The images of masked federal agents sweeping through American streets have led to state and federal legislation, a protracted legal fight and accusations that the United States is descending into a police state.
They are also central to the debate on Capitol Hill as the government heads toward a partial government shutdown on Friday, with President Trump and his top advisers insisting that unmasking officers would leave them vulnerable to threats, harassment and doxxing.
“They want our law enforcement to be totally vulnerable and put them in a lot of danger,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday, referring to Democrats, who are blocking money to keep the Department of Homeland Security running unless the agents remove their face coverings, among other demands. “They have some things that are really very, very hard to approve, frankly.”
Democrats say the face coverings are a way of sidestepping basic accountability after masked officers killed two U.S. citizens during a crackdown in Minneapolis, including Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was pinned down by agents and shot.
Criminal justice experts say the use of masks in Minneapolis has been highly unusual. “I know of no major police department in the country where officers wear masks when they encounter everyday citizens,” said Chuck Wexler, the director of the Police Executive Research Forum.
It also runs counter to a battery of reforms law enforcement agencies have enacted over the past decade. Police forces have required their officers to wear body cameras and have tried to emphasize community policing.
“There are two competing interests. The public’s right to know who police officers are, and the ICE agents’ fear for their own safety and that of their families,” Mr. Wexler said.
He added: “American police have come a long way. They now wear their name on their shirt, badge number and body worn cameras. These tangible acts of identity have gone a long way of building community trust and accountability.”
Amid a backlash over aggressive tactics, the administration has begun shifting its approach to immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. On Thursday, Tom Homan, the White House border czar who was recently put in charge of the operation, announced that he was drawing down the numbers of ICE agents there.
But the debate over masks has led both sides to dig in.
Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told a Senate committee Thursday that he did not want his officers masked, but that the risks were too severe.
“I would work with this committee and any committee to work with holding individuals accountable that doxx ICE agents, because ICE agents don’t want to be masked,” he said. “They’re honorable men and women. But the threats against their family are real.”
Mr. Lyons said that ICE agents did not wear face coverings for the first two months of Mr. Trump’s second term. But he said that they began putting on masks last April, after threats against them increased as Mr. Trump pushed to increase deportations.
Mr. Lyons said he had faced threats, too.
“There was a videotape of my wife walking to work that people actively post,” he said.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Thursday that the masking of federal agents was “out of control.”
“We will not support an extension of the status quo, a status quo that permits masked secret police to barge into people’s homes without warrants, no guardrails and zero oversight from independent authorities, a rogue police force that doesn’t obey the rules that every local police force and sheriff’s office must obey,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor.
In the Oval Office last week, top Democratic lawmakers negotiated their proposed ICE reforms as part of an effort to avoid the shutdown. Among them were requiring body cameras, carrying out a strategy of targeted enforcement and banning agents from wearing masks.
That last demand caused Mr. Homan to speak up. He said he would not be able to accept it because he had to protect the officers, according to three people familiar with the conversation.
Mr. Trump echoed Mr. Homan’s language on Thursday. “We have to protect our law enforcement,” the president said.
Legislation prohibiting agents from wearing masks has been introduced in Congress and passed into law in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, signed legislation in September that made his state the first in the nation to prohibit law enforcement officers from covering their faces. It took effect on Jan. 1.
The Trump administration has argued in court that the law is unconstitutional, because states cannot regulate federal agencies. A federal judge in California has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the mask law.
While the issue is litigated in the courts, it is also being debated in the halls of Congress.
Democrats and the White House have traded proposals, but the two sides remain at odds.
Mr. Schumer said that Mr. Homan’s actions alone could not resolve the standoff. Democrats were demanding a legislative solution to reform ICE, he added, as a safeguard to make sure the Trump administration did not return to the tactics used in Minneapolis.
“We need legislation to rein in ICE and stop the violence,” he said. “Otherwise, this administration could go right back to what they were doing.”
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
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