Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger expressed concern that nefarious actors are impersonating Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the city to “take advantage of this population.” 

On Tuesday, Barger revealed that her staffer’s godson was out driving when he was pulled over by two men in an unmarked car who told him he had a “nice truck for someone with that surname.” The pair drove away after bystanders began recording the interaction, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Recommended Stories

• Treasury Department sanctions five leaders of Mexican cartel
• Karen Read found not guilty of murdering her police officer boyfriend in retrial
• Overnight break-in reported at the home of Minnesota lawmaker killed

“I tell you this story because we don’t know if they were ICE agents or not,” Barger, a Republican, told her colleagues, suggesting that some of the masked men detaining residents across the area are not actually ICE officers.

Barger added that she “does believe there may be people out there impersonating ICE, taking advantage of this population.”

The Washington Examiner reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to find out whether the incident involved ICE impersonators.

In the wake of anti-ICE riots and protests in the city, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell noted some of the demonstrators comprised violent “anarchists” who are “all hooded up — they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on.”

The FBI announced last week that it had arrested a man it suspected of giving masks to protesters during the demonstrations. The UVEX Bionic Shields that the man is accused of distributing were similar to those worn by law enforcement.

In recent months, ICE has controversially used face masks to carry out operations targeting illegal immigrants to avoid being doxxed, which refers to often malicious online leaks that can include publicizing someone’s personal information, such as name, addresses, relatives, and phone numbers.

The Trump administration has argued officers need to conceal their identities to protect themselves and their families from blowback, such as anti-ICE rioters in Los Angeles who attacked federal law enforcement officers, due to “false narratives” spread by Democrats about ICE’s mission and activity.

Democrats have characterized identity concealment as resembling tactics used by authoritarian regimes.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) recently wrote a letter urging the DHS to require ICE officers to identify themselves and limit the use of face coverings during operations. 

“Across the country and in Virginia, masked ICE officers and agents without clearly visible identification as law enforcement have been arresting individuals on the streets and in sensitive locations, such as courthouses. Such actions put everyone at risk — the targeted individuals, the ICE officers and agents, and bystanders who may misunderstand what is happening and may attempt to intervene,” the senators said.

During a press briefing on June 3, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) vowed to publicly identify ICE officers who are “engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people.”

“This is America. This is not the Soviet Union. We’re not behind the Iron Curtain,” he continued. “And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will of course be identified.”

Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has likewise criticized ICE officers for concealing their identities, comparing them to the the neo-Nazi group “NSC-131 routinely wears masks.”

The Trump administration and Republicans have generally rebuffed accusations that mask-wearing is an authoritarian tactic, saying the measure is warranted due to a 413% increase in assaults against ICE officers attempting to make arrests.

“Mayor Wu comparing ICE agents to neo-Nazis is SICKENING,” DHS said. “When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected gang members, murders, and rapists. Attacks and demonization of our brave law enforcement are WRONG.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced legislation that would sentence people to up to five years in prison for publicly identifying ICE officers “with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration enforcement operation.”

Blackburn argued that releasing such information could put federal law enforcement at a higher risk of being targeted by criminal gangs composed of illegal immigrants operating in the United States, including the Salvadoran MS-13 and Venezuelan Tren De Aragua groups.

Her bill came in response to Democratic Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s move to list the names of some ICE officers on a city website.

Trump border czar Tom Homan recently argued that public officials such as O’Connell and Jeffries, who have negatively framed ICE’s mission, have led to more attacks on officers, necessitating enhanced security protocols for officers through measures such as masks.

“The men and women out there doing these dangerous jobs, their families are scared. They’re concerned about their safety and their families,” he said during an interview with Dr. Phil earlier this month. “It’s already a dangerous job. So as this rhetoric continues to increase, and attacks on ICE continue to increase, when they hear from some judges, members of Congress, then people in the public say, ‘OK, it’s OK. It’s OK to attack ICE. I got members of Congress talking about it, I got a judge saying something about it,’ so they feel supported in the continuing attacks on ICE.”

BONDI SAYS DOJ WILL INTENSIFY EFFORTS IN BOSTON AFTER WU SPAT

However, Scott Shuchart, who was a senior ICE official during the Biden administration, said the increase in law enforcement wearing masks could only “make things more dangerous by dehumanizing law enforcement personnel, creating a risk of misidentification of officers as civilians, and inhibiting accountability.”

“ICE in particular seems to have ginned up a mentality that interacting with the public is menacing to officers and that officers need anonymity to do their jobs,” he told the Boston Globe. “While that may be true for particular operations, in which case you’d still want a badge number and ICE identification clearly visible, everyone wearing masks routinely is only contributing to the besieged climate and raising tensions.”