From New York City to Los Angeles, images of immigrants being handcuffed by armed federal agents who are clad in plainclothes and balaclavas have become an indelible symbol of President Trump’s deportation crackdown.
Now, Democratic elected officials around the nation are coalescing around an effort to disrupt the arrests by prohibiting law enforcement officials from concealing their identity in public.
In California, lawmakers introduced a measure in June that would prevent such officials at all levels from covering their faces on the job and require them to wear uniforms with clear identification. State and city officials in New York on Wednesday said that they would pursue a similar initiative, with the clear target being federal immigration authorities, especially those who occupy the hallways of courthouses waiting to take immigrants into custody.
“We’re in the midst of an autocracy, and we will not stand for it,” said Tony Simone, a state assemblyman and a Manhattan Democrat who drafted the proposal in New York.
Republican leaders seem certain to challenge the plan in court, setting up jurisdictional battles as liberal cities and states endeavor to protect immigrants from the president’s widening dragnet.
In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the effort to unmask federal agents who work for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has undermined their safety.
“The men and women of ICE put their lives on the line every day to arrest violent criminal illegal aliens to protect and defend the lives of American citizens,” Ms. McLaughlin said in an emailed statement. “Make no mistake, this type of rhetoric is contributing to the surge in assaults of ICE officers through their repeated vilification and demonization of ICE.”
During the past five years, masks have emerged as an unexpected cultural touchstone.
They were greeted with contempt in some quarters as the coronavirus pandemic wore on. The Trump administration has sought to force universities to ban masks at political demonstrations while defending their use by federal agents to prevent harassment from the public. But Democratic lawmakers have argued that agents’ masks present a public threat to residents who have no way to hold the officers accountable or to ensure they are not kidnappers masquerading as public officials.
On Wednesday, Mr. Simone, who represents a West Side district, gathered with city and state leaders on the steps of an immigration courthouse in Lower Manhattan to announce that he had drafted legislation banning law enforcement officers from wearing masks in many circumstances.
He was joined by fellow Democratic Assembly members, including Jo Anne Simon and Grace Lee. Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who was arrested last month by federal agents at the courthouse as he tried to escort a migrant whom agents were seeking to arrest, also lent their support.
The legislation would apply in public spaces across the state.
It makes exceptions for medical grade masks, or for N95 respirators designed to prevent the transmission of airborne diseases. It would also allow masks designed to protect against exposure to smoke from fires. Police officials could also wear masks to protect against biological or chemical agents and against exposure to cold during a weather emergency. SWAT teams would be allowed to use gear to protect their faces from physical harm.
Violating the law would be a misdemeanor offense.
Jessica Bulman-Pozen, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in constitutional law and federalism, said that states probably have the authority to enforce such a ban because state officials possess the absolute power to ensure the safety and welfare of their residents.
“People, obviously, could be putting on masks and impersonating law enforcement,” Ms. Bulman-Pozen said. “They could be engaging in actual criminal behavior, like kidnapping.”
Mr. Simone’s bill will probably not be considered until the Assembly convenes in January. But he said that state lawmakers planned to gather on Friday to discuss the major domestic policy bill that Mr. Trump signed into law last week. It allocates $45 billion for immigration detention centers and about $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel and for transportation costs and maintenance of ICE facilities. Mr. Simone said that the federal bill “gives Trump the ammunition he needed to further ramp up his secret police state,” and officials were trying to come up with ways to defend New York from those efforts.
Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, who has allied himself with Mr. Trump after the Department of Justice ended a federal corruption case against the mayor in April, has called for a citywide mask ban. It would target pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who often cover their faces for fear of being targeted by the police or pro-Israel activists. Mr. Adams’ re-election campaign has focused on antisemitism, and he had sought to punish people with jail time for not abiding by his proposed mask rule. On Wednesday, he dropped the proposed penalty under pressure from public officials, according to The Daily News.
Some demonstrators who have opted not to wear a mask — including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, who were protest leaders when they were students at Columbia University — have been arrested by ICE officials and are facing deportation proceedings. Federal officials have accused them of enabling the spread of antisemitism. Their lawyers have denied the accusations and protested their detention as unconstitutional retaliation for free speech. Both are permanent legal residents.
Ms. McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said that officers are also trying to protect themselves from doxxing and harassment.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Mr. Lander, the comptroller, said that federal agents, like local police officers, must show their faces to ensure that they take responsibility for their actions.
“When the enforcement agents mask themselves and don’t wear badges so you have no idea who they are, what agency they work for, what authority they operate under, then it becomes impossible to hold them accountable,” Mr. Lander said.
Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering immigration in New York City.
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