Masks become symbol of ICE crackdown

Beyond the car windows being smashed, people tackled on city streets — or even a little child with a floppy bunny ears snowcap detained — the images of masked federal officers have become a tinderbox in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations.

- BY LISA MASCARO

FEDERAL agents make their way in Minneapolis on Thursday during immigration enforcement operations.

(RYAN MURPHY Associated Press)

Not in recent U.S. memory has an American policing operation so consistently masked its thousands of officers from the public, a development that the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to safeguard employees from online harassment. But experts warn masking serves another purpose, inciting fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between the police and its citizenry.

Whether to ban the masks — or allow the masking to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.

“Humans read each other’s faces — that’s how we communicate,” said Justin Smith, a former Colorado sheriff who is executive director and chief executive of the National Sheriffs’ Assn.

“When you have a number of federal agents involved in these operations, and they can’t be identified, you can’t see their face, it just tends to make people uncomfortable,” he said. “That’s bringing up some questions.”

'Masks off' demand

Masks on federal agents have been one constant throughout the first year of President Trump’s mass deportation operation.

What began as a jarring image in the spring, when plainclothes officers drawing up their masks surrounded and detained a Tufts University doctoral student near her Massachusetts home, has morphed into familiar scenes in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities. The shooting deaths of two American citizens at the hands of federal officers during demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Minneapolis sparked widespread public protest and spurred lawmakers to respond.