Masks on ICE agents ignite pushback. When can officials block their faces?

As the Trump administration races to expand its deportation campaign, viral videos are circulating of federal agents wearing face masks while making arrests. The tactic has ignited both confusion and pushback in local communities.

Immigration raids under the new Trump administration have taken a new and, to some, unsettling tone. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and officers are increasingly concealing their identities through masks, operating in controversial locations like schools and courthouses, and targeting immigrants with no criminal background. These high-profile immigration raids have often led to community resistance, which was dramatically exemplified by protests in Los Angeles this week. 

Critics have been quick to point out what they see as hypocrisy with masked federal immigration agents. 

On June 8, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that protesters will not be permitted to wear masks going forward, asking, “What do these people have to hide, and why?” His administration has also criticized student protesters for wearing masks while protesting the war in Gaza. 

The Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank, posted an article in May raising concern that masked agents appear similar to a secret police. It noted that judges are not concealing their identities despite facing a sharp rise in threats. 

Why do ICE agents wear face masks? 

The use of masks and plain clothes by law enforcement officers has some precedent. Face masks have been used by officers who are working undercover or policing crowded events like protests. The latter practice led to lawsuits after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, as well as a new federal law requiring officers to wear some kind of visible identification when responding to a “civil disturbance,” with limited exceptions. 

But it’s still legal for officers to cover their faces. And that policy has come under even greater scrutiny as videos continue to show masked, plainclothes officers arresting suspects in uncrowded parking lots and residential areas.

Defenders of ICE agents say these officials must conceal their identities to shield them from threats of violence to themselves and their families, especially amid a high-profile deportation crackdown. 

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons defended officers who wear masks at a press conference on June 2. 

“I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” he said in response to a question about officers wearing masks. 

The Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post in May that ICE officers are facing a 413% increase in assaults. DHS did not provide details to support that claim. 

John Torres, who served as acting director of ICE from 2008 to 2009, told the Monitor that when he was at the agency, masks were mainly used by agents who worked undercover. But he also says that the spread of social media has made the job more dangerous for officers in the field today.

“I look at it differently now,” he says. “To see agents wearing masks [in the United States] I think is really a sad indictment on where we are ... that the agents have to worry about threats against their lives, against their families.”

What are the concerns around agents masking their faces?

Critics have argued that agents concealing their faces diminishes accountability and can create confusion and fear at arrests. 

When masked officers detained two men outside a courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, in April, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia responded by saying, “With no official identification, no demonstration of legal authority, and no stated cause for arrest, this incident is indistinguishable from a kidnapping.”

Another concern is that private citizens could impersonate ICE agents to carry out actual kidnappings or other crimes. A Florida woman faced charges this spring for posing as a masked ICE agent to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife. 

There are also complications for bystanders. ICE has recently said it will prosecute two women in Charlottesville who attempted to impede ICE agents from detaining suspects. A Florida law now requires bystanders to maintain a 25-foot distance from law enforcement officers when filming if requested. 

Masking “can cause a lot of confusion,” says Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “I think that by and large, people are willing to cooperate to the extent that they can when approached by a federal agent. But they also have the right to know if the person is in fact a federal agent.” 

Are ICE agents required to identify themselves?

There’s no specific federal law mandating that law enforcement officers must wear uniforms or have their faces visible during an arrest. 

However, some advocates say that the practice of agents concealing their identities raises Fourth Amendment concerns. That amendment protects people from “unreasonable searches and seizures” and establishes that a warrant requires “probable cause.”

Some legal precedent addresses this. In a 2021 court case, a district court judge in Illinois ruled that ICE officers may not arrest someone without a warrant unless they have probable cause that the person would be unfindable later. In California, a judge last year found that ICE officers could not conceal their identities to trick someone into letting them in their homes. (The ruling only applied to certain counties within California.) According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, ICE officers must identify themselves as soon as possible when making an arrest. Generally, ICE agents cannot enter homes or private offices without a warrant, but they can make arrests without warrants in public areas.

Veronica Garcia, a staff attorney at the ILRC, believes that having masked officers raises constitutional problems. “If a masked individual is approaching me with no identifier, where is my due process?” 

The Trump administration has also authorized officials from other federal agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to make immigration arrests. But there’s little public information about the role these officials have in deportations and whether they are directly making arrests or wearing masks, says Ms. Putzel-Kavanaugh.

What are politicians doing about this situation? 

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has said the masks are part of a broader intimidation campaign by ICE.

“What other definition of secret police is there – when people are getting snatched off the street by masked individuals, not being told where they’re going, disappeared until somehow someone finds some information?” she asked at a June 5 event in Roslindale, Massachusetts. 

Virginia’s Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others in May, urging them to direct ICE officers to clearly identify themselves during arrests and to limit the use of face coverings. 

“We remain deeply concerned that ICE’s lack of transparency will lead the public to intercede in enforcement efforts, escalating an already tense interaction, and risking an entirely avoidable violent situation,” they wrote.

Republican members, meanwhile, are focusing on the safety of ICE agents. 

Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduced legislation on June 4 to make it illegal to publish the name of federal law enforcement officers with the intent to obstruct an immigration operation. She introduced the bill after Freddie O’Connell, the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, publicly released data that included the names of Homeland Security officers.