstein said. “The issue of safety is just an excuse. The administration doesn’t seem to understand that it’s their pushy tactics that are increasing the level of danger to executives. They’re angering ordinary Americans.”
“It’s difficult to “telling the difference between a bad guy and a good guy.”
The issue of wearing masks in public to provide anonymity has a long history in the United States, with some states banning protesters from wearing them. According to the ACLU, these laws usually track their origins to the KKK march, but these days they are often used by authorities on university campuses to restrict mask wear by Palestinian protesters.
Trump himself has criticized protesters who wear a mask and post on Truth Social on June 8th.
Goldstein said Trump’s comments are at the heart of why police officers don’t hide their identity.
Modern policing comes from Isle Robert Peel’s “Nine Policing Principles” developed in the early 1800s to guide England’s new metropolitan police. “Peeria’s Principles” centers on an approach in which effective policing relies on community cooperation, trust, and the notion that executives are part of the community and are part of the community rather than elsewhere.
“Everything they say applies to everything that law enforcement is taught about how we should serve others,” Goldstein said of the masked agent. “Now, Homeland Security is operating like a thug or a criminal. And when you don’t know the difference between a bad guy and a good guy…”
