President Donald Trump‘s mass deportation orders have sparked blowback against federal officers who are wearing face masks to carry out arrests to avoid being doxed.
In the midst of what may be the most contentious period in the history of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officers and agents assigned to make arrests on the streets in often unfriendly environments surrounded by upset community members are masking up, wearing hats, scarves, and other garments to cover their hair, eyes, mouths, and sometimes entire faces.
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For years, ICE personnel have worn plain clothes and covered parts of their faces when carrying out arrests in public areas where a picture being taken of their face could expose their identities. But under the Trump administration, ICE personnel and other federal law enforcement employees assisting with immigration duties have increasingly masked up to protect themselves and their loved ones from blowback.
But covering up has angered Democrats, who have called for their unmasking. Senior immigration officials at the Department of Homeland Security are “really concerned” about the blowback over the masks in particular and are in informal talks about how to proceed, according to one of three current and former senior immigration officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner.
“What is the future of this going to look like? It’s pretty weird,” said the first person, a senior DHS official. “It’s not going to get better.”
A second official who has spoken with top staff at ICE said “there’s legitimate concern” for the safety of personnel, but added that more must be done to protect police officers’ identities in a way that does not scare the community.
“When you see an officer or agent and their face is all covered, that’s narco terrorism. That’s a third-world law enforcement kind of thing. When you put a mask over your face and you fail to identify yourself, you’re kind of taking that away,” said the second source. “I think the officers have the right not to be doxed. People have the right to not be identified. Badge number, yes. Names, no.”
For the time being, those concerns will be put on pause as ICE faces protests and riots in Los Angeles, which began Saturday and led the White House to send in National Guard troops for support.
What began as demonstrators chanting for ICE to stop making arrests in the community escalated quickly on Saturday and into Sunday as rioters attacked federal property, as well as federal and local police.
The fiery weekend comes after Democrats spent last week drawing attention to ICE’s arrests of illegal immigrants, which have expanded to courthouses and illegal immigrants without criminal records, despite Trump’s intention to target criminals first. House Democrats who demanded colleagues mask up or else be fined during the COVID-19 pandemic are now joining together to tell police officers they must unmask.
The most powerful Democrat in the House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), said on Tuesday that ICE personnel who try to conceal “their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu lamented how ICE personnel wear face coverings and added that neo-Nazi group NSC-131 also wear masks, as if to conflate the two.
“People are terrified for their lives, and for their neighbors, folks getting snatched off the street by secret police, who are wearing masks … who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken,” Wu said last week.
More than 80 House Democrats sent DHS Secretary Kristi Noem a letter Thursday about “masked, plainclothes officers” detaining illegal immigrants near courthouses in select cities.
San Diego, California, Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera posted a photo on Instagram of what appears to be federal immigration personnel along with “TERRORISTS” written over the image and a description that exclaimed it was “state-sponsored terrorism.”
In late May, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) called ICE a “modern-day Gestapo,” equating federal police tasked with enforcing laws Congress passed to German police who sent Jews to their death at concentration camps in the 1940s.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons rebutted Democrats’ criticism in a Fox News interview Tuesday and said his staff have received “specific threats online.”
“What the men and women of ICE are doing in Massachusetts and all over this country is making communities safer,” Lyons said in another interview with Fox News on Friday.
The DHS said comparing federal police “to neo-Nazis is SICKENING,” adding that assaults on personnel at ICE have surged 413%, in a statement posted to X. The DHS did not answer a follow-up question about the timeframe of the increase in assaults.
Republican politicians and others rushed to the defense of ICE following each comparison or accusation.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Leah Foley, stated in a video message that federal agents in marked jackets and vests were “masking their faces because people like Mayor Wu have created false narratives about their mission.”
“We will not apologize for doing our job.” ????????
— U.S. Attorney Massachusetts (@DMAnews1) June 4, 2025
U.S. Attorney Leah Foley responds to recent statements made by @MayorWu about @ICEgov operations in Massachusetts. pic.twitter.com/GFGVg18LjF
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Wednesday sought to protect ICE personnel, regardless of what the agency decided to do with its face coverings.
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Blackburn introduced a bill to make it illegal to dox federal law enforcement after Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office released the names of officers involved in immigration enforcement operations in his region.
“My Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act would make this illegal and hold blue city mayors accountable for obstructing enforcement of our immigration laws by putting law enforcement officers in harm’s way,” Blackburn said in a statement.