Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wants to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement from wearing masks as they enforce federal immigration law in her city because she claims the practice needlessly spreads fear in immigrant communities. The only ones spreading fear are Bass and her Democratic colleagues as they amplify hoaxes and demonize law enforcement officers who are only trying to do their jobs as safely as possible.
Taking time off from her busy schedule of not approving rebuilding permits, Bass sat for two Sunday show interviews this weekend where she pressed the message that “masked men in unmarked cars” were driving around Los Angeles, kidnapping people and frightening both legal and illegal immigrants.
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“It’s difficult to get your car washed in Los Angeles now because most of the car washes, the employees won’t come to work out of fear that a raid will take place,” Bass told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. Apparently, Democrats in California are incapable of washing their own cars.
ICE does not officially encourage agents to wear masks while in public, but acting ICE Director Todd Lyons says the practice is allowed if agents feel “that’s a tool they need to keep them and their families safe.”
The key here is families. Bass dismissed any anxiety ICE agents may have of being hurt on the job, dismissively telling Brennan, “I have a hard time believing that the women selling pineapples on the corner are going to attack an ICE agent.” No, the corner pineapple seller most likely will not attack an armed ICE agent. But an activist who watches a video of the ICE agent arresting a fruit vendor may track down the officer’s identity and post their home address online. Considering that a dozen armed anarchists recently tried to kill ICE agents in Texas, and that activists in Portland have been posting ICE agents’ addresses in officers’ neighborhoods, the ICE agents’ desire for anonymity becomes understandable.
Some Democrats in New York and California are even considering legislation making it illegal for law enforcement to cover their faces while on the job. Fortunately, thanks to the Constitution’s supremacy clause, such laws would be unenforceable against federal agents. State laws cannot be used to prosecute federal law enforcement acting within the legal scope of their jobs.
If Bass is so interested in calming the fears of immigrant communities, she could start by not spreading illegal immigrant hoaxes. Earlier this month, Bass promoted claims made by Yuriana Julia Pelaez Calderon, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, whose family claimed masked federal agents abducted her in a Jack in the Box parking lot. ICE had no record of detaining Calderon, however, and after she was still reportedly missing days later, Homeland Security Investigations began searching for her.
Instead of finding any evidence of kidnapping, though, HSI found video surveillance of Calderon calmly stepping into a sedan at the Jack in the Box in question. Calderon had concocted a completely fake story about being driven to San Ysidro, where she was allegedly asked to sign paperwork agreeing to her self-deportation. Calderon’s daughter had set up a GoFundMe page for the family to capitalize on the resulting publicity, publicity that Bass was all too willing to give without any questions.
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HSI found Calderon days later, however, and she is now being charged with conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers. After the Department of Justice is done with her, ICE will assuredly have the honor of escorting her back to Mexico.
Former President Joe Biden allowed almost 6 million illegal immigrants to enter our country in just four years. The job of finding and deporting them all is going to be emotional and often contentious. We are a nation of laws, however, and federal agents should be allowed to do their job without elected leaders like Bass calling them “outrageous and un-American.” It is that kind of rhetoric that puts ICE agents in danger and makes donning a mask a necessary precaution to protect their families.