Former employees of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement team say one change made and backed by Donald Trump's administration is wrong.
One employee who worked for the federal agency from the George W. Bush era up to the second Donald Trump presidency believes the new administration has given ICE unprecedented power. Its agents, particularly, are given more of a remit to work and hold liberties which are not afforded to other law enforcement agencies.
Darius Reeves, speaking to The Hill, said, "We have never worn masks my entire career." While Reeves suggested the initial mask protocol could have been to anonymize those within ICE in case of undercover operations, the remit had changed extraordinarily under the Trump administration.
Current standards within ICE, Reeves says, are "something totally weird, something I totally do not recognize.” Former marshals also denounced the face coverings worn by some ICE agents, with Noel March, a former U.S. Marshal for the District of Maine under President Obama, suggesting there must be a standard set by ICE.
March said, "In the 40 years that I served behind a badge, my face was visible to every member of the public and my family name, I wore on the front of my uniform.
"When law enforcement becomes anonymous to the very people they have sworn to serve, then we have gone into a very dark place of mistrust of our country."
Former New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Kenneth Quick echoed March's point, and suggested ICE has operated without proper reform for too long.
He said, "There are people who will purposefully go out there and use the information to attempt to intimidate law enforcement from doing their job, or for nothing else, more than to embarrass them."
Brandon del Pozo, another former NYPD officer, added, "When we see ICE wearing masks every day, all the time out in public no matter who you’re dealing with, that’s just unprecedented and wrong."