‘They’re hiding something’: Democrats panic over masked ICE agents
Democrats presented a bill in the Massachusetts House on Wednesday to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from covering their faces during immigration raids and arrests. Democrats and Republicans are sparring over the issue with increased heat as leaders on the Left look to pass similar legislation on the federal level.
ICE agents have taken center stage as President Donald Trump’s administration increases its deportations of criminal illegal aliens in an effort to contain the damage from the Biden administration’s “open door” immigration policies. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted on X that ICE arrests of illegal immigrants had risen by 627% alone in the first month of Trump’s second term as president.
The Massachusetts bill, introduced by Democrat state Rep. James Hawkins and co-sponsored by 10 other state representatives, would require law enforcement officers to fully show their faces and wear their names or badge numbers on their uniforms.
The bill makes exceptions for medical masks or face protection in emergency situations, such as protection from smoke or tear gas. Violation of the bill would result in a misdemeanor.
The Massachusetts bill follows on the heels of similar efforts in New York, where legislators are planning to introduce the Mandating End to Lawless Tactics, or MELT, Act. According to CBS News, New York City elected officials unveiled the bill on Wednesday morning.
Legal experts have pointed out that state governments don’t have the power to pass laws like the MELT Act. Zach Smith, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told The Daily Signal, “States do not have the authority to regulate how federal law enforcement agents conduct their operations.”
Smith added, “Unfortunately, the reason many federal agents feel the need to wear masks in the first place is because the overheated rhetoric coming from many on the Left has led to these agents being threatened and harassed.”
Democrats have increasingly expressed alarm about the sight of masked ICE agents. A video posted on X by Fox News host Laura Ingraham showed New York Rep. Jerry Nadler saying, “These people are wearing masks, and they are totally unidentified. … It’s completely improper and one has to assume they’re hiding something or they’re hiding misbehavior because otherwise, why would they be wearing masks and denying their identities?”
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., during a May news conference outside a New York City courthouse, described ICE agents in masks as “Gestapo-like behavior,” and an immigration lawyer sported the idea in a viral X video that ICE agents cover their faces because “they’re ashamed of what they’re doing.”
But as ICE acting Director Todd Lyons explained in a June Fox News interview, ICE agents have reverted to masks to protect themselves and their families. Individuals opposed to deportation efforts have begun “doxxing” ICE agents online—posting names, addresses, and social media accounts of agents and their family members.
“There was the one agent out of the Boston field office … his photo was plastered all over the place. Compared him to some neo-Nazi group,” said Lyons. “They get specific threats online, and what the media and a lot of elected officials don’t realize is their rhetoric, what they are saying, is so dangerous and so hurtful to ICE agents.”
A June report from the Department of Homeland Security showed that ICE agents face a 500% increase in assaults while trying to arrest illegal immigrants. Noem told Fox News on Thursday that the violence is “getting worse.”
“They’re not just threatening them and doxxing them,” Noem said, “they’re ambushing them. They’re threatening their families. … It’s extremely dangerous, and the rhetoric has to stop.”
Democrat Sens. Alex Padilla of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey unveiled the federal Visible Identification Standards for Immigration-Based Law Enforcement, or VISIBLE, Act in Congress on Tuesday. The bill would require immigration officials to display “clearly visible identification,” according to a news release from Booker’s office.
Trump blasted Democrats’ targeting of ICE agents on Wednesday, saying, “They wouldn’t be saying that if they didn’t hate our country. … You put [ICE agents] in great danger, in tremendous danger.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]