Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers know they are “violating the Constitution” by covering their faces as they grab immigrants, according to a new report from Mother Jones.
The outlet investigated if it is lawful for ICE agents to be masked — and found it's a bit of a gray area. “There isn’t any federal law regulating the practice,” Senior Reporter Samantha Michaels wrote.
Associate professor at the University of Nebraska, Justin Nix told the outlet, “Citizens don’t have a constitutional right to know an officer’s identity.”
It’s been well documented that for certain undercover operations and SWAT raids, and during the pandemic, many law enforcement officers have covered their faces. But the outlet noted, "we are lacking actual data on if officers are masking more often or if there is just more attention to it."
Michaels added, “The experts I spoke with said it’s unclear whether we’re seeing a true increase in masking by federal authorities over Trump’s first term, or merely an increase in attention paid to the issue.”
At a May hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended her agents wearing masks. “Oftentimes because that agent has been involved in undercover operations or needs to be able to continue the investigative work that they do on a day-to-day basis," she said.
However, when it comes to the protests currently happening in Los Angeles, Jenn Budd, a former border patrol agent turned immigrant rights activist, told Mother Jones she believes officers are covering their faces because, “They know they are following orders that are violating the Constitution and their oath. That’s why they mask.”
In her search for the history and precedent on officers wearing masks, Michaels found a 2009 post in an online forum for police officers, which sums up a previously held belief of unmasked officers.
Budd said, “that their department allowed helmets and protective eyewear that partially obscured their face during raids, but ‘we had an old school Sheriff who once that said, ‘Only bad guys wear a mask to work.’”